Beautifully restored and impeccably maintained Forsyth County treasure on 8+ peaceful acres in Clemmons, just minutes from I-40 and Winston-Salem. Built in 1798 by Philip Hoehns (Hanes), the first Hanes descendant in NC, and wife Joanna, this 5-bedroom 4-bath National Register home was meticulously renovated in 2015 with a cedar shingle roof, copper gutters, new baths and new HVAC systems. Also in 2015 a historically sensitive addition included a stunning great room with beamed ceiling and wood burning fireplace, a fully equipped chef's kitchen and a lovely covered porch with fireplace. The second level includes a primary suite with handsome bath and sitting room, plus a second bedroom with its own bath. Outbuildings include a two-car detached garage (2015) with expansion potential, and the original, restored springhouse.
Philip Hoehns, a second-generation Moravian American, was the first of the family to move to North Carolina, bringing along his parents and siblings from Pennsylvania in 1774. A few years earlier, he had bought land in Wachovia, the large Moravian settlement that contained most of what is now Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. He ultimately accumulated 1,800 acres in the area.
In 1778, Philip (1752-1820) married Johanna Salome Frey (1760-1845). “Settling on land Philip had purchased, tradition claims they first lived in a hickory-pole hut, followed by a log house,” the home’s National Register nomination states. “In the winter of 1797-1798, they began construction of their last house, a commodious and sophisticated two-story, four-bay-wide, double-pile, Flemish-bond brick dwelling.”
Philip became a prosperous farmer and distiller, and after his death it was said that “his industry and economy were accompanied by the blessing of God in an evident manner.”
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Its location is now within the town of Clemmons, 3550 Middlebrook Drive. The house has 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and 2,839 square feet. The lot is 8.26 acres.
“When built, the Philip and Johanna Hoehns House stood out, for there were no other houses of its caliber in the countryside outside the Moravian congregation towns of Bethabara, Bethania and, especially, Salem,” the nomination says.
“At that time, most rural settlers were building log houses, along with a few timber-frame dwellings. For its time and place, the Philip and Johanna Hoehns House was an anomaly, for it was closely aligned, architecturally, with the brick buildings constructed in Salem from the mid-1780s to the early years of the nineteenth century. In particular, it shared many of the features perfected during the latter years of that period in Salem.
The 1798 two-story brick Philip and Johanna Hoehns (Hanes) House is located at 3550
Middlebrook Drive near the south end of the village of Clemmons in Forsyth County, North
Carolina. The house stands near the west angle of a triangular tract of 8.51 acres and faces
northwest toward the northwest property line. Three outbuildings and a structure
accompany the house. The well house, located northeast of the house, was built in the late 1940s.
The barn-like garage, which also stands northeast of the house, was constructed in 2014-2015.
The 2014-2015 springhouse is located across a stream downhill and south of the house. It is
accessed by a small, stone-veneered, arched bridge of the same date.
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The Hoehns House property contains both wooded and grassy areas. The house is set far
back from Middlebrook Drive on the east with a combination of lawn and groupings of trees
between the road and the house. Facing northwest, the house has a large front lawn with
scattered trees that slopes gradually downward toward the northwest property line. Southwest of
the house, the land slopes more sharply downward to a small, winding stream, a tributary of
nearby Johnson Creek, that runs near the southwest property line. Trees along the stream bed
help to shield the Hoehns House from the modern residential subdivision uphill from the far
bank of the stream. Behind (southeast of) the house is an expansive meadow bordered by trees.
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The current tract is all that remains intact from the several hundred acres still associated
with the house in 1973, when P. Huber Hanes Jr. sold the larger acreage to a developer.
Although the northwest boundary of the nominated property now faces the rear of houses along
Meadows Edge Court, the southwest boundary faces the rear of houses along Bridgewood Road,
and the eastern boundary faces Middlebrook Drive, east of which are late-twentieth-century
houses and an apartment complex, the surviving 8.51-acre house tract is largely screened from
these late-twentieth-century developments by a variety of deciduous and evergreen trees. All
utility lines are underground.
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A concrete rail fence, probably dating from the late 1940s, runs along the east side of the
property paralleling Middlebrook Drive. Originally, it, along with other like fencing, marked the
perimeter of the Hanes’s twentieth-century Middlebrook Farm. On a slight rise of land south of
the northeast corner of the property, two medium-height stone walls dating from 2014-2015
create an entrance to a long, crushed-rock driveway that curves north and then west until it
parallels the northwest property line. Concrete fencing runs along the northwest side of the
driveway.
The 1798 Philip and Johanna Hoehns House is a two-story, brick, four-bay-wide, doublepile house. o 3) In addition to its two stories, it has an attic and a full basement. Attached to the rear of the house by an enclosed passage is a one-story, three-bay-wide, single-pile frame addition built in 2014-2015. Although the house faces northwest, for ease of describing the exterior and interior characteristics, the façade will be considered as facing west, the rear east,and the two side elevations north and south.
The foundation of the house ranges from approximately one-and-a-half to three feet in
height, depending on the location. Because the ground slopes slightly downward from north to
south, the foundation at the south end of the house is taller than that at the north end. The
foundation is composed of rubble-stone that is stuccoed and scored to resemble refined ashlar
blocks. The “blocks” are painted the bright red-orange color of red-lead, and the “mortar joints”
are painted white. Although through the years, most of the stuccoed surface and paint had
disappeared, during the 2014-2015 exterior restoration of the house, when the 1940s shed-roofed
front porch – which extended across most of the façade – was removed, physical evidence of
both features was discovered. On every side of the house, the foundation is pierced by narrow,
vertical window openings that illuminate the cellar. A band of shaped clay bricks
along the top of the foundation forms a molded water table.
The thick, loadbearing-brick walls of the house are tightly laid in Flemish-bond brick
whose dark-fired headers contrast sharply with the red-brick stretchers. Red bricks at each corner
of the house and flanking each door and window give the appearance of accenting rubbed bricks.
The dark headers of each gable end are laid in a decorative chevron pattern.
The steep, side-gable roof is sheathed with wood shingles. At front and rear, the roof
kicks outward slightly to deflect water. Running the length of the front and rear eaves is a
masonry coved cornice, painted white, with a bead across the bottom painted the red-orange of
red-lead paint. The rake boards along the sides of the roof are composed of three narrow
overlapping boards. Rising from the north and south ends of the roof are interior-end
chimneys laid in Flemish bond with a corbeled top and a white-painted stuccoed band at the base
of the corbeling. The chimney stacks were repaired or rebuilt during the late 1940s
remodeling of the house, and noted Winston-Salem brick maker George Black made the bricks
needed for them. Lightening rods at each end of the house rise from the ground up past the
gables and chimneys. They are reproductions of the originals.
The addition has a stuccoed foundation, wood beaded-edge siding, and a wood-shingled
roof. Because of the central hyphen passage, the addition touches only a minimal part of the
original house. The hyphen passage covers the two rear entrances of the original house, which remain
open on the interior, and a central, second-story window – now converted to a door – that
was added during the renovation of the house in the late 1940s. The first floor of the hyphen has
fixed windows on either side with twenty lights on the north side and thirty-six lights on the
south side. The hyphen has an upper half story created by gabled dormers on either side, the
north dormer with a fixed nine-light window, and the south dormer with a six-over-six sash
window. This is the only section of the addition that is taller than one story.
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Exterior doors and windows are
deeply inset within segmental-arched openings with flared sides, and the surrounds of both are
plain. The two front doors are six-paneled and date from the late-1940s remodeling. The interior
doors are four paneled – raised on one side and flat on the other – and the door casings are set
within shallow, segmental-arched, plastered masonry. Eighteenth-century or reproduction
eighteenth-century hardware is used throughout the house.
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On the first floor, the south room has a very large, deep fireplace with a hearth of square brick
tiles and a broad, segmental-arched opening in the plastered masonry. At the rear of the firebox
is a recessed plastered panel of unknown purpose. Being part of the interior end chimney, the
fireplace projects into the room. It is completely plastered and plain, except for a 2014-2015
coved and molded wood mantel shelf that is based on period mantel shelves in Old Salem.
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The north front room on the first floor, now used as a library, contains the stair to the
second floor, rising from west to east. In the late 1940s renovation of the house, this stair was
removed to provide more space for the two north rooms, and, in its stead, a three-legged stair
was installed in the southeast corner of the large south room. During the 2014-2015 restoration/
renovation of the house, physical evidence revealed that the placement of the original stair was
along the north side of the center wall of the house and that it ran, in separate flights, from the
cellar to the attic. Physical evidence also revealed that, prior to the late 1940s, there had been no
stair in the southeast corner of the large south room, so it was removed. In 2014-2015, the stair
was rebuilt in its original, central location, re-establishing the flow of passage from the cellar to
the attic. The current closed-string stair is of simple design, with a baseboard rising along the
wall with the steps,3 a tapered and chamfered newel, a plain balustrade with balusters turned at a
forty-five-degree angle, and a slightly rounded handrail.
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The north front room has several other features dating from 2014-2015. A tall cupboard –
a reproduction of a clothes press made by Salem master cabinetmaker Johannes Krause – has
been permanently installed in the southwest corner of the room, covering the north front door.
However, the door is fully intact behind the cupboard, i.e. not plastered over. On the east side of
the room, bookshelves have been installed, running from the stair to the corner fireplace. This
installation necessitated the closure of the original door between the northwest and northeast
rooms.
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However, the door remains intact within the plastered wall. In the northeast corner of the
room, the arched firebox opening and the late-1940s mantel shelf have been replaced with a
rectangular firebox opening faced with Dutch tiles and an antique, floor-to-ceiling, paneled
Georgian chimney piece from Virginia applied over the plastered chimney breast. The
rear wall of the firebox retains the same recessed panel as seen in the fireplace of the south room.
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In the first-floor northeast room, now used as a guest bedroom, the wood floor has been
painted in a checkerboard tile pattern.
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The northwest corner fireplace retains its broad, arched opening, rectangular recessed panel at the rear
of the firebox, and a plastered surround. A coved and molded wood mantel shelf provides the only
ornamentation. In the southwest corner of the room, a narrow four-panel door set within a vertical-
board paneled enclosure opens to the stair to the cellar.
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In the southeast corner of the room, a doorway, originally the north exterior rear door,
provides access to the rear addition.
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The second floor is divided into four rooms. The stair from the first floor opens to the
northeast room, now a sitting room. The fireplace in the northwest corner of the room retains its
arched firebox opening. With the mantel shelf gone, an antique Federal-style American mantel
was attached to the plastered surround in 2014-2015.
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In the southeast corner of the sitting room,
the wall projects by several inches to accommodate utilities. On the interior wall immediately
south of the fireplace, a door opens to the northwest room.
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In the late 1940s, the northwest room was converted to a bathroom, dressing room, and
closet. Although somewhat reconfigured in the 2014-2015 renovation, the room retains those
features. The bathroom is in the northwest corner and the walk-in closet projects from the east
wall. In the northeast corner, a laundry closet retains not only the original plaster and paint, but a
brick floor where a stove – probably a Moravian tile stove – stood in lieu of a corner fireplace.4
In the southeast corner of the room, a door opens to the stair that leads to the attic. .
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South of the central east-west wall on the second floor are two chambers with entrances
from the north rooms. Each room has a corner fireplace. The southwest-room fireplace has an
antique Georgian mantel with a two-panel frieze from Perquimans County, North Carolina. It
surrounds a rectangular firebox, revised from the original arched firebox. The chimney breast is
plastered.
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The frame wall between the two south chambers retains its original wattle-and-daub
insulation composed of corn husks, straw, clay, and narrow strips of wood onto which the daub
is affixed. At the top of the wall, the summer beam is exposed. A door in the north-south wall
opens between the two chambers.
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The southeast-room fireplace has an antique Georgian mantel from Edenton, North
Carolina with a three-panel frieze. Like the fireplace in the southwest room, the
original arched firebox opening has been changed to a rectangular opening, in this case with
figurative tiles around the face. The chimney breast is plastered. During the 2014-2015
restoration/renovation, the stair in the southeast corner that had been installed in the late 1940s
was removed, as was the bathroom that stood in the northeast corner.
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The window that had been cut into the east wall of the house to illuminate the 1940s bathroom was
opened into a doorway to provide access to the bathroom and walk-in closet in the rear addition of the
house.
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An enclosed stair rises from the northwest room of the second floor to the center of the
attic. Originally a single room, the 2014-2015 renovation of the house divided the attic into two
rooms. South of the stair is a guest bedroom and north of the stair is a bathroom. In the attic,
most of the roof framing, except for the top, which has been dry-walled to create a ceiling,
remains visible. The roof structure consists of rafters and collar beams, all chamfered and all
mortised-and-tenoned and marked with Roman numerals. On the east wall of the bedroom, a small
batten door opens to a space along the east edge of the attic, which retains plasterwork and some
original roof decking.
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The cellar is accessed from the interior of the house by an enclosed stair that opens from
the northeast first-floor room and descends from east to west. At the base of the stair, a carved
newel (2014-2015) replicates one in the John Blum House in Old Salem. Also at the base of the
stair is a stone slab set in the brick floor. The current brick floors in the south and northwest
rooms date from the 2014-2015 renovation of the house, but the cellar had a brick floor
originally. The northeast room has a concrete floor.
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The cellar is divided into three rooms of the same configuration as those on the first floor.
The stone foundation walls are rough plastered. On each of the exterior walls, two small, narrow,
vertical windows are inset within pronounced trapezoidal openings cut in the brickwork that flair
outward and downward from the window. A timber lintel is set in the plastered brickwork above
each window. Two small rooms are on the north side of the cellar. The doorways between the
large south room and the northwest room and between the northwest and northeast rooms have
stone thresholds. Rather than a central summer beam, the cellar has two north-south ceiling
beams that roughly divide the full width of the ceiling into thirds. In the inner north corners of
the northwest and northeast rooms are large masonry arches that provide support for the north
chimney.
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Recent History
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Well house
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Garage
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Springhouse
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Bridge
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