This unique historical house in Kernersville, North Carolina, has often been described as “the strangest home in the world”. Built in 1880 by artist and interior designer Jule Gilmer Körner to showcase his work, Körner’s Folly is a living catalogue of the biggest interior trends of the Victorian era.
This includes 15 fireplaces of different styles, a network of staircases, hidden passages and trap doors. Wondering what that looks like? Click or scroll through to explore this wonder of workmanship and design…
It may not look unusual on the outside but Körner’s Folly is an architectural treasure chest of weird and wonderful details that have turned the home into a popular museum and tourist destination. Intended as a showroom for his blossoming interior decoration business, Jule Gilmer Körner began work on the Victorian-era house in 1878 and spent the rest of his life updating and renovating the building to showcase his new ideas.
As a result, no two doorways or windows are exactly alike. There are 22 rooms spread out over three storeys and seven levels, plus it was built with eight different sizes of bricks, which were made on the premises.
As the grandson of Joseph Kerner, who immigrated from the Black Forest region of Germany in 1785 and gave his name to the town of Kernersville, Jule Körner was destined to make his mark on the world. He's seen here outside the house with his wife Polly Masten (whom he married in 1886) and their two children, Gilmer and Doré.
He studied art and painting in Indiana under American landscape artist John Elwood Bundy and became hugely successful painting large-scale advertisements for Bull Durham Tobacco around the time he constructed Körner’s Folly. He set up the Reuben Rink Decorating and House Furnishing Company in 1880, using the quirky home as a living catalogue for the flourishing decorating business.
People wondered whether the 27-year-old Jule had his feet firmly planted on the ground as they watched his creation taking shape and were said to make fun of him behind his back. It was a cousin of Körner who inadvertently came up with the name of the house when he was passing one day and remarked: “Twenty years from now, this house will surely be Jule Körner’s folly.”
The comment made its way back to Körner, but instead of causing offence, he was charmed by the description and decided to call the house Körner’s Folly from then on, even setting it in tiles outside the front door which remains to this day.
In many ways, Körner was ahead of his time. Using his home as a marketing tool, he offered his wealthy customers the opportunity of inspecting his workmanship in a real-life setting rather than simply viewing them in the catalogues and printed advertisements, that were more usual at the time.
Körner organised social events at the house, where well-heeled neighbours and potential customers could mingle, at the same time marvelling over the infinite variety and combinations of wallpaper and curtains, carpets and tapestries that were on display, and all for sale. A forerunner of interior showrooms and Instagram marketplaces for sure!
Not one room in the house is quite like another, and it has been called the 'Victorian-era IKEA'. Some are elegant and spacious with high ceilings like the reception room seen here, while in other rooms, like the playroom, the ceilings are so low you can barely stand up straight.
Styles could vary within the same room. But while it might have seemed like a huge mismatch of different aesthetics to some, together it represented a comprehensive catalogue of design features and furnishings to showcase Körner's décor inventory.
The reception room retains much of its original character to this day, including the so-called love seats, which faced opposite directions so the sitters were face to face.
When the whimsical structure was first built, the reception room on the second floor was originally Jule’s studio and the home's master bedroom. In fact, the couple’s two children were born in this room.
It featured a classical Greco-Roman-inspired mural along the crown moulding, painted by Italian fresco artist Quintini, who worked with Jule on his many projects.
The entire interior was a showcase of Jule's skill and artistry. Murals were painted on walls and ceilings and even on the undersides of staircases. There were no less than 15 fireplaces throughout the house, fashioned in different colours and designs; plus carved woodwork exhibiting a wide range of different techniques including roping, beading, and egg and dart coving.
The sewing room or den, seen here, where the ladies of the house would gather to mend clothing or create fancy needlework, displays some lovely examples of these techniques. Elsewhere in the home, the wainscoting alone contains around 10,000 feet of bead moulding, all of which was carved by hand, says Curbed.com.
The Folly’s rooms were connected by a maze of corridors and staircases, embedded with a network of ventilation shafts, fireplaces and flues to enable Körner's heating and ventilation system.
“He was way ahead of his time in terms of engineering, installing a ventilation system with underground tunnels to enable the cool air to rise through the same system that pulled the heat through the fireplaces,” Connie Russell from Körner’s Folly Foundation told PBS North Carolina. Hence the existence of trap doors and passages to maintain the system.
“I have fond memories of just wandering around the house,” says Bill Donnell, a Körner descendant. “It was a treasure trove of places to hide. It was an adventure just to find out where the tunnels led to. Every room sparked the imagination.”
Jule Körner feared fire and instead initially used Franklin stoves in all the fireplaces of the home, taking advantage of the Folly’s unique design and openings for airflow. In fact, none of the fireplaces in the Folly ever held an open flame.
He later purchased a steam furnace from a hotel in a nearby town. The steam pipes ran underneath and throughout the house, which led to various radiators. This fireplace in the foyer, seen here decked out for Christmas, displays its original American Encaustic tiles
Constantly changing to keep up with Körner’s creative output, the house was remodelled twice, once in the 1890s and again in the early 1900s.
The stables were originally located on the right of the home and the original 11 rooms on the left, but when Körner married Polly Masten in 1886, she insisted the horses were moved away from the house. So, the stables were converted into a further 11 rooms, including the foyer, dining room, breakfast room (seen here), the sewing room, library, long room and a dressing room for Polly.
Jule reportedly spent $17,000 (£13.6k), which would be around $600,000 (£480k) in today’s money, on the second major renovation between 1903 and 1908, after his children left home for school.
The renovations were unveiled at a huge graduation party in 1908 when his daughter graduated from Salem College and his son graduated from Trinity College (later known as Duke University). You can glimpse some of the changes, pictured here in the Reception Room the year before, on Thanksgiving Day, 1907.
A few years later, the Folly was the scene of a happy family celebration: the wedding of Doré Körner when she married Drewry Lanier Donnell in 1916. The ceremony took place on the North Lawn followed by a reception in the Reception Room on the second floor.
These days the Folly is still a popular venue for weddings, and with its cupid-inspired murals and so-called ‘kissing corners’, where young married couples could enjoy alone time in the busiest of gatherings, it seems like Jule Körner had romance at the heart of his design.
Körner was constantly dividing up rooms or repurposing them; like the child-sized playroom pictured, which was created by chopping the 16-foot-tall smoking room in half and creating two playrooms for his children in the top half.
The children’s playrooms, at five-foot-five high, have the lowest ceilings in the house and sit above the foyer. Jule also installed a pivot window so that Polly could not only hear her children at play but could keep an eye on them.
Jule was a prolific designer, and even though many furnishings were lost or destroyed in the folly’s many reinventions, still about 90 per cent are original. He shifted furniture and moved paintings from one room to another and back again, tirelessly creating whimsical statues and carvings to decorate every nook and cranny.
He gave his creations interesting names too. The so-called 'caryatid' visible to the left of the doorway in this image is a carving of a draped female figure, used as a pillar to support the entablature of a Greek-style building. The male figure on the other side, not visible, is called an 'Atlantid', according to Körner’s Folly Foundation.
One of the most striking rooms of the entire house is the private theatre Körner installed on the third floor in the former billiards room. Jule’s multi-talented wife Polly ran the Juvenile Lyceum Theater, which she opened in 1896, teaching music and the performing arts to local children in this beautifully decorated room on the upper level, known as Cupid’s Park Theatre.
The six cherub-themed murals which adorn the walls and ceiling were painted by Caesar Milch, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Art in Berlin who worked with Körner, painting murals in almost every room in the house, and residing with the family for 35 years until he died in 1922. Körner painted the Dutch seascapes on the staircase, inspired by his travels in Europe.
Thought to be the first private 'little theatre' in the United States, today it stages puppet shows and other events. But in its day, it was at the forefront of the Little Theatre Movement which was exploding across the States. You can just make out Jule and Polly in the bottom right of this archive shot of the theatre.
And as if that wasn't enough drama, there have been reports that the house might be haunted due to lights mysteriously going on and off in Cupid’s Theatre. Some say they have been tapped three times when they were standing on the stage, while one local resident insists she has seen a little girl standing on the porch late at night.
Staying with the spooky theme, how about a coven of witches? Jule displayed his sense of fun and mischief when he installed ‘Witches’ Corner’ on the front porch, which features a black cast-iron pot where guests were encouraged to leave a coin as they entered the house.
The story goes that bad witches, ghosts and other nasty spirits would be so fixated on the coins, that the guest would be able to enter without bringing along any other unwanted visitors into the house. The European tradition dates back several centuries and was probably inspired by stories Jule had heard at his German grandfather’s knee.
While touring the campus, you might notice Aunt Dealy's Cottage. This was originally the living quarters of Clara, a formerly-enslaved woman who raised Jule after his mother Judith died in 1853 when he was just two years old.
She often called Jule and his four siblings “dearie” as a term of affection, which became “dealie” when one of the children had problems pronouncing “dearie”. Eventually, she became known as Aunt Dealy and was a second mother to Jule.
Once Jule built Körner’s Folly, she moved in with the family and looked after the house. In 1885, Jule built a cottage for her on the grounds, with the same flair and attention to detail he had used throughout the Folly.
Clara, whose mother had been sold to slave traders and taken further south, remained on the property looking after the family until she died in 1896 at the age of 76. She never married and when she died, Jule posted an announcement of her death in the regional newspaper.
Her funeral service was performed at Körner’s Folly and Jule had intended to bury her in the Moravian Church where the rest of his family were buried. When Jule's request was denied in light of segregation laws at that time, Jule bought a piece of land next door and laid her to rest near the entrance to the Körner family plot, placing a headstone with a beautiful inscription to her memory.
After Jule died in 1924, followed by his wife Polly ten years later, his daughter Doré used the home as a summer house. The house was used for several enterprises, including a funeral home, an antique shop and an architect’s office, before being boarded up after World War ll.
It sat neglected and forgotten for decades, eventually falling into serious disrepair. Tree roots grew up through the floor in the Summer Kitchen, and the building was earmarked for demolition. Thankfully, it was saved for the nation by descendants of Jule and Polly in the 1970s, who teamed up with 26 local families to form Körner’s Folly Foundation, which has restored the house and established it as a museum and historical attraction.
The house has undergone several structural improvements, including new foundations, the replacement of its three porches, and a new roof, along with smaller restoration projects, like the repair of the historic skylight, which O.Henry Magazine claims is one of the first skylights in a private home in America.
The landmark home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, ensuring its proper care and authenticity in restoration. The Foundation has also turned its attention to the interiors, focusing on restoring and preserving Körner’s Victorian décor and furnishings.
The Rose Room was originally green, then beige, before Jule painted it pink for Doré’s 16th birthday. It was one of the first rooms to undergo serious interior restoration work. The goal was to bring it back to its 1905 condition, reinstating plaster mouldings and sanding down the pine floors which had been painted grey over the years.
“The restoration is a bit like being a history detective,” says Dale Pennington, director of the Körner’s Folly Foundation. “As we start to peel back the layers of paint, read through family letters, and look back at old photographs, we begin to gain a better understanding of not only the room itself, but also the people who lived, breathed, and slept there.”
Restoration of the primary bedroom used by Jule and Polly Alice took place in 2020, restoring the room to its original grandeur and the colour palette in place at the height of the Körner family activity in the home between 1890 and 1910.
“One of our most important duties as a non-profit organisation is to deliver our mission of restoring and preserving 'Jule Körner's Odd House' for the education and enjoyment of the public,” the Foundation says. Seeing these rooms in their bright hues certainly gives life to the old black and white images we usually see of Victorian homes, proving they were a daring bunch!
We even get to glimpse what life would have been like for the kitchen staff in this renovated summer kitchen which was added by the Körners around 1910 to use during the hot summer months.
It is the only exterior section of the house not made of brick, as the thinner walls and numerous windows allow for better ventilation. There is also a fascinating display of kitchen utensils that would have been used at the time.
True to the spirit of its creator, who was still planning changes for the home, leaving renovation plans on his desk just before he died, Körner's Folly remains a work in progress. The house is still being restored, while its contents continue to amaze and inform its many visitors.
Once called the "The man of a thousand peculiarities", Jule Körner would have approved. "I think he would be amazed that it is still standing and that people are still interested in coming to see it,” said John Wolf, a descendant of the family.
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