Waters was schooled to answer the phone appropriately, depending upon the need. (Few friends came for play dates.) Funeral homes often operated local ambulance services, pressing both hearses and morticians into double duty. Waters grew up above a mortuary in a grand antebellum home. As Kim Waters, daughter of a mortician explains, it was practical. This was not an uncommon practice for morticians. Davis Funeral Home two years later.Īs a funeral home, the mansion housed both the living and the dead, with Davis’s private residence inside the mortuary. Davis received a funeral service license in 1948. When the YMCA relocated in 1961, the house, acquired by mortician Harold C. For many years, the grande dame served as the Y headquarters - a peculiarly challenging fit for an organization whose mission is centered on youth. According to Parrish, it was rented by an Adams-Millis employee, but the Adams heirs donated it to the High Point YMCA. Meanwhile, back in High Point, the mansion at 1108 North Main entered a curious chapter. “Adamsleigh is four to five times bigger,” says Parrish, adding that the family remained at the estate until Hampton’s death in 1939. Its private and expansive grounds included a pond, gardens and a caretaker’s cottage. In 1931, the Adamses moved to a new Tudor home called Adamsleigh in Greensboro’s Sedgefield neighborhood.Īdamsleigh was considered the Gate City’s grandest home. It also featured a secret door and vault for stashing silver and valuables, bearing the Adams name on the vault door.Īdams remained there for 13 years along with his wife, Elizabeth, and daughters Elizabeth and Nell. The residence included servants’ quarters, numerous bathrooms and a two-bay garage. There were other special touches, including a library, music room and light-bathed sunroom, as well as a spacious kitchen and other comforts of the day. Inside there was plenty of eye candy: a grand staircase, an impressive entry hall, and all the marble and interior finishes and flourishes of the era: soaring ceilings, high-sheen floors and ornate fireplaces. The Italian Renaissance Revival home “Hamp” Adams built was a standout that eventually became a landmark.ĭesigned by architect Charles Hartmann, (who also designed Greensboro’s Jefferson Standard Building) the home featured a pastel stuccoed exterior and distinctive tiled roof. The local newspaper once carried an account of how a “human spider” scaled the bank, thrilling onlookers. Blocks away from the Adams address was a new five-story Bank of Commerce building - considered a skyscraper at the time. They created Adams Millis Corporation, among the largest hosiery manufacturers. Adams had relocated to High Point from South Carolina in partnership with James Henry Millis. The properties offer an elegant glimpse into High Point’s past, even a few ghosts of Christmases past.Ī century ago, the city was a furniture mecca, drawing manufacturers. How could he have foreseen that its rooms would one day entertain hundreds of guests - and occasional spectral visitors who go bump in the night?Įlizabeth House, adjacent to the inn, is home to Mena Parrish. Its namesake, John Hampton Adams, a pioneer in High Point’s textile industry, couldn’t have guessed its fate when it was completed in 1918. Now the Adams Inn enjoys a vital fourth act. Set in a desirable district with commercial creep, the former home of one of the state’s hosiery titans no doubt caught the eye of developers ready to jump in with bags of cash for just such a property.īut not this one. and delights visitors far more than its naughty ghosts scare them. Decked out in all manner of beautiful bits and bobs, the inn sparkles, twinkles and dazzles. Visits with Santa (even Scrooge) and open carriage rides make for a scene only Norman Rockwell could imagine. The gloriously appointed mansion shines during the holidays. Mena Parrish, the longtime resident manager, says paranormal investigators videotaped a vortex in the attic space where spirits of children reportedly frolic.īut more important than a few harmless ghosts, the inn’s real story is a love letter to preservationists. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Adams Inn is a place so spooky that real live ghostbusters once paid a visit and filmed the spectral activity in the attic. Part Christmas story, part ghost story, this tale centers on a magnificent High Point home that is nearly a century old.
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