Initiated in 1979 by Sam Ragan, Weymouth President and NC Poet Laureate, and the Friends of Weymouth Board of Directors, it was a natural addition to the literary tradition established by James Boyd. Boyd was a writer of significance who, together with his wife Katharine, hosted several literary greats such as Thomas Wolfe, Paul Green, Maxwell Perkins, Sherwood Anderson, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others.
For each writer, we provide a room with a desk, bed, reading chair, blankets and a pillow. Linens (sheets, pillow case, towels and face cloths), food and beverages, toiletries, and travel expenses are the participant’s responsibility. The writers’ area of the house has a full kitchen; three baths; a sitting room; covered veranda; and four bedrooms. In order to preserve the peace and solitude in the writers’ section, we’ve limited wifi access to the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame study.
The Boyd House at Weymouth is a 9,000 s.f. Georgian mansion set on 26 acres. Though there is no charge for the residencies, we do ask for donations so that we may keep the house and grounds in good repair and available for our writers for years to come. Suggested minimum donation: $150/week.
Please email any questions to residency@weymouthcenter.org
Our shoes clamor in empty chambers,
room after room, and the sunlight’s
whole animal is asleep on bare floors.
Beyond the undraped windows, gardens crouch
deranged beneath their wild invaders.
Only the high pines and the willows
have kept to their places under the sky.
The vast hollows of the house whine, beginning
to know they will be filled…”
~Betty Adcock, from her poem “Written at the Country Mansion of the 1920s, Now Partially restored as a Retreat for Poets.”