Gate City Icon
The sixty-four-room inn remained a lodging place until about 1990. After an extensive remodeling — the exterior didn’t change — the club now occupies the entire former inn. That the inn and tea house were linked appears in a lawsuit filed in May, 1927. A New York architect claimed he had been paid insufficiently for design work on the inn, the tea house and its garden and, surprise, a railroad station. The latter — aimed at Northerners who liked to spend time staying at the inn, golfing and riding Sedgefield’s bridle trails — likely would have been behind the Pilot Life headquarters. Pilot was next to the eastern main line of what’s now Norfolk Southern Railroad. The station was never built. Agatha Christie would have loved the tea house. She enjoyed her afternoon tea in Brown’s Hotel in London. The hotel became “At the Beatram,” in her 1965 mystery starring the elderly amateur sleuth Jane Marple. The former Sedgefield Tea House had the ingredients for a Christie mystery, including murderrrrrrr! In 1991, a woman was shot and killed there. The victim’s relative by marriage was indicted for murder but was acquitted.The crime remained cold until a grand jury in 2006 indicted a man and the former relative. The man was charged with murder. Double jeopardy prevented the former relative from being charged with murder again. Instead, he was charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Neither case went to trial. According to Capt. Tom Sheppard of the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department, who lives in Sedgefield and investigated the crime, the prosecutor’s office felt it lacked evidence to make a case. Jere Ayers, in his early 70s and a Sedgefield resident all his life, doesn’t remember the tea house. But he does recall a lavish wedding in 1947 or ’48 held in the house after it had become a private home occupied by the inn’s manager. There, the manager’s daughter married a member of the Hilton Hotel chain ownership. Ayers says the manager promptly became manager of the Beverly Hills Hilton. The former tea house’s current owner asked not to be included in this story. He and his wife have the house for sale. He says they love the place but as empty nesters don’t need that much space. Henry Coble is among the dwindling few — maybe the last — who remember the house on High Point Road as something other than a house. As the ads of long ago said, the “perfect tea house” was part of a new Sedgefield community “dedicated to the ministry of beauty.” OH Jim Schlosser is a contributing editor of O.Henry Magazine. He can be reached at jim@ohenrymag.com.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
PERFECT FOR FOURSOMES, TWELVESOMES OR MORESOMES. If there’s a special gathering in your future, perhaps it deserves to be held in a place like no other. The Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen Area was created for just such moments. Our gracious hotels, cozy inns and intimate cottages are perfect for weddings, reunions and business conferences. Our restaurants invite conversation and friendship over memorable meals. Our quaint villages and unique shops offer diversions and treasures. And then, there are our golf courses. Forty-three world-class courses energize and relax at the same time. Come and enjoy the legendary North Carolina hospitality of the Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen Area. BRING EVERYONE TOGETHER AT THE HOME OF AMERICAN GOLF®.
visit www.homeofgolf.com/meetings-groups to plan your stay.
Beverly Stewart e-mail bstewart@homeofgolf.com or call (800) 346-5362 ext. 237 CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU
OHENRY MAGAZINE Aug 2013 1/3PG.indd 1
August 2013
7/2/13 10:13 31 AM O.Henry