For nine decades, Our State has made its way into homes across North Carolina, the United States, and the world. To celebrate, every month this year, we’re paying tribute to the readers who inspire us, offering a taste of our earliest recipes, and revisiting old stories with new insights. Follow along to find out how our past has shaped our present.

You’re not prepared for the majestic manor on a hilltop at the end of a curving mile through the forest. Looking more like a university than a private home, this is Linbrook Hall at Linbrook Heritage Estate, the centerpiece of some 600 acres of a working farm in Trinity. Built and owned by Jerry Neal and his late wife, Linda, the 35,000-square-foot Linbrook Hall is elegantly furnished with old-world antiques, porcelains, and paintings, as well as new-world amenities like a fitness center, billiards room, and cinema. The house is a testament not just to the couple’s love of classical architecture but also to their generosity: No one actually lives here. Instead, Linbrook Hall plays host to tours, fundraisers for charity, and private events for up to 500 guests. Nearly all the proceeds go to organizations like hospice, Victory Junction, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Near those very acres where the mansion now stands, Jerry Neal’s grandparents were subsistence farmers. After World War II, his father was unable to take advantage of the education benefits of the G.I. Bill to attend college because he already had a family to support. Instead, he requested funds for a mail-order radio and television engineering and repair course.

Jerry, one of seven children, was curious about the manuals and equipment that arrived, and his fascination grew over the next few years. “He messes around with wires,” Jerry’s mother told friends when describing her son’s hobby of making radio transmitters and antennas, and anything else that he could take apart and put back together. He earned a degree from NC State University and eventually became a founder of RF Micro Devices, which designed and manufactured high-performance radio frequency systems and applications for broadband communications.

After years of living paycheck-to-paycheck, when Jerry told Linda that they would “have more money than we would know what to do with,” she cried at the idea of so much responsibility. Jerry reminded Linda that she had given $25 a month to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital all her adult life, and now they could do much more. So they did, eventually funding a full year’s research grant for 21 St. Jude doctors. Their next project, begun in 1998 and completed in 2004, was Linbrook Heritage Estate, named for Linda and the winding stream at the base of the property. The estate’s design is based on multiple trips to U.S. founding fathers’ homes, such as Monticello, itself once a working farm.

After a long illness and 44 years of marriage, Linda died in 2022. But with the support of friends and family, Jerry, at 79, still tends to multiple projects, both business and personal. “I’m still taking things apart and putting them together,” he says. Unless it’s around 2 a.m., when you’ll find him talking with other ham radio operators around the globe about — what else? — electronic communications.

For his contributions to North Carolina business, Jerry Neal has been awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, one of the state’s highest honors. He’s a tinkerer, a John Deere tractor collector, an inventor, a farmer, and a philanthropist. And he’s an Our State reader.