Each holiday season The Banker’s House transforms into a dazzling display of festive cheer, known as the Christmas Reveal. What began as a charming addition to the Cleveland County Arts Council’s Holiday Home Tour has blossomed into a beloved annual tradition. This year, the event promises to be more magical than ever, with new features and timeless traditions that capture the spirit of the season.

The Origins of the Christmas Reveal

The story of the Christmas Reveal at The Banker’s House began a number of years ago when the house was first invited to participate in the Cleveland County Arts Council’s Holiday Home Tour. Although not a typical residential home, The Banker’s House opened its doors to the community, inviting local businesses, organizations, and individuals to decorate its rooms. This collaborative spirit of creativity and community involvement became a hallmark of the event. By the second year, the tradition had taken root, with decorators returning to showcase their talents, transforming the house into a winter wonderland.

The Evolution of a Tradition

As the years passed, the Christmas Reveal evolved beyond its initial concept. Even when The Banker’s House was not officially part of the Holiday Home Tour, the tradition continued, growing in popularity and anticipation. Now an annual event, the Christmas Reveal is eagerly awaited by the community, with each year bringing fresh ideas and returning decorators who add their unique flair to the historic rooms. This evolution reflects the enduring appeal of the event and its significance as a festive highlight of the holiday season.

Highlights of This Year’s Christmas Reveal

This year, the Christmas Reveal will enchant guests on Friday, December 6, 2024, from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. The event promises new delights, including a special appearance by Santa and Mrs. Claus, adding a touch of magic for visitors of all ages. Complimentary photos by WCS Photography are available from 5-7 p.m. Guests can indulge in a selection of signature drinks from the cash bar, featuring festive concoctions like Old St. Nick’s Old Fashioned, Making Spirits Bright Egg Nog, and ShelbySpice Tequila Hot Chocolate. Complementing these libations are free apple cider and an array of tasty tidbits to savor.

A Feast for the Senses

The Christmas Reveal is not just a visual delight but a feast for all the senses. Live music will fill both the house and the barn, creating an enchanting atmosphere that resonates with the joy of the season. The melodies, combined with the aroma of holiday treats and the warmth of friendly company, make this event a truly immersive experience. Each room, adorned with creative decorations, offers a unique interpretation of holiday cheer, providing endless inspiration and admiration.

Embracing Community Spirit

At its core, the Christmas Reveal is a celebration of community spirit. It brings together people from all walks of life, fostering a sense of unity and shared joy. The event is a testament to the power of collaboration, as decorators, musicians, and volunteers come together to create something truly special. By participating in the Christmas Reveal, attendees not only enjoy a festive evening but also support the preservation and appreciation of a cherished local landmark.

Planning Your Visit

Tickets for the Christmas Reveal are priced at $10 each, offering an affordable way to experience the magic of the season. Whether you’re a longtime resident or a first-time visitor, this event is a wonderful opportunity to explore The Banker’s House and immerse yourself in the holiday spirit. As you wander through the beautifully decorated rooms, enjoying the live music, you’ll find yourself enchanted by the charm and elegance of this historic venue.

The Banker’s House Christmas Reveal is more than just an event; it’s a celebration of tradition, creativity, and community. Each year, it captures the essence of the holiday season, offering a delightful experience that leaves a lasting impression. As you plan your holiday festivities, make sure to include this enchanting event on your calendar. Join us for an evening of joy, laughter, and the timeless beauty of The Banker’s House, and usher in the holiday season with style and grace.

20191206_Banker House Christmas Reveal_AB_280-X2

20191206_Banker House Christmas Reveal_AB_283-X2

20191206_Banker House Christmas Reveal_AB_328-X2

20191206_Banker House Christmas Reveal_AB_340-X2

126897932_10224876283875908_1808096241418281762_o

image_50427137

image_50436353

image_50437121

image_50738945

image_50768641

IMG_3994 (1)

IMG_4005

IMG_4006

IMG_4014

IMG_4015

IMG_4019

IMG_4033

IMG_4034

IMG_4061

IMG_4063

IMG_4064

IMG_4070

IMG_4828

Christmas Reveal at BankerÕs House

20191206_Banker House Christmas Reveal_AB_263-X2

20191206_Banker House Christmas Reveal_AB_245-X2

“It’s amazing that the original roof has lasted this long,” says Banker’s House Executive Director Carolyn Jackson. “This just shows the quality and durability that was crafted into every aspect of this house.”

The project commenced in February 2024, with scaffolding gracefully adorning the iconic structure. Since then, diligent work has been underway, breathing new life into this historic landmark.

After a diligent search, the Banker’s House administration selected Gutter Guys Inc., based in Kings Mountain, NC, to oversee the roofing project.

“In today’s world, it’s unusual to find a company that’s passionate about their work,” says Banker’s House Advisory Council Member Tony Brooks. “Gutter Guys Inc. is such a company, and they have specialists that have accepted the unique challenges of this project: from metal and slate work to the intricate internal gutter system.”

The Banker’s House was built in the Second Empire Style, which was most popular between 1865 and 1900, having emerged out of the redevelopment of Paris under Napoleon III’s Second Empire – looking back to French Renaissance precedents. In fact, The Banker’s House has been dubbed as the “state’s most outstanding example of Second Empire Style.” This style is characterized by a strong central tower. elaborate ornamentation and a mansard roof.

Speaking of the mansard roof, it’s a distinctive feature defined by its double-pitched design with four slopes—two on each side. The lower slopes, often nearly vertical, are adorned with dormer windows, adding charm and functionality to the attic or upper floor. This roofing style owes its name to François Mansart, the 17th-century French architect who popularized it during the Second French Renaissance.

As The Banker’s House embarks on this monumental renovation, it welcomes donations through its “Raise the Roof for the Banker’s House” campaign. Every contribution, regardless of size, plays a vital role in supporting this costly, yet essential, endeavor.

“We have been able to secure some grant money to help offset the cost somewhat, but, of course, replacing a historic and architecturally intricate roof such as this will require a great deal of funds,” says Jackson.

While the roof is repaired, tours and events at The Banker’s House have still been going strong. House tours and special events have continued at the house during the restoration process. Next up at the house is the annual Run for the Roses Kentucky Derby Party on May 4 from 5-9 p.m. It is unclear whether the work on the house will be completed by the date of the party. But since the party is held on the facility’s lawn, it shouldn’t affect the festivities.

“Whether the roof is ready or not, the show will go on!” reassures Jackson.

If you are interested in contributing to the roofing project, click here to donate. You can also see updates on the progress of the work on Facebook and Instagram.

default

default

default

default

default

DJI_0533

DJI_0534

DJI_0540

DJI_0541

DJI_0542

DJI_0543

DJI_0545

DJI_0546

DJI_0548

DJI_0550

DJI_0552

DJI_0554

DJI_0556

DJI_0557

DJI_0563

DJI_0565

DJI_0643-Edit

DJI_0645-Edit

DJI_0646-Edit

DJI_0649-Edit

DJI_0650-Edit

DJI_0653-Edit

DJI_0654-Edit

DJI_0657-Edit

DJI_0687-Edit

DJI_0689-Edit

DJI_0691-Edit

DJI_0696-Edit

DJI_0697-Edit

DJI_0698-Edit

DJI_0702-Edit

DJI_0704-Edit

DJI_0706-Edit

DJI_0711-Edit

DJI_0714-Edit

DJI_0720-Edit

DJI_0721-Edit

DJI_0723-Edit

IMG_7683 copy

Welcome to the Banker’s House! After nearly two years of dedication and hard work, we are thrilled to unveil our brand new website. With a focus on improved navigation and an abundance of exciting information to share, we can’t wait for you to explore all that we have to offer. Stay tuned for regular updates and engaging blog posts as we keep you informed about the latest happenings at the Banker’s House.

A Fresh Design

Our new website boasts a fresh and modern design that aims to enhance user experience. From streamlined navigation to visually appealing layouts, we have carefully crafted every detail to ensure that your visit to our site is both informative and enjoyable. We would like to say a special “Thank You!” to Mike Wall at Epitome Digital Marketing for all of his hard work at bringing this new site to reality!

Enhanced Navigation

Navigating our website is now easier than ever before. With intuitive menus, clear categories, and quick access to essential information, finding what you need is a breeze. Whether you’re looking to learn more about our history, upcoming events, or booking your wedding, our improved navigation makes it simple to explore all that the Banker’s House has to offer.

More Information Coming Soon

While our new website is already packed with valuable content, we have even more in store for you. Stay tuned as we continue to update our site with additional information, resources, and exciting announcements. Be sure to check back regularly to discover the latest updates and insights from the Banker’s House.

Engaging Blog Posts

In the coming weeks, we will be launching a series of engaging blog posts to keep you informed about all the exciting happenings at the Banker’s House. From behind-the-scenes looks at our events to in-depth features on our history and heritage, our blog will be your go-to source for all things related to our venue.

Stay Connected

To stay up to date with the latest news and updates from the Banker’s House, be sure to follow us on social media. Join our online community to connect with fellow enthusiasts, share your experiences, and stay informed about upcoming events and promotions.

First up on The Banker’s House agenda for 2022 is a Cleveland County Chamber luncheon that we will be hosting on Jan. 19, 2022. This is for members of the chamber only, but we are proud to be the host location for this important event!

Each month, starting in March, The Banker’s House will also host First Friday tours on the first Friday in each month. The tours offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the amazing Banker’s House and grounds. Tours hours are from 3 – 6 p.m. and the cost is $7 at the door. And, If you can’t make it on a First Friday, you can book your private party tour for a groups of six or more people by calling Carolyn Jackson at (980) 404-0096 or emailing her at Carolyn@TheBankersHouse.org.

And then, when spring buds start blooming around the Banker’s House gardens, the countdown will be on for The Banker’s House’s yearly signature event, the Run for the Roses Kentucky Derby Party, set for Saturday, May 7, 2022. Big hats, bow ties, and bourbon are featured along with authentic Kentucky cuisine, handcrafted mint juleps, and other signature cocktails along with four big-screen TVs,  live entertainment, and fun for all! You will not want to miss the fastest two minutes in sports brought to you, right here in Shelby, NC!

Later in May, we hope to host an event for Historic Preservation Month. Details on that event will be posted closer to the time.

In the spring or summer months we also hope to host a talk by Joe DePriest and Dr. June Hadden Hobbs, authors of a new book titled Tales and Tombstones of Sunset Cemetery: Tracing Lives and Memorial Customs in a Southern Graveyard.  Sunset Cemetery is the resting place for several people with ties to The Banker’s House, so we know those who love The Banker’s House and Shelby history will love hearing more about this new book. Tales and Tombstones also has photos by Hal Bryant. You may remember that Joe and Hal worked together before on the book that traces the history of The Banker’s House called Voices in Time: Stories of The Banker’s House.

Summertime brings the annual Banker’s House Summer Camps. These camps are funded by the Kentucky Derby Party (see above). The money raised at the party will fund camps for rising fifth graders from across Cleveland County! Camp-goers learn – through hands-on activities – how to be an involved and productive citizen of the community. Etiquette, banking, the Foothills Farmers Market, shopping local, music, art, and much more are all nicely packaged into a week-long camp kids are sure to remember.

The fall will bring gorgeous colors to our spectacular ginkgo tree and other foliage on The Banker’s House grounds. We hope to have another special event during these fresh autumn days, but we are often booked with weddings and special occasions during this time. Be sure to keep a watch on our social media sites for any updates on events that may get scheduled closer to that time.

Finally, in December, The Banker’s House’s Christmas Reveal will help get you get your holidays off to a festive start! This annual tradition is held each year on the first Friday of December – which will be Dec. 2, 2022. Participants will have the opportunity to be enchanted by the unique decorations both inside and outside of The Banker’s House and the adjoining barn/carriage house. Each room or area is sponsored and decorated by local businesses, individuals or groups. It will be an incredible way of finishing out a terrific year of activities at The Banker’s House.

We hope you will make plans now to join us for any or all of our events throughout the year. And, don’t forget, you can create your OWN special memories at The Banker’s House by booking the house, the barn/carriage house, or the entire property for your special 2022 event!

When my sister Lydia Blanton Matthews and I were asked to offer a salient family Christmas memory in this space—the Banker’s House blog—our minds were flooded with the “impossible-to-choose-from” cornucopia of more than 50 Christmases celebrated in there. We were the luckiest of all the residents, as our parents lived in the house longest: from their marriage in 1937 until our father’s death there in 2001 and our mother’s, in 2006.

The Christmas of 2000, the millennial year, was the last our father would experience. Weakened and frail, less than a month before his death, he came to a window on the expansive second floor of the Banker’s House to delight in the vision that is shown in the photograph at left. For someone who had championed his community and built an even more robust banking institution than his forebears before him, this was a perfect coda and end point to a life well lived. He did not see another Christmas.

The photo shows what our father saw. And I, Catherine, was present beside him to witness his joy. It was a specially arranged “drive by” viewing for him to see the First National Bank’s entry in the much-anticipated Shelby Christmas Parade of 2000. Not only did it snow gloriously on cue, but also Danny Denton and his daughter, Holly Denton Wall—both highly valued and esteemed First National employees at the time—were up top. They were both dressed in Victorian finery and driving a horse and period rig, which were the property of our father’s great bird-hunting friend and my high school classmate, W. Jackson Arey, Jr.

Jack, a horse enthusiast (with the family farm, Twin Chimneys, offering a fine stable), had in fact bought the carriage and tack from our father in the late 1990s. They had formerly been the proud possessions and mode of locomotion, originally in the 1890s, for our father’s grandfather, the first Blanton family occupant of the Banker’s House, Burwell Blanton. And then of my father’s uncle, Charles Coleman Blanton—“Uncle Charlie,” who is wonderfully chronicled in Joe DePriest’s book, Voices in Time: Stories of the Banker’s House. Possibly our most revered and formidable Shelby ancestor, himself a banker, Charles owned and lived in the Banker’s House for many years prior to his death in 1944. Even in my childhood, the carriage had been lovingly stored in the Carriage House, now the catering kitchen in the restored Banker’s House barn.

So much has come back around to its origins as this photo and my memory here record. Lydia and I are proud to say that, in addition, Holly Denton Wall has recently come full circle, too, as a new member of the Banker’s House Advisory Council. The council is made up of committed, local leaders who guide the property in all its now “for the public” undertakings. Lydia and I are very proud and grateful for this legacy and the place that the Banker’s House has won in the hearts of our beloved hometown.

Walk through the front gate at Shelby’s historic Sunset Cemetery, which dates from 1841, and stop at a tall obelisk reaching for the sky.

This impressive stone marks the grave of Jesse Jenkins, founder of Shelby’s first bank. For some visitors familiar with his story, this mark is also a vivid reminder of how Sunset Cemetery and the Banker’s House are linked. Jesse, who died in 1889, built the Second Empire house at the insistence of his wife, Hattie. They were the first residents. Hattie is buried in a San Diego cemetery. The story of how she talked her husband into building the unique three-story house on North Lafayette Street is told in my book, Voices in Time: Stories of the Banker’s House.

Many of the people who appear in that history – all with connections to the Banker’s House – are buried in Sunset Cemetery. People like Charles Coleman Blanton, who would become president of the bank that Jesse founded and eventually live in the house on North Lafayette. Charles’ brother, George W. Blanton Sr., is there along with his son, George Blanton Jr. and many other family members.

Sunset Cemetery is also the final resting place for people who worked at the bank, which became First National Bank, and its customers. Bank clerk Ora Eskridge, named for Charles Blanton’s wife, Ora Brewster, has slept in Sunset Cemetery since she was killed when the roof of the temporary bank collapsed in August, 1928. Near Ora’s marker is the grave of her friend, Emma Frick, who died in 1928 from injuries sustained in a fire at the Central Hotel which she was living. The hotel was part of the bank building and had moved into temporary quarters across Warren Street during restoration work. (The rebuilt hotel would be named the Hotel Charles, after Charles Coleman Blanton.)
Two friends, both of whom would have attended social functions at the Banker’s House, died less than six months apart in tragic incidents right across the same street from each other. And then they became neighbors in Sunset Cemetery.

These stories, along with many others, are told in a soon-to-be-published book Tales and Tombstones of Sunset Cemetery: Tracing Lives and Memorial Customs in a Southern Graveyard. The co-authors are myself and June Hadden Hobbs. June is professor of English and director of undergraduate research at Gardner-Webb University. She is the author of many articles on tombstones and American women’s hymns and former editor of Markers, the international journal for the Association of Gravestone Studies. I am a retired journalist who worked with The Shelby Star and The Charlotte Observer.

Tales and Tombstones is on the fall book list of McFarland Publishers, but no release date has been set. Preorders are being accepted on the McFarland website, along with Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Assisting us in this endeavor were a wide variety of wedding professionals – each providing their expertise to the photo shoot, and each using the photos to promote their own separate businesses and services!

Jill Schwarzkopf  of Realities Photography led the team. Having photographed incredible venues such as The Biltmore House,  Jill had happened upon The Banker’s House and found in it a plethora of places to shoot. Just take a look at the slideshow below to see how she uses natural light and the house’s beautiful spaces to create photographs can truly be classified as art.

Models Meri-Morgan Lochner and Austin Ivory Phelps played the roles of bride and groom for our shoot. Both are amazing young people from our community who have participated and won many state, national and even international contests. We were so lucky to have their assistance in showing just how gorgeous The Banker’s House can be.

Carolina Bridal and Alterations provided the lovely gowns for the “bride” and the spiffy tuxedo for the “groom.” The Banker’s House is proud to have a long-standing relationship with Carolina Bridal through the company’s ongoing sponsorship each year for our Christmas Reveal.  Carolina Bridal & Alterations is a full-service bridal boutique featuring bridal, bridesmaid, prom, special occasion and pageant attire along with tuxedos and special occasion accessories.

Holly’s Flowers supplied the beautiful bouquets and decorative flowers for our photo shoot. In business since 1976, Holly’s has been at its current location in Uptown Shelby for more than 32 years. We are so grateful to Holly’s for their help in providing exquisite red roses for our annual “Run for the Roses” Kentucky Derby Party.

And everybody loves wedding food! Our photoshoot “reception” was catered by Dressing on the Side. We have had a long-time association with this wonderful business, and they certainly came through for our photoshoot – just as they always do for all of the special events that they cater!

Finally, Lindsey Taylor of Almost Heaven Salon & Spa applied the “bride’s” makeup and created a beautiful hairstyle for the “special day.” Almost Heaven Salon was founded in 2018 and has assembled a team of professionals dedicated to offering high-quality services in all areas of beauty and bodily modification.

The day of our photoshoot dawned with light rain, but all of the participants were thrilled when the early afternoon skies cleared way to provide gorgeous and exquisite lighting for our team. Many thanks to all who participated! We hope to do other such shoots in the future!