Holly
Springs tourism gets boost
•Historic
home restorations on schedule
By SUE
WATSON
Staff Writer
Polk Place
and Featherston Place are undergoing extensive
restoration this winter and the historic homes will be
open for this year’s Pilgrimage April 13-17,
according to owners Jorja and Mike Lynn.
Phase I
construction of a botanical garden behind the houses is
also underway and will be ready for the tour this year.
Walking trails, a 150 foot serpentine waterfall and a
natural pond are featured in the botanical garden.
The Lynns
are rejoining properties that once were a part of the
Walter Place estate. They are restoring two homes and
creating three botanical gardens.
The
restoration of Polk Place and Featherston involves using
many materials and furnishings that were in storage.
Extensive use of wallpaper copied from the periods when
the homes were built will give tourists the feel of
taking a step back in time.
Without the
history, there would be no point of restoration of the
homes or the construction of botanical gardens, Jorja
Lynn said.
“We are
trying to go back to the period of 1903 when additions
were made to the 1836 cottages,” she said.
Historical
perspective
Oscar Johnson of Red Banks and his brother and uncle
operated a mercantile business in Holly Springs in the
late 1800s before the Spanish American War broke out in
1898. Times were hard in Holly Springs and Johnson and
his brother moved to St. Louis and became involved in the
manufacturing of footwear known as Johnson Shoes.
Before the
war broke out, the Johnsons secured a contract with the
U.S. Military to make combat boots. The contract made the
Johnsons’ company very successful.
Owners of
Roberts, Johnson & Rand Shoe Company, a footwear
jobber organized in 1898 in St. Louis, merged their
company with Peters Shoe Company in 1911 to form
International Shoe Company. Subsequent purchases led the
company to become the largest footwear manufacturer in
the country - a reputation it enjoyed for 50 years.
The company
manufactured and sold brand name shoes - Johnson shoes,
Buster Brown shoes, and Red Goose shoes. Ultimately
International Shoe Company acquired other footwear
manufacturing companies like Florsheim Shoes and put St.
Louis on the map as a city of “Shoes, Booze and
Blues.”
Oscar
Johnson was married to Irene Walter, the younger daughter
of Col. and Mrs. Walter, the builders of Walter Place.
Oscar
Johnson wanted to build a park in Holly Springs.
The Johnsons
bought Polk Place and Featherston and “gussied them
up,” Lynn said, “with the help of their friend
Theodore Link.”
Link was a
renowned architect who designed the St. Louis Station in
1894, the Beaux Arts Style Mississippi Capitol in
1901-03, the Tibbe Power Plant in Washington, Missouri in
1904, the International Shoe Company in St. Louis, and
most of the buildings Louisiana State University when it
was relocated in the 1920s. He designed over 100
buildings and is known for being the first to use
electric light decoratively.
Lynn said
without Link’s embellishments, the cottages of Polk
Place and Featherston would have been plain 1836 style
cottages - consisting of three rooms, a center hall and a
back porch.
“These
houses are examples of English Raised Basement
Cottages,” she said.
Construction
involved digging a moat around the outside perimeter of
the cottage and adding windows to bring in light.
The rooms
which would have been used as cellars or a simple
basement were used for a kitchen and dining area.
Link came to
Holly Springs in 1903 while he was working on the state
capitol building and designed a west wing for Polk Place
and added other improvements.
He also
helped with the restoration of Ventress Hall at Ole Miss,
Lynn said. Ventress was built before the Civil War and
used as the University’s first library.
Johnson’s
dream of building a park on the 40-acre estate was cut
short by his sudden, untimely death at age 51. In the
Great Depression that followed his death portions of the
estate were sold off by subsequent owners who purchased
Walter Place.
The Lynns
have invested in the property to restore the homes back
to their original design and true to detail for the
period where possible. It will fulfill Oscar
Johnson’s dream for a park. When completed three
historic homes and three botanical gardens will all be
interconnected by scenic walking trails with water
features throughout.
Some
interesting features of Polk Place, when it is restored,
include an upstairs bedroom outfitted with Irene
Johnson’s furniture that has been at Walter Place.
The bedroom will have two identical Victorian
three-quarter size beds, one original and another copied.
Irene Johnson had a copy made from the original in 1936
by a local furniture maker.
A mirror
from Walter Place was added above the fireplace in the
upstairs sitting room of Polk Place. Rooms have been
restored with documented wallpaper patterns including the
Winterthur pattern used in the DuPont Mansion in
Wilmington, Deleware.
“These
wallpapers are documented copies of old wallpapers of the
period and reproduced for sale,” Lynn said.
“So, it’s true to the period. We are taking the
house back to where it had been added on, to make it look
like the house would have looked in 1903.”
A painting
studio once built for Mrs. Carey (Jim) Tucker when she
owned Polk Place is being restored. Some of Tucker’s
paintings, including a self-portrait, have been found in
the loft of the carriage house.
“Oddly
enough, when the Walter Place was being used as a
boarding house during and before the Depression, Tucker,
one of 10 children, lived there with her parents,”
Lynn said.
An existing
fireplace in the second floor bedroom at Polk Place has
been reopened and a mantel from the basement of
Featherston has been placed above it. Federal-style doors
stored in the attic of the carriage house have been used
where doors were missing in Polk Place and Featherston.
The property
will be named The Walter Place Estate, Cottages and
Gardens, Lynn said.
Report News:
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