Huntlyholme, A 1924 Mansion in Winston-Salem, $3 Million

The rise of Charlotte and Raleigh as nationally prominent cities makes it easy to overlook Winston-Salem’s status 100 years ago as North Carolina’s biggest and richest city. Its heyday is long past, but an outstanding collection of historic mansions is a legacy that lives on. A particularly remarkable example now for sale is Huntlyholme, a 9,300 square-foot mansion in the Westview neighborhood.

Built in 1924, the house was designed by architects Charles Barton Keen and William Roy Wallace with original landscaping by Thomas Sears, all prominent names in Winston-Salem architectural history. The address is 2900 Country Club Drive.

It has nine bedrooms, five bathrooms and two half-bathrooms in 9,318 square feet. The lot is appropriately huge, 1.82 acres. The price comes out to $322 per square foot, toward the high end of what top-of-the-line mansions are going for these days. The house is in immaculate condition, though the kitchen and bathrooms aren’t as luxurious as you would expect in a $3 million house.

The 11-bay, stucco Georgian mansion “features slightly projecting hip-roofed bays flanking the central section. A classical surround with fluted pilasters and an arched pediment frames the primary entrance. Three hipped dormers and brick interior chimneys with tall corbelled stacks pierce the Ludowici-Celadon green tile roof above a modillion cornice.” (Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage)

As a bonus, the original three-car garage and chauffeur’s quarters are now a 1,500 square-foot guest cottage with two bedrooms, two full bathrooms, living room, dining room and den. The original green Ludowici roof was removed during the renovation and then put right back on.

The Westview neighborhood is built on the former Westview Farm, a dairy operation owned by William Neal Reynolds (1863-1951). With the city limits creeping toward it, Reynolds moved the farm to Davie County near his Tanglewood estate in 1923 and sold the 148-acre Westview property.

The Huntleys

The house was built for Benjamin Franklin Huntley Sr. (1863-1925) and Josephine Myers Huntley (1875-1947). Benjamin owned a furniture factory and store and played a leading role among the town’s seminal group of industrialists. He was memorialized in a mournful editorial in the Winston-Salem Journal as “one of the comparatively small group of far-sighted and courageous business men who had the most to do with building here at the gateway of Northwest North Carolina the largest city in the Commonwealth. In his untimely passing, Winston-Salem is again called upon to mourn one of it foremost citizens and most outstanding civic leaders.”

The editorial cited his “masterful leadership” in the construction of the Robert E. Lee Hotel (“one of the greatest community enterprises in the history of Winston-Salem”), his service as a founder and first president of the local Kiwanis Club (“a mighty force for progress and civic righteousness”) and his leading role in building the First Baptist Church (“the finest and most beautiful Baptist church structure in the South”).

Of his business career, the newspaper called him “the rare type of business man who possessed in marked degree the genius of both merchant and manufacturer.”

After Josephine’s death, the house was sold to the Catholic church, which established a school there, Villa Marie Anna Academy. In 1953, the school opened St. Leo’s Catholic School at a new location, and the house became a convent and education center until 1976. (Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage)

The Smiths

The owners since 1976 have been Dr. Nat Erskine Smith (1922-2008) and Marguerite DeSauliniers Smith (1924-2022). Nat was a native of York, South Carolina, and a graduate of Erskine College and the Medical College of Georgia. He served in the Army 1949-1951 and then completed a residency at George Washington University Hospital.

After teaching at The University of Illinois Medical School and Mercer University, he came to Winston-Salem in 1976 as associate dean of the Bowman Gray Medical School at Wake Forest. After retiring he worked as a physician at the Veterans Administration hospital in Winston-Salem before retiring again at age 81.

Marguerite was born in Boston and grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. During World War II she worked for the Piper Aircraft Corporation, where she became a pilot. She later graduated from Lycoming Junior College with degrees in English and biology. She received a master’s degree from Penn State, where was a member of a team testing antibiotics.

She met Nat while leading a lab at George Washington University Hospital. They were married for 55 years and had seven children. “An avid reader, she believed strongly that children should be raised by educated mothers,” her obituary said. “Until the last weeks of her life, she read the NY Times Sunday paper cover to cover. A good cook, seamstress and decorator, she learned all these skills through reading, well before there was an Internet to guide her.”