“I noticed a blue jay and a rare red-headed woodpecker, my two favorites. They must have come to bid me farewell.” – Eddie Goff.
For nineteen years, our home served as a gateway to the world. We shared meals in a dining room decorated in warm, earthy tones inspired by Greece and Italy, complete with views of the Parthenon. A glance toward the kitchen transported us to Israel’s Eastern Gate. In essence, we experienced these beautiful scenes without ever leaving home.
This was Eddie’s place. It started when he bought the townhouse almost 27 years ago. He’d been waiting for one to open up in Quail Hollow Village, and he had a vision. Basically, he wanted the walls to reflect the places he’d been or wanted to go, so he commissioned a painter. Some of Eddie’s own photos inspired the murals. His cousin Cindy pitched in and helped him decorate, even sponge-painting the kitchen walls. It was the ideal spot too, with friends Rosalie and Fred beside him in a two-family unit.
The wall in the study features a picture Eddie took on a cruise ship. Maui’s verdant foliage is a backdrop to the water’s azure blue. On the other wall is the moon, another inspiring vision from that cruise. It brings back fond memories of the trip Eddie took with his mother.
A palm tree towering over the door complements the Hawaii scene, a gateway to a world of paradise.
Before leaving the study, the view from the desk through the sliding glass doors is pure South Carolina bliss. The ponds melt into the vanishing point at the pedestrian bridge. The Saluda River lies in the distance. Sometimes it flows gently. But when the dam releases water from upstream, it flows swiftly, as if eager to reach the ocean. It connects with the Broad River in Columbia and forms the Congaree, before emptying into the Santee and finally reaching the Atlantic Ocean. Ducks would often take a free ride down the river, an amusing sight. Those windows were our gateway to the natural world outside.
The living room, with its potted palmetto trees, also anchored us in South Carolina. The screened-in back porch, high above the ground, offered a front-row seat to nature. We watched hummingbirds, blue jays, Carolina wrens, and Indigo buntings dart through the dangling branches of the River Birch trees. It was here that Eddie noticed a rare red-headed woodpecker and a blue jay on our final days—his two favorites—and, as a sentiment, thought they must have flown in to bid him farewell before he said goodbye to Quail Hollow.
Floor-to-ceiling murals in every room provided a unique sanctuary, a gateway to the world.
Eddie’s vision didn’t stop with the downstairs; it wound its way up the stairs and into the main bedroom and bath. That’s where we transitioned to Africa. Bold diamond patterns alternating between zebra and leopard stripes in the master bath wowed me when I first saw it. And the tiki hut pattern at the shower, complete with palm fronds, was over the top. The bedroom was painted emerald green, which, from up there with the large windows and tops of the river birch, made it feel as though you were in a treehouse, especially on the upper deck.
Travel Note
Eddie and I got married on the sandy beach of Ambergris Caye, Belize, outside of the Victoria House Resort & Spa. The date was May 25, 2007. The popular song then was Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita.” Of course, I’d seen the interior of Eddie’s townhome before we returned from Belize. But almost as soon as we returned home from our island dream, he mobilized with the National Guard and was gone for what turned out to be four years! We were happy that he had the amazing experiences that followed, first at Walter Reed Army Hospital and then at U.S. Central Command. Incredibly good fortune!
But there I was, in a new environment that was pretty different. All of my life, I’d been comfortable surrounded by creamy white with a splash of color here and there. But over time, I began to see the murals as our gateway to the world. And with Eddie gone during those four years, I wasn’t navigating this unique home entirely on my own.
In Eddie’s absence, and with the help of neighbors, I adapted to what I endearingly called his ‘bachelor pad.’
Fred wrapped the pipes for the winter freeze, rescued turtles caught underneath the house, and did all sorts of fix-it jobs. Rosalie picked up limbs constantly shedding from the river birch trees. She also kept our mailbox from overflowing when we were traveling. We went to dinner together all the time and laughed more than the birch trees shed branches. I am forever grateful to them for being there. Our neighbors on the other side, Guy and Debby, were a comfort, too. Great cooks, they shared delicious food from time to time, especially sweet treats.
Later, a small renovation brought welcome updates and a few regrets too.
Even though I preferred creamy white, I grew accustomed to the unusual tastes, with a few exceptions. Even after fifteen years, I never quite warmed up to the bright red at the front door, followed by mauve in the living room. And I really wanted at least the bedroom brightened up. Specifically, I never warmed to the life-size wooden sarcophagus. It was, well, a little too different.
Taking advantage of the renovation, I broached the subject of colors.
“Could we change the front hall and the bedroom to white?”
“Yes, that would be ok,” he said.
And, oh, one more thing: “Could we let go of the sarcophagus?”
As soon as Eddie nodded approval, I hauled the heavy sarcophagus out the front door and hoisted it into the back of the truck before he could reconsider. I’ll never forget the Goodwill employee’s face when he peeked into the truck bed and saw a full-sized sarcophagus lying diagonally across it. Half the store gathered round as he lugged it inside. But lo and behold, it found a new home fast—by the time we passed back by that afternoon, it was already gone!
The Parthenon was the perfect backdrop for Christmas cards, and my grandfather’s buffet fit in nicely with our gateway to the world.
Eddie’s vision and an artist’s talent turned his townhouse into a unique sanctuary. A nursing student with an art degree painted the murals in her spare time. With a key to the house, she came and went and, over nine months, transformed the townhouse into a series of beautiful works of art. Eddie said she used a T-square and pencil to draw the designs first.
As for the changes we made during the renovation, we both found that, with a few exceptions, we had loved the original colors better. The deep emerald green bedroom actually worked better with the other colors. It had been especially beautiful, like shimmering liquid, when the light hit it at certain times of the day. The mauve color in the living room, toned down one notch in the same color collection, became an unintentional pink. And we sorely missed the strikingly tall mirrors that we removed to update the fireplace.
Still, there were a couple of things I didn’t miss—first, the red entryway and, not surprisingly, the sarcophagus.
While I was relieved to see the sarcophagus go, Eddie missed it—and so did others. When our nephew, Nathan, later heard I’d taken it to Goodwill, he lamented that he would have taken it off our hands. But by getting rid of it, I had likely saved his future marriage, I replied. The story didn’t end there… In a touching gesture, Nathan recently gave us another sarcophagus to celebrate the house closing. It’s one that I can live with, only a few inches tall. We display it proudly as a sentimental reminder.
Our lifelong friends Dwight and Jennifer Bundrick moved to Quail Hollow after Eddie, and we’ll miss seeing them. They and their family modeled for The Story Behind the Most Beautiful Family Portrait, a challenge that helped me grow as a photographer—and one I’m deeply grateful for. Across the street, it was also a joy to see our neighbor Sienna grow over the years from a precocious child into an intelligent and beautiful young college student.
Finally, we’re thankful for all of ‘The Village People,’ who became like family.
Leaving Quail Hollow meant saying goodbye to nineteen years of memories, almost twenty-seven for Eddie—from dining in ancient Rome to the shores of Maui. When Eddie saw the blue jay and that rare red-headed woodpecker fluttering outside our porch one last time, we knew this chapter was complete. We had lost our full-sized sarcophagus, but now had a miniature version at our new place. We packed up our stories, the rest of our belongings, and carried our ‘gateway to the world’ into the next grand adventure.
This story is dedicated to my husband Eddie, with love.
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