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Thomasville Plantations help define the Thomasville character. The area’s 71 plantations represent the largest cluster in the country, covering more than 300,000 acres to the southeast and southwest and across the Florida state line. Although they were founded on cotton, the original owners could not afford their upkeep with the abolition of slavery following the Civil War. They sold the plantations primarily to wealthy Northerners who used them as seasonal residences and for quail-hunting. One is open to the public for tours (see below). Another has reopened as the Melhana resort. One plantation a year opens for an afternoon in April for the local hospital auxiliary’s fund-raising tea. President McKinley visited Marcus Alonzo Hanna, then the national Republican chairman, who had a house in Thomasville. His brother, Howard Melville Hanna, the Cleveland steel magnate and co-founder of Standard Oil, owned Melrose. Seventeen families related to the Hannas have plantations here, and private planes from Cleveland are a fixture at the municipal airport. The John Hay Whitneys owned Greenwood, and Mrs. Whitney wintered here until her recent death. President Eisenhower hunted quail at Milestone, owned by his Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, and golfed at Glen Arven Country Club, one of the nation’s earliest. Today, the plantations are as low-profile as most of their owners, with the possible exceptions of Ted Turner and Jimmy Buffett. Pebble Hill Plantation, U.S. Route 319, Thomasville. Next door (so to speak) to the Melhana plantation resort, this is the most interesting plantation we’ve encountered in our travels. The entry road winds past woods and barns and outbuildings. The main house does not appear until after you reach the visitor center. It is so positioned and so screened from view that you don’t appreciate its size until you’re inside. "It’s 3,000 acres of pure wealth," said our guide upon arrival. The property was purchased in 1896 by industrialist Howard Melville Hanna, who gave it in 1901 to his daughter, Kate Smith Hanna Irland. She directed the construction of most of the buildings at Pebble Hill, including the main house, which replaced an 1850 house that burned. She left Pebble Hill to her daughter, horsewoman Elisabeth Irland (Poe), shortly after its completion in 1936. Known as Miss Pansy to one and all, she was married at age 49 to Parker M. Barington Poe. She lived there until her death in 1978 at age 81, and the property was willed to a foundation to be opened to the public. The main house consists of 42 rooms, including a separate room just for table linens and a another that looks like a wet bar but is used for flower arranging. The eighteen bedrooms are supplemented by a five-room guest cottage for overflow. The house was left as it would have been at the height of the winter season. It outshines better-known estates in terms of treasures plus livability. The main marble-floor hallway was designed to display 33 Audubon prints (more than in the Smithsonian), along with other wildlife and sporting works by artists who stayed here. The largest sitting room is paneled in a panorama of wildlife murals. Prized family antiques, porcelain, crystal, china and portraits are everywhere. So are unexpected treats: A lamp base made of three rifles, arrowheads, a stuffed bobcat, Pansy’s incredible collection of horse show ribbons mounted on endlessly unfolding tiered boards. "If it moves you shoot it, if not you buy it," was said to be the slogan of this woman who lived for her horses and dogs. The outbuildings and grounds hold unexpected sights as well. Tombstones are in front of the dairy where two prized cows are buried. Among the dozen wagons in the carriage house is the double-basket phaeton in which President Eisenhower hunted with a dog cage in back. You can see the dog hospital, the log cabin schoolhouse in which Miss Pansy was tutored, the Williamsburg-style stables and barns, and a wide brick garden cottage used as apartments for stablehands – an inn-goer would be quite happy to stay there today. Pebble Hill is unusual in many ways, not the least of which is its relatively low profile for its size (its annual visitation is only about 25,000, a mere pittance for such an interesting destination). Isn’t this the largest plantation in the country? No, it’s not even the largest in Thomasville, various sources advised. "But it may be one of the biggest main houses." We know of none that is more fascinating. (912) 226-2344. Open Tuesday-Saturday 10 to 5, Sunday 1 to 5. Gate fee $3. Guided tours of main house, $7.50. Historic Districts. More than 50 historic homes and buildings are identified and explained in a walking/driving tour booklet available for $1 from the visitor center. The major concentrations are along Dawson and Hansell streets on opposite sides of the downtown. Due to the varied tastes and wealth of the Northerners who built many of them, Thomasville has nearly every style of architecture represented. Hansell Street has been called Thomasville’s Mason-Dixon Line because most houses on the east side were built by wealthy Southerners and those on the west side by Northerners. Among the sites are tiny All Saints Episcopal Church, 443 Hansell St., the oldest original standing church (1881) in town. It was a Catholic church before it was moved to prevent its demolition. Jacqueline Kennedy attended Mass in the church while spending six weeks at the John Hay Whitney plantation following her husband’s assassination. The Hardy Bryan House (1837) is the oldest two-story house in town. Restored in 1980, it is now a house museum opened Friday from 2 to 4. President Eisenhower attended services in the 1889 First Presbyterian Church, but almost everyone else seems to belong to the enormous First Baptist Church of newer vintage, facing the landmark 1858 Thomas County Courthouse. The Craftsman-influenced house in which Joanne Woodward was born is at 528 East Washington Street. She made her acting debut nearby on the old East Side School’s stage, now the Thomasville Cultural Center. John Philip Sousa’s band entertained in the old bandstand in Paradise Park, originally called Yankee Paradise because of all the Northerners who enjoyed its proximity to the early resort hotels. The houses seem to get bigger the farther out you proceed along North Dawson Street. Two of the most imposing: Lapham-Patterson House, 626 North Dawson St., Thomasville. This monument to Victorian ingenuity was built in 1885 by C.W. Lapham, a prosperous Chicago shoe merchant who suffered lung damage in the Chicago fire of 1871. That explains why he installed fire extinguishers in all nineteen rooms of his winter vacation cottage. He also ordered 45 doors, including 24 to the outside. There are no rectangular rooms or right angles. The house was ahead of its time with hot and cold running water, indoor plumbing, its own gas lighting system and built-in closets. Among its peculiarities are fish-scale shingles, an oriental-style porch and a remarkable double-flue chimney with a unique walk-through stairway and a cantilevered balcony wrapping around the fireplace. The fireplace faces the dining room of what we would call the front hall. "This one is in the English manor style," corrected Cheryl Walters Watson, curator of the state historic site. "There are no hallways here." (912) 225-4004. Open Tuesday-Saturday 9 to 5, Sunday 2 to 5:30. Guided tours on the hour. Adults, $5. Thomas County Museum of History, 725 North Dawson St., Thomasville. As a local history museum, this is one of the best. The main J.H. Flowers House, a 20th-century Jeffersonian Revival building, replaces a structure that burned in 1923. The wrought-iron fence and the 1893 single-lane bowling alley are all that is left from the original. The bowling alley, housed in a Victorian cottage, is the oldest in the South, two years ahead of that at the Biltmore Estate. Of major interest are all the distinctive memorabilia from the plantations and the early hotel era. An entire wing is devoted to the plantations. You learn that one cotton plantation owner had to sell to a Northerner when her annual tax bill increased from $239 to $10,703 after the Civil War. Another owner funded the community hospital that turned Thomasville into a regional medical center. An 1897 register from the 300-room Mitchell House lists "Mr. and Mrs. C. Vanderbilt Jr. (NY)" and "Mrs. B.F. Goodrich & Maid." A section on famous Thomasville people touts Lt. Henry Flipper, a former slave, as the first black graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. An 1855 hand-cranked barrel organ from France is the museum’s rarest piece. The complex also includes a furnished 1877 Victorian cottage and an 1860 log house with detached kitchen. We found this museum so interesting it was tough to break away. (912) 226-7664. Open Monday-Saturday 10 to noon and 2 to 5. Adults, $5. Shopping. Thomasville’s history extends to its downtown. Not only was it designated one of the first Main Street cities in the nation in 1982, it was honored as one of the top twenty in 1996 and 1997 and serves as a prototype for others wanting to join the program. All buildings are at least 100 years old, and most have been restored to their Victorian splendor. The brick-paved streets date to 1907. Period lampposts and tall, bushy pear trees line the sidewalks. Each corner has a sign listing the stores in that block. Signs on the buildings show their original use and date: telegraph office, millinery shop, barber – most in the 1880s. This is definitely a downtown where things are looking up. You’ll want to look up, too – at the architectural detail on the storefront facades, and inside at the ornate ceilings. Check out the original pressed-tin ceilings at Neel’s department store, a fixture here since 1898. It’s part of the original Mitchell House, a block-long hotel that did not burn and portions of which are still in evidence. Photos on a table at the entry testify to its history. The mezzanine level holds Mitchell Coffee & Tea House. Jerger Johnson Jewelers, the oldest store (1857), displays its wares in ornate cherry display counters and cabinets. A brass chandelier hangs from the ceiling of Firefly, which sells home furnishings and gifts. The impressive Kevin’s outdoors store with a hunting theme is almost a museum with hardwood floors, brick walls and raftered ceilings. Pressed-tin ceilings enhance J.T. Street’s apparel and The Gift Shop. Old photos top the shelves at Thomasville Drug Store (1881). The Izzo Pharmacy retains a soda fountain with swivel stools. Hollybrook in the 1882 Brokers & Exchange stocks home accessories and fine art. Also of interest are Buon Appetito, a kitchen shop offering coffees and tea; Cargo Unlimited and The Wood World. The new Oasis Garden Vegetarian Deli was opened by a physician to promote healthier eating, although the meat items initially outnumbered the vegetarian. Extra-Special The Big Oak, corner Crawford and East Monroe Streets. To the uninitiated, Thomasville’s oldest and most cherished landmark may not look like much. But consider the facts: The 317-year-old Quercus Virginiana, the largest oak tree east of the Mississippi, has a limb span of 162 feet. Holding hands, it took sixteen girls and fourteen boys to encircle the tree trunk. Cables criss-cross its limbs to stabilize the tree from heavy winds. As the tree grew, owners moved their houses rather than cutting back its widening reach. One of the house occupants, a volunteer at the Thomasville visitor center, played in the tree as a girl – they called her Squirrel. The moss-laden oak is the centerpiece of the Elizabeth Irland Poe Park, which includes a gazebo. The oak was enrolled as a member of the National Live Oak Society in 1936. It has its own bank account, thanks to an anonymous donor who funded its maintenance. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places in the Southeast, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2000. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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