Hanes-Chatham House, Stratford Road, Winston Salem, North Carolina

What happens when the Hanes Hosiery heiress marries the Chatham Blanket boy?  

They build a ten thousand square feet mansion where they can cuddle up together happily ever after. 

You can just bet their home was wonderfully cozy with lots of color and beautiful textiles.

{source}

Today it still looks like it must have when it was built in 1925... mostly. 

But it did have a hint of that old Hanes-Chatham glamor not that long ago:

{source}

Designer Mary Hannon Reid bought it in 2021. She not only brought back the colorful textiles, but gave us wonderful inspiration for what the house could be again.

Right now the rooms are more neutral to attract a new buyer:

Despite this black and white photo below, I'm sure it was more colorful back in the Chathams' day.

{Thurmond Chatham and son Hugh, 1942}

When Mary Hannon Reid owned it, she may have originally decorated that living room like this...

but quickly introduced more color and pattern for a Southern Lady Magazine feature:

She also brought some of that fresh pink into the dining room, so although it currently looks like this:

We know it can be beautifully styled like this:

Here is how the den looks currently. It apparently has prohibition-era secret closets.

Here's how it looked after Mary injected some color. I'm glad the ceiling wasn't repainted. 

The kitchen layout is a little confusing. The main kitchen is in the former butler's pantry. This angle shows how Mary refreshed it while keeping the original cabinet hardware.

It was definitely magazine worthy:

The range and pantry are in a separate area that used to be the breakfast alcove:

I'm a little surprised by the range's gold backsplash. If it were mine, I'd tie it into Mary's blue and white design in a more traditional way, like this:

{Gardner Fox}

Similarly, the sun porch appears to be divided into two distinct spaces:

Mary had decorated a similar space like this:

The second porch space is even larger:

If it were mine, I'd pretty it up like this:

{Lizzie Cox}

Upstairs are six bedrooms. The house has 10,128 square feet and seven bathrooms.

The basement has plenty of room for a home gym beside those nifty old (still in use?) boiler or hot water tanks.

The rest of the property offers plenty of space for entertaining and gardening:

The garden was originally designed by landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman.

She also created the garden next door, at the Robert M. Hanes house:

Robert Hanes was Lucy Hanes Chatham's brother, and other members of the Hanes family settled along Stratford Road as well.

As you might expect, both houses are on the National Register of Historic Places, here. They were designed by architect Charles Barton Keen.  (That's how I found the Hanes-Chatham house in the first place. I was looking at another house Keen had designed and thought this one sounded more interesting. Luckily for me, it was for sale!)

In addition to linking two North Carolina textile businesses with their marriage, Thurmond and Lucy Hanes Chatham were prominent in their community. Thurmond served in Congress from 1949 to 1956. Lucy was the inspiration for a club created in 1929, designed to "promote a more friendly feeling among the girls of Chatham Manufacturing Company."

{source}

Now hopefully a new owner will be inspired to promote some of their 1920's glamor, color and textiles in their newlywed mansion once again. The listing is here.

{Hopefully it be a bit more glamorous than this.)

Our thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by the catastrophic hurricanes in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia. 💗