By 1905, Mayo had amassed enough wealth to build a larger home in Paintsville. He had married Alice Jane Meek and they now had two children, John C.C. 2nd and Mary Margaret. Mayo had originally planned a modest twenty room house, but following trips to the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, and having in 1904 acquired Varina Farms, the Powhatan Plantation in Mayo's ancestral Virginia, he decided to build a mansion which would rival those he had seen. His plans were expanded for a classic revival mansion with forty rooms.