Tammy Vaughan is the mother of two sons, a homemaker and active volunteer. Bob Vaughan is a radiologist who was also very involved in their boys’ school, Mount Pisgah Academy. She is a talented crafter and DIYer, and they both love to travel.
Yet despite their full lives, this busy couple has all the time in the world. And they have the clocks to prove it. About 70 clocks, last time they counted. “We have gone a little crazy with the clocks,” Tammy admits with a laugh.
The collection, says Bob, started on a functional basis about 15 years ago. “We had just painted the house we lived in before this one. We had a big, blank wall and were disagreeing about what to hang on it, what kind of art. Tammy wanted something with flowers. I did not. But we agreed on a clock, so we hung that big clock on that wall.”
“That big clock” is now center stage on a wall in what the couple calls “the clock room” in the Candler house where they’ve lived for 12 years. The majority of their collection is keeping time in a cozy sitting room, which also has a piano that Tammy plays and comfortable seating to settle in with a good book or gather with friends.
“The big clock was the one we started with,” Tammy says. “But there was still a lot of space on that wall, and we liked the way the clock looked, so we decided to put up some more. It kind of grew from there.”
The clocks they acquired before their move to Candler came with them and were hung in the sitting room. Their sons’ new schoolmates were intrigued by the clocks when they came to the house and wanted to make their timely marks on the wall; the
Vaughans point to ones that came from students, telling a story with each.
A red-and-white clock they received as a gift from MPA students and parents is a commemoration of all the couple did for the school and students, each hour marked by some contribution, such as “school photographer” (Bob) and “alumni president” (Tammy). “That one is so special to us,” she says.
Their art appreciation is expressed in two Salvador Dali-inspired clocks, a color wheel from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a color-blocked Mondrian. The colorfully painted face of one clock depicts a scene in Honduras, where Tammy has been on a mission trip. One of the smallest is a wooden cutout of a kiwi bird from a friend in New Zealand; a large rusted piece in the shape of a wristwatch is from friends in Columbia, South America.
Many of their favorites depict their own travels, such as a Union Jack from their 20th-anniversary trip to England and the cuckoo clock they found in the birthplace of that iconic timekeeper, the Black Forest region of Germany. “We bought our first cuckoo clock in Gatlinburg,” Tammy says. “The man in the shop told us it was an everyday wind. We didn’t quite realize that meant we had to wind it every day or it would die! The one we got in Germany is a once-a-week wind, which is easier. And it does a lot more things when the hour chimes.”
The vast majority of the clocks the Vaughans own are battery operated. “We have a huge stash of batteries at all times,” says Bob. Whoever notices a stopped clock first changes the batteries, and twice a year all the clocks have to be set back or forward an hour. “That is not something I look forward to!” says Tammy.
Their most treasured clock is the stunning wood-and-glass grandfather clock that claims a prominent place in the foyer. “We didn’t want a stuffy, traditional one, we wanted something more simple and contemporary,” Bob explains. They found it at Tic-n-Time, a store then in the Grove Arcade in downtown Asheville. The clock not only chimes the hour, but every quarter hour adds another quarter of the Westminster Chimes until the entire familiar tune plays at the top of the hour. Bob notes, “We purposely stagger the ones that make noise so they don’t all go off at the same time.” But both say they find the sound of the ticking clocks in the sitting room soothing.
While their original clock represented a resolution to their wall-décor dispute, they have yet to reach agreement on one particular clock. “I really want that Elvis clock where his hips are dancing,” Bob says. “But I have been vetoed.”