This Large Home in NC has been Converted into an Inn

John H. Adams House, High Point North Carolina

Date added: August 05, 2024

South (side) and east (rear) elevations (2000)

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As a successful city in the first decade of the twentieth century, High Point constructed an electric streetcar system. Track was first laid in 1905, but it was not until 1910 that enough tracks were laid to place the first cars in operation. The city's pattern of growth was strongly influenced by the location of the new system's tracks, and subsequent residential development was concentrated on the north side of town. Developments of "streetcar suburbs" were spurred by the streetcar system almost immediately. The earliest of these was Johnson Place, developed in 1907 even before the first streetcar ran. The development got its name from the Johnson family farm, bought with other smaller parcels by the Home Investment and Improvement Company founded by R. Homer Wheeler and his partners, L.R. Johnson and L.E. Johnson, who conveniently owned the Johnson property. A plat of approximately eighty acres was subdivided into twelve rectangular blocks and included such present-day streets as North Main, Johnson, Hamilton, Blain, Parkway, Farris (then known as Greensboro Avenue), and Guilford. The most desirable parts of the Johnson Place subdivision were the parcels lying along North Main Street. Accordingly, those lots were the largest, generally measuring sixty feet wide and 170 feet deep. As expected, the Main Street lots were soon sold to some of the city's leading industrialists and businessmen who built a collection of impressive dwellings by the early 1920s. Deed restrictions required more expensive houses to be built on North Main Street than on the side streets.

On the 1907 plat map of Johnson Place, Greensboro Avenue was made wider than the rest because the developers hoped an inter-city streetcar line to Greensboro would be built there. On the plat, the street curved to the south where it met North Main Street, making the corner lot smaller.

In April 1910, Home Investment and Improvement Company sold the important Main Street lot at the corner of Greensboro Avenue (today's Farris Street) to D. H. Hall and his wife. The 1907 plat showing the wider, curving street was not followed and the side street was built without the curve. As a result, this lot was ten feet wider than even the generally large lots on North Main, measuring seventy feet by 170 feet. The Home Investment and Improvement Company later sold the adjoining lot to Miss Pattie Newlin. Neither Hall nor Newlin built on their lots, but five years later, in August 1915, Hall sold his large lot to John H. Adams for $1,800, and Newlin sold to Adams the northern two-thirds of hers, an area forty feet by 170 feet, for $1,200. Adams thereby created a combined lot size of 110 feet wide by 170 feet deep on which to build a house suitable to his stature in the community.

Before moving to North Main Street, John Adams and his wife Elizabeth lived at 400 English Street at the corner of Pine Street in a large, shingled, Queen Anne style house with wrap-around porch, multiple gables and a turret. The house was later demolished. On the next block at number 315 English were his Piedmont Mills Company and High Point Hosiery Mills; at number 316 were the Consolidated Mills Company and the High Point Overall Company, and at 319 was the Highland Cotton Mills. Adams was at this time the president of the High Point Hosiery Mills, president of Highland Cotton Mills, president of Piedmont Mills, president of Consolidated Mills, and vice president of the Bank of Commerce. Apparently, he and his wife decided to build a more stylish house in the new Johnson Place development.

By 1917, only one house had been built on the 1100 block of North Main. The Adams House was the second. The 1917 Sanborn Map shows Adams' house with the notation, "From Plans," indicating construction was or was soon to be underway. The house was to be two-story, stucco on tile, with an attached two-story auto garage at the back and open tile terraces wrapping around the front to meet the one-story wings at each side.

The Adams' and their two daughters lived in the house from 1918 to 1931 when they moved to an even larger house, perhaps one of the largest estate houses in North Carolina, in nearby Sedgefield. The house, known as Adamsleigh, is a massive Tudor Revival mansion with many outbuildings, pool, tennis court, stable, pond and elegantly landscaped gardens. It was designed by Luther S. Lashmit of the Winston-Salem firm of Northup and O'Brien and completed in 1931. John Adams and his family moved there in 1931, but John. Adams lived there only slightly over three years before his unexpected death in January, 1935. Adamsleigh remains in ownership of John Adams' elderly son-in-law.

When Adams left the Main Street house in 1931, he did not sell it, but instead rented it to his friend and employee H. P. Hardin who ran Triangle Hosiery Company, one of the mills owned by John Adams that made men's and children's hosiery. In 1939, after satisfying the legal requirements of a trust, Adams' two daughters and their husbands donated the property to the YWCA of High Point upon the condition " … that said property shall be maintained and used by the [YWCA] as a home or club for young women for a period of at least ten (10) years … "

The daughters donated the house rather than keeping it in the family because it had been John and Elizabeth Adams's wish that their daughter Elizabeth Watkins would move into the big Tudor house at Sedgefield. The other daughter, Nell Ayers, and her husband had their own large house in Sedgefield so neither sister had need for the Main Street house.

The YWCA of High Point had been founded in 1921 and had outgrown its quarters in what was called "The Hut" on Greene Road downtown. The YWCA moved into the Adams House and remained for twenty-two years. The Y made no significant changes to the building and used the rooms as they found them. The Adams' former music room became a small club and dining room, and the Y became known for its full meal service prepared in the Adams' kitchen and pantry. The paneled dining room beyond was used regularly by the Agenda Club. Club meetings and other larger meetings were held in the grand hall with folding chairs providing seating, and on Friday nights the whole first floor was used for teenage dances. The sunroom to the south was the office of Dorothy Gueth, the YWCA's executive staff person for many years, with the main clerical office behind it next to the library. Upstairs were YWCA staff offices and space for affiliated organizations, including the Junior League office and meeting space, and meeting space for the Y-Teens Club.

In 1948 the YWCA acquired the adjoining sixty-foot-wide property, creating the current 170-foot by 170-foot lot. By 1961 the Y had outgrown the Adams House and conveyed their large property to funeral home operator Harold C. Davis in exchange for property he owned on Gatewood Street, where they built a new headquarters. The Y moved John Adams' large vault from the secret closet with them to the new facility.

Harold Davis took over the Adams House and made significant changes to the property to convert it to his Davis Funeral Home. He demolished a two-story red brick house that had been built in the YWCA's lot between the Adams House and Siceloff House, and took down several large trees to create a parking lot for his funeral home. He also built a large two-story stuccoed cinder-block addition at the rear of the Adams House and installed a pipe-and-canvas canopy extending from the front porch over the front walkway. Changes to the interior of the house were minor, however, partly because the Davis family used the house as their residence; remarkably few changes were made with the exception of paint colors and wall finishes. After the Davis Funeral Home closed, the Adams House sat vacant for several years; it is currently under renovation.

High Point had its beginning in the 1850s when the main line of the North Carolina Railroad crossed the recently completed Fayetteville and Western Plank Road. The railroad and the wagon road crossed at the highest point on the rail line and the resulting crossroads village thus acquired its name. By 1856, the new railroad connected Charlotte with Raleigh and the Plank Road linked Winston-Salem with the port at Wilmington. The crossroads trading community grew, the Plank Road became Main Street, and in 1888 the town's first furniture manufactory was organized. The town's industrial development was helped by the completion of the High Point, Randleman, Asheboro and Southern Railroad in about 1889; it began in the center of town and ran south to a logging area, providing easy access to good quality timber for use in the factories. Two more furniture manufactories followed in 1893. A few years later in 1895, Southern Railway took control of High Point's railroads, making the small industrial city a part of the vital rail link through the industrial heart of the Southeast.

High Point's industrial growth was rapid. In the fifteen years from 1895 to 1910, more than three dozen new furniture plants were established in High Point. Equally important was the profusion of related industries that followed: new companies sprang up to produce sawmill machinery, steam engines, bed springs, and even mirrors to supply the furniture factories. But of equal consequence to the future of the city was the launching of the hosiery industry through a somewhat coincidental start. In about 1900, fifty-one-year-old businessman James Henry Millis with a new young employee began a business to manufacture and sell pants and overalls, the High Point Overall Company. A small hosiery company in nearby Randleman asked if High Point's overalls salesman would also sell its socks. This seemingly minor arrangement proved to be significant when Millis's new employee, John Adams, observed that the Randleman socks outsold their own overalls. As a result, Adams persuaded Millis to get out of the overall business and in 1904 the two joined with eleven other investors to organize the High Point Hosiery Mill, generally recognized as the first successful hosiery mill venture in High Point. Adams was a prime mover in organizing this complex of plants and served as its secretary and treasurer. There were only a half-dozen hosiery plants in all of North Carolina at the time.

John Adams

John Hampton Adams was born in 1875 on a plantation near Adamsville in Marlboro County, South Carolina. He was the only son of ten children of a prosperous planter. He first came to Guilford County as a boy to attend the Oak Ridge Institute, then returned to South Carolina to work as a bookkeeper. In 1900 when he was twenty-five, Adams settled in High Point and became associated with James Henry Millis (1849-1913), prominent industrialist and businessman, first apprenticing as Millis's bookkeeper and soon joining Millis in organizing and managing the overalls manufactory. An article in a 1930s newspaper stated that Adams, after persuading Millis to enter into the hosiery venture, " … drove his horse and buggy to Randleman and convinced C.C. Robbins, who already ran a hosiery mill there, to come to High Point to operate the new mill. [Robbins] agreed to take on the job and within a year the High Point Hosiery Mill was producing 200 pairs of black stockings daily." The business grew rapidly as did the factory." It was noted in a 1910 booklet on High Point that the managers " … don't let a year pass without making some improvement and increasing the plant."

In 1906, soon after forming the High Point Hosiery Mill, John Adams married Elizabeth Barnes of Bennettsville, South Carolina. Adams was described in a local publication as High Point's leading citizen, and " … one of those men who brings things to pass. Of quiet temperament, he is characterized by indomitable energy and perseverance with all and has business of the finest kind … "

The success of the High Point Hosiery Mill led the Adams and Millis interests to organize other manufacturing concerns, including the Piedmont Hosiery Mills in about 1912, at the time the largest mill in the city, as well as the Highland Cotton Mills and Cloverdale Dye Works, which produced yarns to supply the hosiery trade. Adams and Millis also developed the Kernersville Knitting Company, the Pioneer Hosiery Company, and the Consolidated Mills Company. The development of hosiery manufacturing took off with several new mills established in High Point. Soon the hosiery industry became one of the state's most important and High Point became preeminent among industrial cities in the South. James Henry Millis died in 1913, not ten years after forming the High Point Hosiery Mill with John Adams. Adams then became the president and manager of the industrial empire that specialized in lower-priced seamless hosiery and at one time was the world's leading producer.

In 1927 one of the most important developments in High Point's hosiery industry came when a number of hosiery plants and related enterprises were consolidated to form the Adams-Millis Corporation with Adams as its first president. The earlier Adams and Millis industries had specialized in seamless hosiery (not shaped), but the new Adams-Millis opened a "ladies full-fashioned" hosiery mill (shaped silks) and thereafter produced both lower-priced and higher priced hosiery. High Point became the leading producers of both. Adams-Millis became one of the largest hosiery manufacturing businesses in the nation. In 1928 the new corporation went public with its stock carried on the New York Stock Exchange. Adams-Millis, with John Adams as its president, continued to develop new hosiery companies and became the largest manufacturer of hosiery in the world. Adams remained president until his death in 1935, when James Henry Millis's son Edward Millis became president of Adams-Millis Corporation.

The creation of the High Point Hosiery Mill in 1904 had introduced a second major industry to High Point. The success of the furniture and hosiery industries caused High Point within two decades to become one of the fastest-growing communities in North Carolina. As example, in 1900 the population was just over 4,000, jumping 128 percent in the next ten years; by 1920 the population had passed 14,000, and by 1930 it had leaped beyond 36,000. The furniture and hosiery mills had transformed the small trading community into a flourishing small city. In the 1970s High Point produced a greater amount of seamless hosiery than any other community in the United States.

Within the context of the textile industry in High Point in the early twentieth century, John Adams made specific contributions. He gave financial backing to numerous hosiery enterprises other than his own and is generally credited with being central to the exceptional success of High Point's hosiery industry and to the city's position as a leading industrial city of the Southeast. For example, he is credited with initiating the development of the city's first hosiery mill, with hiring one of the region's few experienced hosiery managers, with continually expanding and modernizing his plants, with developing additional hosiery mills as well as other related enterprises, and with creating with others the huge Adams-Millis Corporation. In 1989 when Adams-Millis was sold to Sara Lee Corporation, the company had grown to include eight additional companies and had 3,600 employees in ten cities.

As a leading citizen of High Point, John Adams held many positions of responsibility, both business and civic. He was dedicated to the hosiery industry and took an interest in programs for his employees, earning admiration for his personal concern. In addition to the creation of Adams-Millis Corporation, John Adams was president of the Highland Cotton Mill and Cloverdale Dye Works, Chairman of the Board of Triangle Hosiery Mills, a director of Wachovia Bank & Trust, a trustee of Oak Ridge Institute, a trustee and steward of Wesley Memorial Methodist Church, a charter member of the Commercial Club in 1915, one of several purchasers of the local newspaper in 1920, a founder of the High Point Country Club in 1922, and a Mason. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in High Point.

Building Description

The John H. Adams House at 1108 North Main Street is among High Point's most prominent dwellings, located on what was once a prestigious residential street. Built in 1918, the house faces west and occupies a large square corner lot measuring 170 feet on each side. At the sidewalk, two square stuccoed posts with decorative brackets and cornice mark the entrance up steps to a concrete walk leading to the house, which is set back about fifty feet. To the right (south) of the house is a paved parking lot which extends behind the building. A fifteen-foot alley behind connects the two side streets, Farris and Parkway avenues.

The house is a combination of styles popular at the time of its construction. It was designed primarily in the Italian Renaissance Revival style but with elements of the Mission and Prairie School styles shown in its heavy square piers and its rough stucco surface. The house has the terra-cotta tile roof common to the Mission style, but with widely overhanging boxed eaves and cornice-line brackets. The design even shows the influence of the Beaux Arts style in the paired columns and the elaborated shields ornamenting the piers. Overall, the house has a strong Mediterranean flavor.

Measuring roughly eighty-five feet wide, the Adams House is a two-story stuccoed structure, five bays wide with a symmetrical facade. The low pitched, deck-hipped roof has broadly overhanging eaves with large decorative brackets beneath. An interior stuccoed chimney projects from the south side of the roof. The emphasis of the facade is on the central entrance bays, which project to create a three-part massing of the front facade that is repeated in the raised tile terraces in front of the house. The front door with transom has a heavily ornamented surround and is flanked by narrow fixed-sash windows admitting light into the small vestibule within. A large one-bay entrance porch is formed by square stuccoed piers at the corners and paired fluted Ionic columns at the entrance, all supporting a classical entablature with heavy brackets and parapeted roof. At each side of the house is a one-story wing. On the north side facing Farris Avenue the wing is open and columned, whereas the south wing is an enclosed sunroom. Both have the parapeted roof of the front porch. On the second-floor level of the center projection is a three-bay recessed upper porch or loggia with semi-circular arches. Beneath the cornice brackets in the central section are elaborate oval windows and molding. Windows and their surrounds are set into the stuccoed walls; most are large one-over-one, although impressive three-part windows are found in the large bays on each side of the house and near the front door. Second-floor windows on the front outer bays have small bracketed balconies and are pedimented with ornamental shields in the pediments.

In contrast to the formal, ornamented front elevation, the sides of the large house are strikingly plain. First-floor windows have little or no ornamentation, and second-floor windows have a flat bracketed lintel. The southern facade takes advantage of its exposure with a glass-enclosed sunroom on the first floor and large windows in the second-floor bedrooms. The northern elevation is less developed, which is somewhat surprising because it is a street-front facade facing onto Farris Avenue.

Attached to the house at the rear of the north elevation is a deck-hipped two-story wing, lower than the front part of the house. At ground level, there are two garage entrances on Farris Avenue. The upper level contains the former servants' quarters. Throughout this wing the fenestration is simple and irregular.

The interior of the John Adams House follows an irregular plan. The front door opens into a shallow but elegant oval vestibule. Double doors at both east and west sides have decorative surrounds beneath a cove ceiling with arched niches in each end of the oval. The vestibule's floor is a mosaic of multi-colored marble forming a Greek key pattern. The baseboards are white marble. The vestibule opens into a grand hall with an imposing stairway commanding the eastern side of the room. From this hall, wide doorways lead to rooms to the north and south. To the north is the Adams' music room with overdoor paneling and a coved crown mold adorned with plaster shells and flowers. Behind and east of the music 'room is the original dining room with paneled walls, now painted. A "secret door" in the dining room once concealed a full-height vault with John Adams's name on it. The door remains, though the vault was removed in 1961. On the south side of the large front hall, paneled pocket doors lead to a spacious room with a fireplace. Beyond is a sunroom with a Tudor-style fireplace and three walls of multi-paned windows. Behind the front hall to the right of the stairs is a small library. Left of the stairs in an enclosed back hall is the servants' stair. In the hall, fluted posts with Ionic capitals frame the wide staircase. The stair rises to a landing with a half-turn flight at each side leading to the second-floor hall. Upstairs are six bedrooms and several bathrooms arranged around the center hall. Bathrooms retain original fixtures. The central front bedroom opens to the loggia. A door to the back hall leads to the servants' stair and to a simple but nicely detailed stair to two finished rooms in the attic.

The spaces described above were for the family and their guests, while the servants' living area was separate. From the first-floor kitchen, enclosed steps lead down to the two-bay garage and other enclosed steps lead up to the servants' quarters, a maze of four rooms with hallways and few windows. The kitchen also gives access to the basement, three large rooms beneath the northern part of the house.

Few changes have been made to the Adams House. In the 1960s a large rear addition and a front pipe-and-canvas entrance canopy were added when the house was used as a funeral home. These were removed in February 2000, as part of a rehabilitation and reuse project. Remarkably, the front and side elevations and the interior of the house have been little changed throughout the building's interesting history. The house retains to a remarkable degree its floorplan, mantels, wood and plasterwork, hardwood floors and plaster walls on both levels. The only interior changes known to have been made to the house are the alteration of a doorway in the library, minor updating to the kitchen, interior finishes (such as wallpaper and paint on paneling), the creation of openings to the funeral home addition, and expansion of one automobile entrance to the garage. The present owners plan to rehabilitate the building for use as an inn.