Built in the heart of (Winston-) Salem in 1873…

The original Shaffner House was described by the newspaper as the “Mansion on Main Street”. Owners Caroline Fries (1839-1922) and Frances Shaffner were Moravians who grew up in Salem, NC. He was the son of a potter, she the daughter of a wealthy industrialist.

Caroline Fries didn’t want a 1700s wooden home like her Moravian parents and neighbors had. At the time, Paris was being rebuilt so her uncle built one of the best examples of French Second Empire architecture in North Carolina.

Caroline studied and taught at Salem College (the oldest women’s college in the nation) just down the road from where the Mansion would be built. She cared for soldiers during the Civil War (1861-1965), married the man her dad put through medical school in 1865 (John Frances Shaffner, who served as the town’s doctor, and later became Salem’s longest serving mayor), and had four surviving children.

Mansion on Main (428 S. Main Street in Winston-Salem, NC) is the original SHAFFNER HOUSE. What many locals refer to as the Shaffner House (off Salem Parkway) was built for the son of Caroline and Francis.

BONUS: much of the original Fries/Shaffner House remains intact, including the stunning spiral staircase and three plaster medallions—two above chandeliers and one at the top of the staircase. The largest home in Old Salem, MoM offers five bedrooms (four available), a library, salon, two stunning kitchens, a media room, and a beautiful dining room added in 1913. It sits on land that previously served at a courthouse, theater, pottery shop, and Civil War hospital, and was acquired when the legendary wagon-manufacturer Nissen defaulted on his property note.