In this special bonus episode of Serenbe Stories, Steve shares a quick tour of the Inn property, diving into the history of the old Farmhouse, the early days of the surrounding cottages, and how the property transitioned from weekend getaway to family home to luxury retreat.
We’ll meet at the Farmhouse, walk out onto the wraparound porch, through the Inn grounds, and end up over by the Pavilion.
Show Notes & Further Reading
In this special bonus episode of Serenbe Stories, Steve shares a quick tour of the Inn property, diving into the history of the old Farmhouse, the early days of the surrounding cottages, and how the property transitioned from weekend getaway to family home to luxury retreat.
We’ll meet at the Farmhouse, walk out onto the wraparound porch, through the Inn grounds, and end up over by the Pavilion.
Show Notes & Further Reading
1 (12s):
In 1991, Steven Marie Nygren purchased a farm property that is now the in at therapy while out on an afternoon drive with their three daughters to explore the Georgia countryside. In this special bonus episode of Seren B Stories, Steve takes us on a tour of the in property, diving into the history of the original farmhouse, the early days of the surrounding cottages, and how the property transitioned from a weekend getaway to the full-time family home and into today's luxury retreat. We'll meet at the farmhouse, walk out around the wraparound porch through the in grounds and end our tour at the pavilion. Thanks so much and enjoy the tour.
2 (52s):
Welcome to Serenbe. You're now standing outside the 1930s guest barn, but to roll back to how this all started in 1991, we were on an afternoon drive and heard about the farm that was for sale, and we were curious about the historic farm, the open land and called to say if there had farm animals, could we pull in to show our children? Of course, anyone with something for sale says, come on. We arrived. The Shetland pony was saddled and we bought the farm. At that time, there was the old farmhouse, which I'll show you, is the center of the building that's now regarded as the farmhouse and these various buildings, the building with the largest ridge cap.
2 (1m 44s):
It's actually the best built building of the barns, and it was built in 1905 and a lot of the timber in the barn is hand hued from the property. Then the guest services barn was built in 1930 and what we call the guest house barn over by the pool was born in 1942, and then there is the cottage around back, that's mimosa that was built in 1940. We can walk over now by the farmhouse and you can see the center part of this building, which was the original 1905 part. But when we bought the farm, we had a big house in Ansley Park in the middle of the city, and so we rented this house out and fixed the shack in the back, which is now mimosa cottage.
2 (2m 33s):
In the event we ever wanted to spend a weekend here, we imagined that we would come down a couple Saturday afternoons a month, we maybe get the Shetland pony for the kids, a few farm animals, but what happened is we came every weekend and for our vacations, and so after doing that for three years, we restored the main house for our own main residence. The large porch that you see here that's now a glass in porch was the original edition, and this was a screen porch and the glass section behind that was our summer living room.
2 (3m 13s):
And on the halls near the library, you can see pictures of what that room looked like during the days that we lived there. Now you can enter the farmhouse and we'll walk through the kitchen is where it was from about 1920 on. The buildings here on the property were all built by the Barnes family, and they were here for three generations, and it was the second Mrs. Barnes that moved the kitchen from the back of the house to its current location. It, of course, now has been converted to a commercial kitchen, but you can also see pictures of what this room looked like when we lived here.
2 (4m 0s):
As you walk through this on the center hallway, what is now the farmhouse bar was our main living room, and the study was one of the four bedrooms. The dining room has been a dining room through all periods of time and continues to be a center for great conversation, meetings and celebrations. We'll step on out under the front porch and the porch from 1905 was simply the front of the house, and when we restored the house in 1994, we added the side porch along the side. The buildings that you see on the other side of the courtyard, they were added in 2015.
2 (4m 45s):
We can now walk down through the courtyard and we'll come around to the left side there between the new pool and the addition, and you'll come to the backside and as we walk along there, you'll see now a treehouse on your right and this was designed on those weekends by my middle daughter Kara, and we had a caretaker on property and he helped us build that treehouse. The guest house that you see here was converted during our stays to a three bedroom, four bath guest house for some of our city friends who came out when we were here during the weekends and wanted to stay all night after dinner and a few glasses of wine.
2 (5m 34s):
You'll see also a large ballroom that we added with the 2015 edition. We currently have four meeting rooms and ballrooms for corporate groups that meet during the week, and then family events, weddings, there's great spaces for no matter what the occasion, we can now walk down along this path and you'll see the vegetable garden that was designed by Ryan Gainey and we installed that when we moved here full time in 1994. As we wander on down, you'll see the animal village, which started with gifts of goats and pigs as we were here on the weekends.
2 (6m 14s):
Once people knew we had a farm, and that has now evolved into a complete animal village with various chickens, goats, pigs, and further out on the property are the horses and the cows. Now you can get a better view of that 1940s shack that's now mimosa cottage. As we wander down this lane, you can turn left and you'll see two cottages that were built in 2004. These were the result of a architecture competition to see who could design the most environmental house. Three architects designs were chosen and two were actually built, one by Mark Mosley and the other by Peter Block.
2 (6m 58s):
Then further down here, you'll see the large house with a wraparound screen that was built for my mother-in-law when she sold Mary Max, and she moved in here along with her sister and they both died on the property. When our children were growing up, they thought everyone had a restaurant because they either went to one of my peasant restaurants or mixed restaurants or to grandmother's Mary Max Tea Room. If you come through the arbor, you'll come down and you'll see the pavilion, which we added for various corporate and social events, and so this is a great catering area. There is a catering kitchen and bathrooms down here for groups.
2 (7m 39s):
The pond was put in shortly after we purchased the property in 1991, and past that, over the bridge, you can find what we call a function room, and it was just simply a foundation area to sort of give an organized area in the midst of the natural nature and past that is the labyrinth. Which group of family and friends from coast to coast arrived one weekend and we had facilitators, and from a Thursday night to Sunday morning, our group built this labrinth, which is inspired from the labyrinth in Charlottes Cathedral in France.
2 (8m 19s):
I hope this gives you some idea of the grounds and the history of the grounds that you'll see here. Hope you enjoy your day at Serenbe