Woodlawn Historical Tour

Woodlawn School students were given their own personal tour of historic Woodlawn on September 4, 2002. Mr. George Mundle, previous owner of the estate, came and spent the day with the students and gave them a history lesson they would never forget. Here's what they learned:

Woodlawn

Woodlawn was built between 1836 - 1845 by George W. Stinson and his wife Margaret. Unfortunately, Margaret died before Woodlawn was completed. George Stinson remarried, though, and to Margaret's sister, Mary! Mary had a love for gardening, and it was she who created the garden plots, trees, and shrubs that gave Woodlawn its name.

Woodlawn House was built facing west. Much consideration was taken to decide this. It ended up facing west because of the light of the rising and setting sun. No electricity! They had to get as much light from the sun as possible. The second reason the house faces west has do to the breeze. Without air conditioning or fans, every step to cool the house had to be taken. The back porch was regularly used as an escape from the heat of the afternoon sun.

The front porch and the whole house were built in the Federal, Greek revival style. The columns, stairways, and frame work are beautiful examples of Greek architecture.

The ground floor of the house is very interesting. There is a huge front hall used to show guests that the hosts were wealthy. On the right front is the parlor, the fanciest room in the house. Its purpose was to entertain visitors, somewhat like a modern day living room. On the left front was the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. George Stinson. Adjacent to their bedroom was their private parlor. Those rooms were for the parents only. Go across the hall from there and you'll find the dining room. Families didn't eat in the kitchen back then. It was separate from the house, in case it caught on fire.

If you go upstairs, you'll find four bedrooms. This was where the children and guests slept. When guests visited, they stayed for weeks or months due to the lack of transportation. The only other thing you'll find upstairs are two armoires. If you look inside, you'll see little notches there. These are for shelves because they didn't have coat hangers back then. The armoires are in place of the closets, which also weren't built in because you were taxed on the amount of doors you had!

There are four chimneys at Woodlawn, a fireplace in every room. It was the only source of heat. Also, if you look out of the windows, it may seem a little blurry. This is because the glass was blown. Something that is now a form of art was a necessity back then. The woodwork at Woodlawn is all hand-carved. This took days or even weeks. If you walk up to the attic, you'll see writing on the back of the door. It reads, "wired house February 18, 1930." That showed how proud people were to have electricity then.

An interesting fact about Woodlawn is that Mr. Stinson allowed his daughters to square dance there. Square dancing was strictly prohibited on the Davidson College campus so Woodlawn became a popular place to go for many college students.

Several renovations were made to Woodlawn over the years including adding on the kitchen, bathrooms, cabinets, and new columns for the porch.

Please come join us again at Woodlawn real soon!

--Created by the students of Woodlawn School. September, 2002