my favorite room
Story By Hazel Jump, Photos By Jodi Hutchison

There’s no place like home for the holidays, and for Robin Yates, Christmas and the Yuletide season are most special, for it is then that the entire family comes together to celebrate. And it is in the family’s living room - Robin’s favorite room in the home that she and her husband, David, have owned since 1995 - that they gather each year.

“This whole house is really special to me, but the living room is my favorite for a number of reasons,” Robin says. “My sister was married in this room, and it is here that we get together and have sing-a-longs. It’s where we have entertained so many times, and where we were able to get all the family together for our last family gathering with my mother present. It was Mother‘s last Christmas, and we had a family picture made.”

Robin‘s mother, Rosalee Robinson Martin, died in January 2004, after battling cancer.

The living room is also a favorite because it serves as a music room. “It’s where we sing and play the piano,” Robin says, “and I also have my music students in here. And my vocal students can stand in the foyer and hear the piano or watch some of the other students.”

The Yates home was built by Clay Kenward, who later sold it, and it had several owners before David and Robin bought it in 1995. They’d been living on Cloverdale Cove since 1978. “We both thought it would be forever,” Robin says, “and when I told David I’d like to move, he got as white as a sheet.” That changed, however, when the couple, driving around one afternoon, turned onto Melton Circle.

“We saw this house, she says, “and loved the location and the street and the pool. It’s been great for the kids and grandkids. We have 4,700 square feet, and we have five bedrooms and four and a half baths, and we live all over the house. There’s room for the grandkids and both David andI have offices upstairs.”

The house is furnished in the French Provincial style, with antiques purchased by Robin and numerous pieces inheritedfrom Robin’s family members. The living room, always a point of interest to those who enter it, is transformed at this time of year into a magical land of its own. It is entered from a large foyer festooned with garlands of greenery and ribbon, where a 12-foot Christmas tree, decorated with ornaments given to Robin by her students through the years, is stationed next to a large Santa, made by friend and fellow musician Pat Qualls Taylor. He is robed in green velvet, his velvet hood trimmed with real fur, with miniature toys in his sack.

Christmas is everywhere in the living room, which is dominated by a white grand piano, purchased originally by Abe and Marna Blindman from Cecil Barnett’s Modern Music Store. Pat Qualls Taylor bought it from the Blindmans, and David bought it from her as a 20th anniversary gift for Robin. Above it in a frame are two small hair combs encrusted with gold and pearls, and an oval mirror with a beveled edge, from the home of Judge Patterson in Osceola, this is just one of several gilt mirrors in the room.

In a corner opposite the piano is a large mahogany radio cabinet that belonged to Robin’s grandfather, Henry Robinson, who was in the grocery business here. One of Robin’s most treasured pieces, it houses her collection of delicate snow globes. Next to it is a music box of mahogany. Encased in glass is a skating scene, with the skaters moving to the strains of traditional Christmas carols. The music box waspresented to them by David’s employees at the Jonesboro Prosthetic and Orthotic Laboratory. A Swarovski crystal collection, begun after David brought her a crystal Scottie from Germany, is housed in a cabinet nearby. This collection stays in the cabinet year ‘round. Other collections, begun years ago, are made up of family pieces, gifts and pieces that Robin purchased herself.

A Christmas village of Lenox china was a gift of her mother, and a Lenox Nativity set came from a local shop formerly owned by Carolyn Frierson. There’s a grouping of signed Lynn Haney Santas, and some wooden angel figures from Germany, a gift from friend Carol Branscum.

A marble-topped table displays an English tea garden by Lladro Porcelain, over 40 years old and a permanent fixture in the room, and a mahogany etagere in each corner, which Robin found in Norman Clay’s shop at Garden Point, near Etowah, hold additional Lladro pieces, including a collection of bells, as well as a display of Hummel figures. A second bell collection of Waterford crystal – once her mother’s – are also displayed.

An antique Empire sofa of mahogany is upholstered in a flame stitch of blue and rose on an ivory background, and is stationed next to a table on which is placed a grouping of miniature decorative objects, many of them encrusted with jewels, by Jay Strongwater. Over the sofa is an oil painting of a Paris scene by C. Kiefer, also purchased in New Orleans. Three tiered tables of mahogany and a large gold leaf mirror were inherited from her grandmother, Arabella Barton Robinson, daughter of P. Ca. Barton, founder of the Barton Lumber Company.
Miniature busts of J. S. Bach, Chopin and Mozart, placed on a table near a pair of side chairs, are part of the room’s permanent accessories.

Robin retired in 1998 after 18 years as minister of music at Jonesboro’s First Baptist Church, and in 2001 after 14 years as choral director at MacArthur Jr. High School. She also spent six years in Caraway and five and a half years at Valley View, working with K-12 students. She has taught voice privately since 1969.

“None of this was planned,” she says of her Christmas extravaganza. “It just all came together. I have lots of help. I couldn’t do it, otherwise.” She adds that it takes over a week to put up, but less than that to take down, and when the holiday is over, it goes back in storage.

“It’s hard to say what is my favorite,” she says. “I would never be able to replace the sentiment it holds.

“I love to share my home. I love to entertain family and friends. Jonesboro is a wonderful place to grow up in. There’s no place like it for raising children and grandchildren.

“We have been very blessed.”