Historical Italianate Mansion with Fine Dining

Once a rural refuge for Pennsylvania Quakers, High Point turned into a manufacturing powerhouse thanks to its prime location on the North Carolina Railroad. Hosiery magnate John Hampton Adams became one of the most successful businessmen in town, and in 1918, he and his wife built their dream house on Main Street. Today, their renovated estate is home to the J. H. Adams Inn, an Italian Renaissance–style mansion on the National Register of Historic Places.

The inn's green-tiled roof, ionic columns, and pediment-crowned archways are reminiscent of a Mediterranean estate. The Old-World feel continues inside, where a grand staircase ascends amid chandeliers and rich moldings. The Gallery room showcases locally designed furnishings, and the Kincaid suite takes up the mansion’s original master bedroom, which adjoins a parlor with a carved fireplace. Onsite spa services range from a basic scrub ($25) to all-natural microdermabrasion ($65).

You'll have to step outside to take in one of the property's most elegant architectural details, the central courtyard, where stone-inlay flooring forms a massive compass rose. Hampton’s, the inn's restaurant, offers terrace seating along this plaza, in addition to an elegant dining room. Chef Steve Smid's seasonal menu features roast duck breast, seared crab cakes, and grilled Black Angus fillets.

Piedmont Triad Region, North Carolina: Furniture Hub near Historical Museums

For more than a century, High Point has been known for its high-end furniture makers. The first shop opened in the late 19th century, and showrooms still line Main Street today, alongside boutiques and Victorian manors. Two of the region’s oldest residences, from 1786 and 1801, house the High Point Museum's collection of historical rifles and antique Furby dolls.

The International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, about a half-hour northeast of the inn, was built around the original Woolworth counter where students from North Carolina A&T famously protested segregation with a sit-in. In Winston-Salem, 20 miles northwest of High Point, the historical district of Old Salem brims with 18th-century Moravian buildings. Here, costumed interpreters from the Old Salem Museum help kids to write with quills or try Scherenschnitte, German paper cutting, on most Tuesdays and Thursdays.

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