By Carol Timblin

When Chinqua-Penn Plantation near Reidsville, NC, was shuttered, visitors were disappointed and upset. Now the well-known destination is taking on a new life, thanks to Calvin and Lisa Phelps, who bought and reopened it to the public last year.

Though they have no plans to live in the 27-room mansion, the Mocksville couple is busy with restorations, including new paint, draperies and bedspreads. (Lisa has found her history degree from Wake Forest University to be very useful.) They are also adding live plants, family pictures and treasures they have collected in their travels around the globe.

“Visitors tell us the house already feels more like a home,” said Calvin Phelps, 45, the founder of Renegade Tobacco, on a recent tour.

He also said other rooms, including the servants’ living quarters, will be open to the public for the first time. The Phelps Oriental Tea Room, housed in a room of the mansion, will showcase teapots from the family collection.

Restoring Gardens
Restoring the gardens on the 22-acre estate was the first item of business for the Phelps.  This year they expect a parade of color, beginning with spring and continuing through fall.  And building on the success of last year’s Christmas candlelight tours, they plan a repeat performance in 2007.

Chinqua-Penn Plantation is accepting reservations for group tours, meetings, conferences, weddings, banquets and corporate retreats, Phelps said. There have had many inquiries from couples who want to marry at Chinqua-Penn and/or have their reception there. Honeymooning at the plantation may even be an option in the future. 

The Phelps fell in love with Chinqua-Penn while they were dating a few years ago. When the plantation went up for sale, they expressed an interest in buying it, with the intention of preserving and opening it to the public, as Jeff and Betsy Penn, the original owners, had wished. After the Penns died, the estate passed into the hands of the University of North Carolina system in 1959. For a number of years the mansion was open for tours, while the surrounding farmland was used by the NC State Upper Piedmont Research Station for raising Black Angus cattle – a practice which continues. (Many of the cows seen in the pastures today are descended from the Penns’ original herd.)

Rich History
Visitors cannot escape the rich history of Chinqua-Penn Plantation and its remarkable founders, who had the good fortune to travel, entertain friends and surround themselves with the things they loved most.  Born into a Reidsville tobacco family, Thomas Jefferson Penn amassed a fortune from growing the golden leaf and raising cattle on the 1,000-acre spread. During the 1920s he and his wife Beatrice Schoellkopf Penn built their home and filled it with priceless antiques and art just as did the Reynolds, Grays, Hanes, Cones and other wealthy Piedmont industrialists.

Among Chinqua-Penn’s many rare treasures are a copy of King Tut’s chair (one of only two in the world), a Skinner organ (one of three in North Carolina) and an outdoor fountain, designed by Louis Lerambert and purchased by the Penns at Versailles. The Penns hired Professor Pompeo Coccia of Rome to replicate Marie Antoinette’s powder room and an unnamed Scandinavian artist to decorate the overhead beams in the huge living room. A lover of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Jeff Penn placed story tiles in the living room and built a windmill on the property. The basement of the windmill structure, now long gone, housed water tanks and a vegetable cellar, plus a skeet shooting range.

After Jeff Penn died in 1946, Betsy continued to live on the estate and support many community causes until her death in 1965. They are buried side by side at Chinqua-Penn.

The plantation is located near US 29 Business and 158, just west of Reidsville. Visitors should allow about two hours to tour the mansion, gardens and gift shop. Picnic tables are provided near the main entrance, and restaurants are available in nearby Reidsville. The plantation is open Saturdays, 10-4; Sunday, 1-4; and by special appointment. Admission fees are charged.

For more information, call 336-349-4576 or log on to www.chinqua-penn.com