Meanwhile, Back at Model Farm . . .
"I think I may have a problem with looking at historic homes on the Internet. I’ve been looking at them for a while now, but I never got into any trouble until I found Model Farm."
That bit from my August 5, 2010 "Glass Half Full" column in Go Triad got it almost right. Almost, because I didn't find Model Farm. Model Farm found me.
Back then I was a young, married mother of one, driving my curly-headed toddler around to get her to nap –– and we wound up in the driveway of an oasis, a time capsule tucked away in plain sight over near the DMV in High Point. It's an "industrial" area, where you go if you need to renew your license, or maybe pick up some scrap metal or drugs. Or, if you're me, it's where you find yourself sitting at the wheel of your SUV while your kid finally naps and you stare up at a gorgeously ramshackle 7-chimneyed farmhouse and your heart and brain hug each other because you have a column due the next day and at that moment your writer's block subsides and you know.
It had stood there through war, economic upheaval, social and cultural shifts, earthquakes and floods. None of the houses built nearby around the same time existed anymore. There was a salvage place in front, the FOX 8 studio behind. The only trees in sight were Model Farm trees. The only house was Model Farm. It was as if the neighborhood was doing its best to take it down but the house had other plans. I stayed up all night writing and Googling.
Built by Quakers in the 1860's, the house was initially a learning hub to teach Southern farmers new techniques during Reconstruction. Later, it morphed into a family home, then, as the area grew harder and less homey, Model Farm was for a moment a darling among high-end studios who used it for photo shoots, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and good bones. Where else can you find light like that? The house was a part of North Carolina history. Did I mention the multiple chimneys?
That column I wrote 12 years ago set in motion a chain of events that would connect me with Ruth, the California-based designer who owned Model Farm at the time, and oh boy that was a story all by itself. A few months after my column ran, someone sent it to Ruth and she reached out via email. "Greetings from California," the subject line read. She was coming to High Point to sell her beloved dream home to Preservation Greensboro and I met her there one blue-cold February day. I got to slink all around its many staircases, run my hand over sconces and ancient bricks, listening to Preservation Greensboro's Benjamin Briggs as he told us the house's origin story ---- and to date I remain convinced I found a pile of supernatural pistachio shells in a third-floor bedroom. There was all of that, but more importantly there was Ruth and her story of how the house found her, and how fate and true love forced her hand. Her dreams of turning it into a B&B were laid to rest and she had to stay in California, where her new husband, Bruce, was receiving medical care. Ruth and I had a day together at Model Farm before she had to get back on a plane and head home. (That was a follow-up column.) We were instant friends, bonded by a house determined to defy the odds in an area that was trying its best to overtake it. (And yep, there was a third column about it. A Model Farm trifecta!)
Nearly a decade passed. The world changed several times and so did I. Model Farm sat sleeping, waiting on a buyer. Enter Riz Khan. In 2019 I got a cheerful Facebook message that said, "I'm the new owner of Model Farm and Ruth asked me to get in touch with you --- I hope this is you! If you are not the Judy she mentioned, please forgive me." Reader, we all know where this is heading, don't we? So Riz and I started talking. She, too, had become friends with Ruth, and like Ruth, Riz was all fired up to bring the house to life as a B&B, maybe even a cool wedding venue. A single mom now in my 40s and my columnist days a watery memory, I went back to Model Farm. I met Riz over there and once again breathed in the old house air and let myself geek out over the sconces and pocket staircases. And, for the second time in the front yard of Model Farm, I cried and hugged a new friend. Just like I had experienced with Ruth, there were synchronicities I shared with Riz, un unexplainable familiar reflex.
"Count me in for PR and media, Riz," I told her. "Let's start bringing the old girl back to life and tell her story." Then 2020 happened. LOL! Remember what I said about the world changing. Yeah, we had more of that.
That house, though. It doesn't give up. Riz weathered the pandemic, working her full-time job and, in her spare time, pouring love into Model Farm. She lost a lot in the span of a year --- her mother, mother-in-law, and Ed, the stalwart plumber/handyman/sage who had been helping her with Model Farm, all of them had gone. But Riz pushed onward with the house serving double duty as sanctuary and mission. As for me, at that point, I didn't know when I'd ever get back out there. Then, earlier this spring, Riz messaged:
"Ruth is coming, after 10 years! She has asked about you. Can you meet up?"
Oh, it was a proper house, with quaint little couches, lace curtains, and thoughtful bric-a-brac. The house was warm and alive with voices.
"Come on in, we're in the kitchen!" I followed the hum into the back of the house and there was my friend Ruth and her husband, Bruce, making sandwiches and heating up soup. Soup! Riz was on her way from work. "There's turkey and good cheese from Publix," Ruth said. I looked at Ruth and Bruce and they looked at me and we all smiled and shook our heads and laughed. Then Riz arrived and there was more looking and smiling and the eventual occurrence of friends such as us, with an incredible backstory, over so many years and strange events, finally being in the same space at the same time. We all talked at once, every word of it urgent. There was so much to say. We got a good start.
This blog is about that day, the day I went back to Model Farm. The house that long ago woke something up inside me and intertwined my destiny with two other women, kindred spirits from far away, both of them. The thing is, Ruth, Riz, and I all love Model Farm, and we all happened upon it at formative times in our lives, and we keep coming back.
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| Riz, Ruth, and me in the Model Farm front sitting room |
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