Eight years ago, my partner, John, and I moved from Brooklyn to High Point, North Carolina.
By choice.
“You’re moving where?” clucked a well-known New York City society fixture friend, apparently associating North Carolina with the outer rings of Pluto.
John and I sold our Brooklyn brownstone to a bigwig at Vogue magazine and packed up several truckloads of furniture. With our four pound-rescue pups in tow, we headed south.
After 25-plus years in New York City—from high-flying days in Manhattan’s West Village to early adoption of an up-and-coming Brooklyn neighborhood that soon popped—John and I were ready for something new. We were magazine editors in our 20s and early 30s, but as our 40-something venture of interior design work-cum-product development took flight, we felt cramped. We craved slower, calmer, more gracious; a yard, and no more rush-hour subway commutes. And room for a fabric-cutting table!
John and I had been coming to High Point for 15 years to attend Market, and we had always found the city curiously appealing.
And then we found her, the House of Bedlam, a 1930s-era white-brick Regency-style home with two acres of overgrown gardens and woodlands, and a river running smack through the center.
“More of a large stream,” suggested John, skipping a flat stone across the rippling waters.
Fast forward: The price for the forlorn pile of brick was right. At that time, High Point real estate languished in the doldrums, so we snagged the property that had been sitting on the market for five years for less than what you’d pay for a studio apartment in Flushing, Queens.
Score.
And then the interior renovations began. The goal was to return the home to its heyday glamour with a forward-thinking sensibility.
Transforming the Interior into the House of Bedlam
Soon, the drop ceilings bit the dust, as did the Brady Bunch-like fluorescent lighting in the kitchen, the almond-hued range and oven, and the 90s-era bathroom fittings. We ripped out a few closets to open the foyer and the master bedroom. Dumpsters came, and dumpsters went. Donations went to Habitat, and our dog sitter snapped up the kitchen cabinetry.
Custom Gracie wallpaper went up, as did Farrow & Ball paints. Vintage furnishings marched in with sounds of Bryan Ferry ever crooning in the background.
The interior overhaul of the House of Bedlam was perfection, and John and I began entertaining often and living large. But there was something missing: We are both passionate gardeners but had yet to tackle the home’s overgrown gardens—especially what we called the Great Woodlands across the stream (which we later rebranded as the Sacred Stream to give it some pizzazz).
There was a pernicious chinaberry vine that had taken over like kudzu with its leathery, yards-long roots running amok.
Dead trees.
Other scraggly trees that had been let to grow hither and yon.
John and I sought out professional quotes to tackle the project, but unless we had a spare $40k floating around, hiring a professional landscaper was out of the question.
And then the pandemic hit.
The social calendar cranked to a halt. As did our extensive travel schedule. Our weekends were now free. Very free.
“Let’s buy a chainsaw,” I said to John, envisioning six weekends—at most!—worth of work in the Great Woodlands and lots of margaritas under the remaining bosky brilliance come summer.
Transforming the Exterior into a Wonderland
With a Stihl chainsaw in hand and a trucker hat upon my head, I began the Excellent Outdoor Adventure. One. Two. Twelve. Twenty-six trees. Scraggly trees that were half dead or cattywampus. We wanted to celebrate the trees that should be there—the sycamores, beech, and oaks—and remove those that shouldn’t. John helped in a big way, but I became the chainsaw guru while he mastered the skill of heavy-duty raking.
Soon, the Great Woodland began divulging its undulating underpinnings—and its potential. Plus, the occasional baby copperhead.
Chinaberry was yanked and pulled and then yanked and pulled and cursed at some more.
More trees came down.
Piles formed, and towering stacks of logs and debris departed in large trucks. I stocked up on curious oil-gas mixtures and sharpened blades in my spare time, and John and I perused endless books on garden luminaries such as Capability Brown, Rosemary Verey, Gertrude Jekyll, and Vita Sackville-West.
A bulletin board in the House of Bedlam basement became the nerve center for images of gardens and follies that inspired us. Trellis here. Boxwoods there. Gravel. Reflecting ponds. An Indian tent with colorful pennants flying in the breeze. A meadow. We sketched paths and discussed clean fill and irrigation over glasses of wine.
And the trees kept coming down. We raked. We bought another chainsaw. John yanked and pulled at those irksome vines and their endless roots sent from the deepest fathoms of hell. We raked some more.
Six weeks, twelve weeks, 36 weeks, then 80 weeks passed by. Our four-pound rescue pups looked at us with baleful eyes seeming to question whether their promised scamper-cum-croquet lawn would ever materialize.
And now, more than two years have passed. It’s night and day in the Great Woodlands, but there’s still so much more to do.
John and I have completed everything we can, and it’s time to bring in some heavy equipment and further manpower for stump removal and grading. There’s a pesky tree root ball that still needs to be wrenched out. And some giant rocks must be moved.
And then John and I can get to planting. The vision is all there, mapped out on the bulletin board.
Think a rampant wildflower meadow spilling down to the now deliciously visible Sacred Stream with a Chinoiserie-inspired fretwork bridge spanning the banks and an Indian-style tent for cocktails al fresco.
Soon. Soon.
When you have more style than money, your dreams take a tad longer to become reality. But that makes the journey all the more worth it.
