I am grateful for the way our Resident community scene seasonally re-homes itself to the Highlands-Cashiers-Lake Toxaway area and other locales in the Western North Carolinas each summer for more neighborhood merrymaking. It’s actually a pretty incredible phenomenon, and of course, it’s no secret why it happens. For generations, Jacksonville folks have been making the seven-hour trek north and west to The Plateau and spots beyond for good reasons: because it’s relatively close (especially if you take the Woodpecker Trail lol), it’s cooler, it’s community-full, and it’s wonderfully camp-close.
Those aren’t the only reasons, but for space and the fact this not a graded term paper on the historical connections between our Resident community and WNC (a piece that is BEGGING to be written by someone smarter and more experienced than I am, someone legendary and well-educated on the matter, like Bill Stanly), I’ll keep my blabbering simple and under-researched – or at least based on my own observations.
Visiting North Carolina during the summers is a recent pilgrimage for me. I grew up in South Texas, so when people from my neck of the woods wanted Mountain Time, they literally had to be on Mountain Time, and for most San Antonians, that meant a long drive in the way-way back to Colorado. North Carolina was never on our radar. For anything. Ever. When we needed beach time, we went to Port Aransas (Port A, All the Way!). Ready to kill something – you relocated to a hunting spread in South Texas or the Hill Country. Underage? You regrouped at the Cadillac Bar in Laredo… Nuevo Laredo, México. And in all these places, you were always bound to see someone from the school bus. So, I get it – we are a pack-mentality people. We thrive on familiarity and getaways that bring us together.
My experiences in North Carolina began when David and I were dating in college. We visited his grandparents, George and Agnes Ellis, in Cashiers, where they had built one of the first homes in the Wade Hampton Golf Club. David worked as a golf caddy there during high school summers, so he was familiar with the area and the community long formed there. Heck, his other grandmother, Margaret Barton, died in the Cashiers area while visiting the throng of Bartons who visited often and made homes there, including Jim and Betty Barton, whose store, Cobbie’s, was an institution in the area. Lots of familiarity.
We also frequented friends’ parents’ homes over the years and enjoyed hitting all the hotspots: the Cornucopia, the Highland Hiker, and Bust Your Butt Falls, and the many hikes that you knew about ONLY if you bought the special hikers’ book in the Highland Hiker. And I mentioned the Woodpecker Trail earlier – you were only privy to those directions if someone from our Resident community was generous enough to write them out for you on a piece of paper and you were diligent enough to file them away safely in your glovebox. These were community resources not everyone was local enough to receive!
Later on, our experiences in North Carolina were built exclusively around our children’s camp programs. Ben went to Falling Creek Camp in Tuxedo, North Carolina, and Marley went to Camp Greystone nearby in Zirconia, North Carolina. Talk about a Resident community reunion: Each drop-off or pick-up was a revelation of another neighborhood family’s connection to the camps or one of the many nearby – Keystone Camp, Merriwood, Camp Illahee, Camp Carolina, and soooooooo many more I can’t begin to list all of them (don’t hate me!). Our kids spent 10-plus summers going to camp in North Carolina, and every year that meant at least two trips to the mountains for a little fresh air, bright red tomatoes, peaches, fragrant breezes, and a lot of neighborhood reconnection.
In recent years, we purchased a VERY HUMBLE mountain cabin with a glorious view in the hills above Lake Toxaway. It is a sweet retreat for us, and we love each season differently – summer for the cool temperatures and flowers, fall for the leaves and breeze, and winter for a snow sighting or two. It is an incredible place to have a change of seasons. And yet there is one constant: We are still in community with people from our Resident community. The easiest place to find it, of course, is in Cashiers, where a visit to the High Hampton Inn or Brookings Anglers or any store or restaurant near the Crossroads yields oodles of fresh neighborhood sightings. The same goes if you are strolling through downtown Highlands or hiking Panthertown Valley trails near Lake Toxaway. The Residents are everywhere, y’all! You can run, but you can’t hide! Over Thanksgiving, for example, we were hiking said trail with family and ran into San Marco neighbor Zoie Morales, who, in a further small world moment, recognized my Texas-bred cousin Anne as her counselor from their Camp Greystone days! I could go on and on.
… so I will. It is also no surprise to run into your neighborhood priest guest-preaching in North Carolina mountain-town churches. I know St. John’s Cathedral’s Kate Moorehead Carroll (also a Resident!) has made such visits to Cashiers over the years, and so have many other local holy rollers. Also noteworthy is that there are several Resident-attended church retreat centers in the area, including Kanuga outside of Hendersonville, Montreat in WNC and Lake Junaluska in Waynesville. To boot, our neighborhood schools also have a presence in the Plateau area. Each summer, The Bolles School hosts a lovely alumni gathering at a beautiful home in Highlands. Why? Because it’s a smart move! Half of all private and public-school alumni and other folks from our Neighborhood are there summering – and have been for generations.
Which takes me to my last point. This is nothing new. Resident community neighbors have been heading up to The Plateau and surrounding areas since the 1950s (and earlier!) when air travel was uncommon, and drives or train rides to North Carolina were family rituals. Children made lifelong friends and went to camp there, married within overlapping circles, and continue the tradition today with their own children. This is a social migration pattern that’s been building for more than a century. And here’s the full-circle moment – and a warning: during a recent visit to Lake Toxaway, I met up with a friend from Laredo, Texas, who had joined a cadre of self-described border rats for a wedding celebration at Mountaintop Golf Club. The eyes of Texas are upon us, y’all! Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Time to celebrate the fact that this tradition continues and that the Resident Communities maintain close connections in Northeast Florida, the Carolinas – and South Texas.
Susanna Barton gets carsick on mountain roads, but that does not stop her from loving Lake Toxaway, North Carolina. A longtime Granada resident, she has written professionally for The Jacksonville Business Journal, The Resident and The Bolles School. She is a newly minted Gerontologist and manages an online community called Grand Plans, which encourages healthy conversations about aging and preparing for it on www.mygrandplans.com.
Bulldogs in Blue Ridge
Former Bolles parents and current Bolles grandparents Sutton and Debbie McGehee welcomed Bulldog alumni, families, and friends to their mountain home in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Highlands, North Carolina, last month.
Bolles Head of School Tyler Hodges, Bolles Alumni Association Chair Karen Gray, and other members of the Advancement team also participated in this annual alumni summer celebration.
Set against the backdrop of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, the event provided guests with the opportunity to learn about the many new projects underway on Bolles campuses this summer, as well as the new J. Malcolm Jones Jr. Mentorship Program.
By Susanna P. BartonResident Community News
Tags: Bill Stanly, Brookings Anglers, Bust Your Butt Falls, Camp Greystone, Cobbie's, Cornucopia, Debbie McGehee, Falling Creek Camp, Grand Plans, High Hampton Inn, Highland Hiker, J. Malcolm Jones Jr Mentorship Program, Kanuga, Karen Gray, Kate Moorehead Carroll, Lake Junaluska, Montreat, Mountaintop Golf Club, St. Johns Cathedral, Sutton McGehee, Thank You Notes, The Bolles School, Tyler Hodges, Wade Hampton Golf Club, Zoie Morales