First fish — Olivia Jones pauses for a snapshot with her first trout from Cranberry Creek. With her is her father, architect Victor Jones.

Jones, architect for teapot project, has local connection

Architect Victor Jones can tell you a lot about the particulars of building a museum. But he can also tell you a lot about fishing in Cranberry Creek.

Jones, who works for Jenkins Peer, the Charlotte firm designing the Sparta Teapot Museum, is the son of Alleghany natives Victor Jones Sr. and Carol Edwards Jones.

He grew up in Asheboro but spent many summer weeks with his Jones grandparents in New Hope and Edwards grandparents in Whitehead.

“Some of my fondest memories of growing up were things I’d do there,” he said. “I would hunt, fish, and help Granddaddy on the farm.”

He helped his grandfather, Victor Claude Jones, move cattle from one field to another. “What you’d do is get everybody,” he said, laughing and emphasizing “everybody,” “and you’d grab a stick and make sure the cattle stayed in line.”

He remembers peeling apples on the porch and helping with the vegetables from his grandparents’ huge garden. He caught his first fish in the creek behind the Jones family home in Laurel Springs — a 12-inch rainbow trout.

And later on he saw to it that his son and daughter had the opportunity to do the same. His daughter Olivia caught her first fish — also trout — in Cranberry Creek.

Jones says he still enjoys his time in Alleghany and brings his own family here.

“We come up there frequently. Well, I come up there all the time now,” he said with a laugh. Ever since Jenkins Peer was chosen as architects for the project in July, Jones travels here often. He describes his role in the Sparta Teapot Museum design as “almost like a conduit.

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