
Written by Dr. Dan Morrill and Catherine Perry
This is the third in a series of articles covering the long, rich history of the Springhaven Inn, built in 1888 in Blowing Rock, NC. Springhaven Inn is for sale. A group of town residents, with the Blowing Rock Historical Society, BRAHM, and Preserve Mecklenburg, Inc. (PMI), is working to save the structure. There are only a few properties left in the downtown area that are as old as Springhaven Inn. We are actively looking for a buyer or buyers for the property willing to keep the outside structure of the historic inn. Otherwise, it is in jeopardy of being torn down. If the property is demolished, this physical evidence of the history at the very core of Blowing Rock will be gone forever. We think it is worthy of being saved. If you would like to learn more about how you can be involved in the effort to save this property, contact Tommy Lee at either 704-737-5609 or tommy@appiantextiles.com.
Let’s pick up the history of Linda and Charles Vardell’s ownership.
Charles and Linda Vardell
Like his father-in-law, Charles Vardell was a Presbyterian minister. He graduated from Davidson College in 1888, the year Springhaven Inn was built, and received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Princeton in 1890.
Linda Vardell owned her father’s Blowing Rock property from 1906 until 1911. Charles and Linda had built a family compound for themselves on nearby Chestnut Circle in Blowing Rock in 1899 and had occupied the main house (Opicherhoka} there as a summer cottage in 1900. Charles and Linda erected a second residence (Hemlock Cottage) on their compound in 1902. It was built for her father. Jethro Rumple moved there after the death of his wife and lived out the remainder of his years in the Hemlock Cottage. Sometime soon after 1902, the original Rumple Cottage was transformed architecturally and relocated back from the main road in Blowing Rock. It is reasonable to conclude that the Rumple Cottage was thereafter used to accommodate guests who came to Blowing Rock to visit the Vardells or conduct business with them. Maybe the cottage was occasionally rented.
The Rumple Cottage was no longer the ordinary clapboard-sided Queen Anne-style house that Jethro Rumple had erected in 1888. In keeping with their commitment to refined aesthetics, Charles and Linda Verdell chose to convert the cottage into a striking example of what the local press called “a type of building to harmonize with the mountain landscape.” Chestnut bark shingles sheathed the exterior walls of the cottage. The interior featured native stone and wood. The local carpenters, Roe Hartley, and Joseph N. White, who worked on the Vardell family compound probably also did the work on the Rumple Cottage on Main Street.
During these years, an informal garden was created at the original Rumple Cottage to give the site a sylvan appearance and to enhance its overall look. Linda and Charles Vardell worked together on the project. But Charles likely took the lead. Evidence suggests that he had the greater input in landscaping. As president of Flora MacDonald College in Red Springs from 1896 until 1930, Charles Vardell adhered to design principles that also shaped his vision of the grounds of Rumple Cottage on Main Street. Photographs of the Flora MacDonald Gardens are instructive in this regard (see below). One might also examine the grounds of the Vardell Family Compound in Blowing Rock.
Chestnut Bark Shingles
The use of chestnut bark shingles as an exterior sheathing material had its origins in Linville, N.C. Architect Henry Bacon (1866-1924), who would later design the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., was asked in the late 1880s to come to Linville from his office in New York City. Developers of that mountain resort wanted Bacon to tell them how they might introduce unique structural features into the Linville built environment to highlight the special significance of the mountain town.
Bacon had noticed the towering chestnut trees that were abundant in the surrounding forests and recommended that bark shingles be cut from the chestnut trees and applied to the exterior of structures. The earliest known application of chestnut bark shingling in Linville occurred in 1890.
A road from Linville to Blowing Rock (presently Highway U.S. 221) was completed in 1892. One consequence of the resultant ease of contact between the two towns was that by 1900 exterior chestnut bark shingling began to appear in Blowing Rock. An iconic example of this genre in Blowing Rock was the Mayview Manor. The building was demolished in 1978. Among the oldest extant shingle bark buildings in Blowing Rock is the Blowing Rock Methodist Church.
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