Smokey Mountain News
10-19-05 |
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Shook House Restoration revives history
By Michael Beadle
Step inside the Shook-Smathers House in Clyde and you’ll soon become aware
of the ghosts. Not the spooky kind, but keen memories of a 200-year-old past
now restored to its rustic beauty for guests to explore.
There are thinly visible words in cursive on a second-floor wall, old family
portraits that seem to whisper stories, and quiet rooms that echo the
footsteps of generations gone by.
The pioneer frame house, built by Jacob Shook around 1795, is now open for
free tours and catered events after a quarter-million-dollar renovation by
Mathews Architecture of Asheville. The restoration preserves what is
believed to be one of the oldest buildings in North Carolina west of
Asheville and the oldest continuously standing house in Haywood County.
Joseph S. Hall, a retired professor from Washington, D.C., and a descendant
of Jacob Shook, bought the house in 2003 after it had been vacant for some
20 years.
“I had known the house all my life,” Hall said, having visited the house as
a child and met with its previous owner, Mary Smathers Morgan.
After visiting the home in October 2002 and learning of its tragic state of
disrepair, Hall immediately began negotiating with Morgan’s daughter, Ruth
Morgan Jones, who owned the property. After going through some legalities to
ensure the house would be protected, Hall was able to start the renovations
that would preserve it. That included shoring up the right side of the house
by about eight inches.
Inside, the house looked like someone living there had mysteriously
vanished. Clothing was still hung up. There was a purse on the nightstand.
The kitchen table was set for three.
“It was quite eerie,” Hall said.
The three-story house with two wrap-around porches includes finely crafted
rooms, three Georgian-style doors, wide-planked walls, and antique furniture
and display cases that honor the history of the two family names — Shook and
Smathers — that owned the house for more than two centuries.
Many of the rooms are sparsely decorated with few furniture pieces in order
to emphasize the house’s architecture. There are display cases with old
family photos and business records. Docents will also point out the handmade
nails in the wood, the foot-wide floor planks, and original
9-to-10-inch-wide wall boards that are preserved under plexiglass. Hall took
pains to make sure every square inch of the house got a thorough
examination.
“It’s wonderful how he’s been able to peel back those layers of
architecture,” said Sara Queen Brown, one of the docents for the
Shook-Smathers House.
Walking through the house, visitors can’t help but become history
detectives, curiously in search of clues from the past left on walls or
floors, a window, even the ceiling. The ghostly pattern of a former
staircase climbs the wall. Old floor and wall boards protected by plexiglass
reveal a fine craftsmanship that has endured generations.
While the home is now open for private tours by appointment, public tours
can’t begin until a visitors’ center with public bathrooms is built next to
the house (preserving the interior didn’t allow for public and handicapped
bathrooms inside). The stairway up to the second floor and a ramp leading up
to the first floor porch are both handicap accessible.
The Shook-Smathers House is actually two houses in one. The first house was
basically a pioneer box house built by Shook, and after it passed on to Levi
Smathers in 1850, renovations were added. Think of an original box that has
pieces added on to it. Thus, the outer rooms and wrap-around porches were
added on with the Smathers renovations.
One of the treasures of the house is the third floor attic, which served as
a small chapel where singing lessons and church services were held. Bishop
Francis Asbury, a traveling Methodist preacher and leading figure in
spreading Methodism in America, once stayed at the Shook home in November of
1810. More than likely, he would have preached in this room. Jacob Shook
also invited Rueben Philips, an acclaimed school teacher and musician, to
teach music and singing lessons in that attic room. In the absence of
churches in the area, the chapel played a major role in promoting the early
spread of Methodism in the area.
After Jacob Shook’s death, the house passed on to a William Welch in 1840
for a sum of $1,200, but there’s no record he actually lived in the house,
according to Joseph S. Hall, the house’s current owner. In 1850, the house
was sold to Levi Smathers (thus beginning the Smathers legacy of the
Shook-Smathers House). Smathers built on some renovations, adding the
two-story wrap-around porch and the chimney on the west gable side. The
house passed on to D.I.L. Smathers and his daughter Mary Smathers Morgan,
who was the last person to live in the house.
Entering the first-floor dining room — the most ornate in the house — guests
will notice finely crafted wood beams on the ceiling and a plate rail along
the wall that displayed dishes and seasonal decorations. Mary Smathers
Morgan was known as a wonderful hostess and would entertain guests in this
room.
The current kitchen room, which was built in the 1890s, is the only fully
modernized room in the house. Its amenities accommodate catering events.
There’s a pantry, refrigerator, dishwasher, and spacious kitchen island —
all the amenities for hosting wedding receptions, business meetings and
other catered events.
All this renovation might have washed away when the torrential rains of
hurricanes Frances and Ivan came last fall. Flooding waters of the Pigeon
River just a few blocks away threatened to invade the house.
“It did not get up to it, which was fortunate,” said Sharon Shook, a
descendant of Jacob Shook and docent of the historic home.
Now that the House has been restored and preserved for future generations,
there’s a tangible legacy of one of the very first settlers in Haywood
County, a living link to the past ready to be shared. |
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