Here are a few more shots of Quincy, my beloved little town. I took them last August, actually, when the gardens around the various old mansions and other buildings were still lush and green. I’m not sure why I finally decided to write about them today. I guess summer pictures just have extra appeal at the cold, dreary end of February.
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| R.K Shaw-Embry House |
R.K. Shaw-Embry House
This massive Queen Anne-style house stands just up the street from Spruce Pine Cottage. It was built in 1895 by Robert K. Shaw, a shade-tobacco planter and insurance agent. (Shade tobacco used to be Quincy’s big industry.) The house looks like Cinderella’s castle, too enormous to miss. It’s a colossal assemblage of towers and balconies, deep porches and gables. Chimneys and leaded glass windows abound. The entire property is ringed by an elaborate red brick wall with wrought-iron gates. Roses lie on the wall, and hollies peek out from behind it. I’ve heard lots of rumors about the house, about what it’s like inside (I’ve never been in it). Somebody told me once, for example, that the former owners used to use the sprawling attic as a roller skating rink.
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| Thomas Monroe-Higdon House |
Thomas Munroe-Higdon House
This house is the centerpiece of King Street, which is itself the centerpiece of Quincy’s charming historic district. The grounds take up half a block. With its white columns and symmetrical design, the house, built in 1849, is classic Greek Revival. The present owners, the Higdons, keep it in immaculate condition. The paint is always perfect snowy white, and the front walk is never marred by a leaf. The surrounding gardens are lush with cabbage palms, camellias, banana shrubs, hydrangeas, dogwoods, magnolias, and live oaks. Fountains trickle, and lounge chairs lie in the shade of a white wooden pavilion in the side yard.
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| Gadsden County Courthouse |
Gadsden County Courthouse
The lovely Beaux-Arts courthouse in the center of town is a testimony to Quincy’s old days of prosperity. It was designed, in 1912, by none other than Hal Hentz of Hentz and Reid, the most prestigious architecture firm in Atlanta at that time. (The firm designed dozens of Atlanta landmarks, including the famous Swan House and Rich’s flagship store downtown.)
The courthouse square is shaded by huge magnolias and live oaks and is often the scene of fun events, like barbecues and concerts. Gadsden is a small county, so I get called for jury duty quite frequently. I’m not that fond of jury duty, but I do like being inside the courthouse. I don’t even need to bring a book to read during the lulls in jury selection; I just sit there and admire the crown molding.
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| Padgett’s Jewelry Store |
Padgett’s Jewelry Store
This building is located in downtown Quincy, just across the street from the courthouse. Built in 1894, it housed a general store until it was purchased by Padgett’s Jewelers in 1979. I love driving into town after work each evening and seeing the huge Coca-Cola mural on the building’s side, and I love stopping at Padgett’s, especially when I’m gift shopping and I’ve given myself permission to actually buy something. In addition to jewelry, Padgett’s sells china and silver and all manner of knickknacks. It’s a thriving operation, pretty much the only one in our largely abandoned (but adorable) downtown. Yet I do think things are looking up in Quincy. I really do. An oyster place called Flookah’s recently opened, and so did a sports bar (L.R.’s).
Well, I wish I had more pictures to share, but these were the only four that turned out. (Pictures are the hardest part of blogging for me.) Oh, and if you’re wondering where I got all the names and dates in this post, they came from “On the Trail in Historic Quincy,” a really cool walking-tour guide put together by the Gadsden Arts Center.
I wanted to tell you a little bit about my mom’s yard because it’s so beautiful and because it is the setting for so many of our family events. It’s the setting for so many of our memories. Mom started …
Each year in February, the Tallahassee Area Rose Society holds an heirloom rose sale at Goodwood Museum and Gardens, a beautiful old plantation now open to the public. Goodwood is famous for its rose gardens …
Rob and I went antiquing in Dothan on Saturday. It was so much fun. A little road trip is always the greatest treat. I just love the sense of adventure—the promise of the open road and the whole day ahead of me. I guess what’s so appealing is that it’s Saturday and I’m completely free; I don’t have to go to the office or do any chores. I love stopping along the way at country convenience stores and buying Cokes and Lemonheads and bubblegum and whatever else strikes my fancy. Before I became a vegan, I’d always get one of those mini pecan pies, but now my choices are a bit more limited.
The two-hour drive to Dothan took us through a mostly rural area, past farm fields and woods and swamps and rivers, through the little towns of Chattahoochee and Sneads and Marianna and Cottondale. I kept wanting to stop and take pictures of cows and tire swings and white country churches, but sadly I had forgotten my camera. It was really killing me too because I kept spotting the most picturesque things: goats and ponies, and rusty-roofed Cracker houses. Old cemeteries full of flowering quince and redbuds. We passed several roadside stands selling tupelo honey and hot boiled peanuts, sweet onions and shelled pecans. Really, is there anything more enticing than a roadside stand?
Rob and I go to Dothan several times a year and we always do the same thing when we get there. First we go to Land of Cotton Antique Mall, then we have lunch at Taj (this awesome Indian restaurant), and then we go to two more antique malls: Highlands and Old South. Land of Cotton is the greatest place. It’s absolutely huge, filled with everything from massive antique cabinets and wardrobes to old toys and jewelry. There’s china, sterling silver, vintage gloves and hats . . . lamps, old crocks and bottles, and Coca-Cola signs galore. We usually stay for at least two hours, walking the maze-like aisles.
Sometimes I feel bad making Rob look at antiques all day. But he always tells me, “No, I like it—especially if there’s lunch involved.”
On Saturday we ate at Taj, like we always do. The restaurant has a new location and it’s really fancy, with a big fireplace . . . and stone tiles everywhere . . . and red silk curtains. We had the best food: vegetable Manchurian for an appetizer, and mixed vegetable korma and mixed vegetable curry for our main dishes. I was trying to eat really slowly, to make the moment last.
“Do you miss the cats?” I asked Rob.
“Oh, not really,” he smiled.
He was just kidding, but it was nice to get away. Anyway, here are some of the day’s finds:
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| Fiestaware sugar bowl |
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| Fiestaware creamer |
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| Lenox vases. I’ve started a little collection. |
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| A new lamp for the living room, to light up Leroy’s portrait |
And now I present you with some random pictures that have nothing to do with anything:
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| June Baxter. Doesn’t this look like her senior picture in the yearbook? |
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| My new planter in the sun room. I got it at Tallahassee Nurseries. |
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| The beginnings of my bird collection in the living room |
My grandparents on my mother’s side lived on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin, in Brown County, near Green Bay. I grew up in Florida, far away, so I only got to visit the farm a few times. Yet even though my visits were infrequent, …
Rob and I did nothing but clean our house this weekend. We cleaned it from top to bottom. We washed all the baseboards and mopped all the floors and brushed all the furniture and cleaned the windows and the windowsills and all the moldings. Of …
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Rob and I live in an old house, built before the Civil War. You can tell it’s well aged, that it’s been around a long time, by its wavy windows and its smell, inside, like an old trunk—a cedar chest. But nothing drives home how old the place is better than an old picture. I came across some last night and thought I’d share. In this post, I’ll compare each old image with a current one so you can see how the house has changed over time.
But first let me tell you what I know about the history of the house. It’s not much, just a couple things that may or may not be completely accurate: that it was built by a family named Pittman in 1850, and that after the Pittmans sold it, it became associated with the nearby Fuller’s earth mine, that it was used for a while to house the mine’s foreman and his family. In the 1960s it languished. It sat abandoned for years . . . until it was rescued by a young couple and carefully renovated. They did all the work themselves, by hand.
The “before” pictures were taken 42 years ago by Bill Stinson, half of that intrepid young couple. The pictures document what the house looked like before Mr. Stinson and his wife started fixing it up. Mr. Stinson told me the house was so neglected when he found it that there were vines growing up through the floorboards in the living room. He said the city was about to condemn the place and tear it down.
Here’s how the front of the house looked in 1971 and how it looks today. In the first picture below you can see the old tin roof (I love it!) and how wild and tangled the yard used to be. By the time Rob and I moved in, in 2004, the tin roof was gone and so were the camellias and the pindo palm shown here. In fact, the front yard was almost completely bare of plants. I guess the bareness was kind of a good thing, because I got to start with a clean slate and plant whatever I wanted.
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| Photo by Bill Stinson |
Next up is a view of the north side of the house, including the detached kitchen we now use for an office. As you can see, this side of the main house looks pretty much the same today as it did in 1971, but the old kitchen looks very different. It was remodeled by Mr. Stinson. I honestly love the way the kitchen used to look and I’m not sure why it was changed, though I’m sure there was a good reason. Nowadays this little building is pretty modern and mundane inside, home to our desks and computers, but I wonder what it was like when the Stinsons first discovered it. Was it still set up as a kitchen then? Was there an old cookstove? Was there a fireplace? Were there old pots and pans still sitting around? I imagine it as a dim, shadowy place full of artifacts and treasures.
Oh, by the way, I’m sorry my plants look so messy in the second picture in this set. I promise they look better in spring! I don’t want to draw too much attention to this picture (the second one) because I’m kind of embarrassed of it, but I do want to point out one thing: the breezeway Rob and I added four years ago between the main house and the old kitchen. In the old days, in the first picture, there was just a simple covered walkway between the two buildings.
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| Photo by Bill Stinson |
Here are some pictures of the back of the house, including the “new” kitchen (which was built in the 1910s, I believe) and the enclosed porch that we now call the “sunroom.” This “before” picture is a real heart-breaker for me because, as you probably noticed, there used to be a beautiful brick chimney at the back of new kitchen and it’s not there anymore. The loss really pains me (I bet the kitchen was so cozy with a fireplace in it). But, on a happier note, the daffodils in the “before” shot still bloom for us every spring.
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| Photo by Bill Stinson |
Finally, here’s what the sidelights around the front door used to look like. By the time we moved in, they’d been replaced with modern frosted glass panels etched with nature scenes. The panels kind of reminded me of shower doors (I really wasn’t fond of them). So Rob and I replaced them with sidelights similar to those we’d seen on other old houses around town.
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| Photo by Bill Stinson |
