Last month, Angela and I took a little overnight trip to Winston-Salem. We had the pleasure of staying at the Graylyn Estate, which is the second largest home in North Carolina, only behind the Biltmore Estate. Graylyn was built in the 1920s and it has the most interesting decorating scheme on the inside. We ended up spending most of our afternoon and evening exploring the 55 acre property and learning about the interiors and history of the building on our butler tour with Drew.
The touches that Bowman and Nathalie Gray incorporated into their house are quite intriguing and some pay tribute to the history of Winston-Salem and the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and North Carolina. You’ll notice tobacco leaves chiseled into stone and dogwood adorning the entryways in the dining room.
There are so many different styles of architecture and interior decorating tied into this one arhouse which is why I loved being able to have Drew give us more details on what we were seeing. The house was extremely modern for the time with telephone and radio systems and electricity through all the houses. The indoor pool was heated, and Drew showed us photos of the underground tunnels to the mechanical rooms for the pool and the electricity.
A lot of the rooms on the first floor had elements that were imported from houses in various parts of Europe and installed in Graylyn, including the library and the main entryway. When you stay at the Graylyn, take a couple of hours and go on a tour with Drew. He’ll even take you to the ice cream room to get a treat midway through. And if you happen to drop your ice cream on the floor, he won’t even shame you. Y’all know you can’t take me anywhere, right? At least it was tile flooring…
I knew that we’d be walking a lot while on our tour, so I decided to wear something comfortable for the cooler temperatures Winston-Salem was having that weekend. I am totally in love with this cropped Free People sweater (on sale!) paired with my favorite Madewell skinnies and booties. And shop my favorite sunnies, tote, bracelets, watch, and earrings. And P.S. you can check out details on my manicure here.
Be sure to stay tuned next week for more on our trip to Winston-Salem! You can see my original weekending post about Graylyn here.
