A cigarette maker takes up the Penns'.

• Author: Richter, Chris
• Position: PEOPLE

Calvin Phelps sees a bit of himself in Jeff Penn. Like that fellow, whose family started Penn Tobacco in Reidsville in the 1870s, Phelps is a tobacco executive. His Mocksville-based Renegade Holdings Inc. and its subsidiaries make cigarettes and filters as well as refurbish and sell cigarette-manufacturing and -packing machinery.

And like Penn, he enjoys traveling and collecting souvenirs. Penn built Chinqua-Penn Plantation outside Reidsville in the mid-1920s and filled the 40,000-square-foot home with European and Asian art and furniture. There's a replica of King Tut's golden chair. A stone horse dates to eighth-century Japan.

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"My wife, Lisa, and I felt a kindred spirit with the Penns," says Phelps, 45, who went to Chinqua-Penn on his first date with her. They bought the 22-acre property in July for $4.1 million from N.C. State University, which got it after Penn's wife, Betsy, died in 1966. Phelps will open it for tours, private parties and conferences. "We were kind of looking for something along the same lines as George Vanderbilt when he built Biltmore. He wanted a working estate that would sustain itself."

Phelps grew up in Clemmons. A guitar player, he began performing in bands at 13 and wanted to be a rock star. But his mother persuaded him to go to college. He earned an associate degree in electronics at Forsyth Technical Community College in 1982 and...