I have been obsessed with the family home in Wingate for 30 years now. And by obsessed, I mean, I have fantasized about living there ever since the family sold it. I still fantasize about it. I remember every inch of the house, as it was in the 80's. Mom wanted to buy the house but Dad was afraid that he would end up spending every free moment of his time working on the house. In actuality, that probably would have been true, but he also would have had me and Bill to help him with that. He has said many times that he regrets not buying the property and should've been willing to take more risks. Ah, well. What is past is past but one can still fantasize and dream.
The listing I found online has the build date as 1901, but according to the family it was built in 1897, the same year Uncle John was born. Whether or not John was born in the house, I do not know. But it was the birthplace of Aunt Sara (1901), Aunt Billie (1905) and Grandmother (1909). The house had many acres and was called Edgewood Farms. The family owned the house until 1987, after Aunt Sara passed away. It was sold very cheaply to someone who told the family he was going to restore the house but instead he just divided up what land there was and sold the house a few years later. That's the way it goes sometimes.
But, I still fantasize about this house all of the time. I'm not sure if it is still even standing now, but it is emblazoned on my brain forever. It was interesting to look at the pictures on the listing and see how things had changed and what I remembered. If I ever win the lottery, I will either buy this house and restore it or build a replica of it somewhere or both. It's haunted, so I'm not sure that I would personally want to live there, but then again, that could be fun.
This is the view of the front door from inside the front hall. The walls are definitely a different color as is the paint job on the door, but everything else is the same. One of the interesting things about this door, and I found this out years later, is that it is an exact replica of a door in Monroe. When my great grandfather, J.W. Bivens, was register of deeds and lived in Monroe prior to building this home in Wingate, the family lived in a house on Church Street. It was at the corner of Church and something I can't remember LOL Fred McCallum, who worked with my grandfather at the Monroe Hardware Store and was the chairman of Mom's board at United Way, lived in the house when I was in high school. He and his wife graciously let us tour the home and that's when we discovered it. The back door of that house was the exact same one as the front door of Edgewood farms. I'd bet money that's not coincidence. The only difference in the 2 doors was the doorbell. One had a push bell, the other a twist but I can't remember which one was which.
The front hall has the living room, den and main hall off of it. The main hall has the staircase and the entrances to the master bedroom and dining room. The above picture is of the back door at the end of the main hall. I remember that the wall to the left of the door had a huge cedar wardrobe there. Anytime we would go to pick up Aunt Sara, I was always sent to this door to ring the bell to let her know we had arrived.
This is the staircase in the main hall. As most of you know, I do love antiques and that love blossomed when we divided up this estate. It really is amazing how much stuff can be packed into a space. On the left wall use to be a stack bookcase and a hall tree. There was a spinning wheel up against the stairs on the right. One of the very interesting things about this staircase is that, early on, it faced the other direction. For whatever reason, maybe during building, they decided to turn the stairs around. Just to the right of this picture is the door to the master bedroom and over that door is a transom which is of no use because the stairs now block it and you can only see it from inside the bedroom.
This is the upstairs hallway at the top of the stairs, the door leading to the upstairs bathroom. I'm not sure if that bathroom was an addition to the house or not. I do remember Grandmother telling me that when she was a child, they kept borders who were attending the Wingate school. At dinner time, one particular border would hoist Grandmother up on his shoulders and race down the stairs with her. There are 4 good sized bedrooms off of this hallway.
One of the upstairs bedrooms. Honestly, I'm not sure which one it is. Two of the bedrooms on one side were connected by a doorway and I cannot tell which one of these openings is the doorway and which is the closet LOL
Back downstairs, this is the view from the living room, through the front hall and into the den. I'm pretty amazed that the doors are still there. There used to be a light fixture hanging in the living room that was original to the house with 2 carnival glass globes on it. I took those globes off of the fixture, with Mom's permission. They're now in a china cabinet LOL
This is the mantle in the den. This room, at the front of the house, was originally a bedroom where my great great grandmother stayed when the house was first built. It was also the bedroom in which Grandmother and two of her sisters were born in. I'm not sure when it was changed over to a den, probably after my great great grandmother passed. Adjoining it by the door on the left is the master bedroom.
This is the mantle in the master bedroom. The walls are quite a different color from when Aunt Sara resided there. The closet to the left is cedar lined, I remember, with lots of moth balls as well LOL. On the right of the picture you can see the door into the den. There's a small shelf on the wall, which I am surprised is still there. A Seth Thomas clock once sat on that shelf. The other doorway you can see leads to another small bedroom, pictured below.
This room began life as a side porch of the house. There were at least 4 porches around this house. When my great grandfather came down with TB, the porch was converted into a sleeping porch so that he could have fresh air while he was resting. I don't know when it was changed over to a regular bedroom, but that is where Aunt Mary Lee stayed when she moved in with Sara in the 70's. Somewhere I have a wonderful picture of Mary Lee, Grandmother and myself in this room shortly before Mary Lee's death.
This picture makes me sad because where that "awning" is use to be a beautiful bay window in the dining room. The deck structure is also new to the home. I had forgotten about that door that led into the kitchen because it was not used for years and had furniture in front of it inside the kitchen. The 2 windows on the 2nd story above the dining room housed Aunt Sara's "school room." She taught first grade for decades at Wingate Elementary school and stored all of her supplies and decorations in that room. When I was a young child and would visit the house, that was the one door that was always locked. Actually, it had a padlock on it and no one was ever allowed in there. Not sure why, but that's the way it was.
All in all, it was, and hopefully still is a beautiful home. Either way it will still be a cherished memory for me. And, one day, I hope to have a home just like it.
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