02
This is a lovely house we sold to Tom and Sally Wood in Old Town Pinehurst. With the help of Michael Lamb the house has new life a world of charm. To read the article in full published in PineStraw Magazine please click on this link:
Taste Times Two – Story of a House
Please find photographs of the house and from the article below. Enjoy!
09
Fall Time & Colors on a goregeous Cattle Ranch….
Please enjoy these photographs and the changing colors of the trees as the cattle graze the farm…..
20
Maybe it’s the glorious October weather that has blessed us lately. But it feels like time for another “things I love about Southern Pines” column.
So here goes. Things I love about Southern Pines:
The presence everywhere on town streets of quaint, one-of-a-kind, sometimes eccentric old homes, some of which started out a century or more ago as boarding houses or winter homes, but which now offer the exact opposite of a cookie-cutter subdivision look.
The ubiquitous sight of layers of russet pine straw, which softens the landscape — and, at certain times of year when the wind is blowing just so, sometimes bundles itself into weird, moving shapes that make you think there’s a dog in the road ahead.
Speaking of dogs: Taking our aged but still spry Kelci for a nice, long, bracing walk around the perimeter of the lake in Reservoir Park on a picture-perfect Sunday afternoon — and, as usual, stopping to chat with fellow strollers or runners or bicyclists we happen to know.
Venturing into the underbrush along the Reservoir trail to check out the subtle color changes now transforming all those sassafras saplings — which, uniquely among tree species, always display three distinct leaf shapes: one-, two- and three-lobed varieties, all on the same tree.
Dropping by for lunch at the Ice Cream Parlor and, here again, almost always running into someone you know — in addition to amiable young proprietor Anthony Parks.
Taking in a cool, can’t-see-it-anywhere-else movie at the Sunrise Theater downtown — and maybe enjoying a glass of white wine and a candy bar (yes, they go great together) while doing it. For those of us who banded together to rescue the theater all those years ago, just driving by at night and seeing the lights on and realizing that some kind of entertainment is being offered inside is enough to bring a lump to the throat.
Feeling a sweet-scented breeze in my face as I coast my bicycle down the Connecticut Avenue hill, wearing a silly helmet while on the way to work on a Saturday morning.
Being able to leave my office for a head-clearing stroll up to and along Broad Street — perhaps pausing on a bench, as I’m now doing, to whip out a piece of schmaltzy writing on the notes app of my iPhone.
Running into our outgoing (in more ways than one) mayor, Mike Haney — who never, it seems, met a person he didn’t find a way to like. He’ll be a hard man indeed to replace in that position.
Strolling through the Farmers Market in Downtown Park, checking out the peaches and tomatoes and okra and comparing notes with other patrons there while a live and local bluegrass band or solo guitarist plays in the background.
Talking with the wonderfully helpful ladies at the Southern Pines Public Library — who, if they don’t have the bit of information you’re looking for at their fingertips, know where to get their hands on it quick.
Savoring a plate of spicy lasagna at Vito’s, a pancake special at Mac’s, or a Bell Tree Burger with blue cheese sprinkles and a side of whole fried okra pods. (I know I’m leaving out some other cool dining establishments. Forgive me. Maybe next time.)
Hearing (and feeling) the distant, rhythmically throbbing thump-thump-thump of a rock band playing at a wedding party under a tent on the grounds of the Weymouth Center, or at a First Friday evening in the downtown.
Walking along the street near our home and encountering a heartbreakingly graceful and delicate mama white-tailed deer with two half-grown fawns, who curiously regard us with bright eyes and cocked ears for a few seconds before turning and effortlessly vaulting a fence and vanishing on their way to who-knows-what destiny.
Awakening to hear the lonesome, somehow comforting horn blare of a freight train rumbling through town in the middle of the night — or of a passenger train making its 7 a.m. stop at the beautifully restored downtown depot.
Yep, there’s a lot to love about Southern Pines.
11
Wonderful article on Southern Pines in this month’s issue of Our State! Please click on the link below to read the article.
03
We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! Please enjoy some of our pictures of downtown Southern Pines as the snow blanketed our town…
04
On a chilly December morning what could be more fun than opening the front door and greeting people and dogs of every description imaginable running past your front yard. Over 1,600 men, women, teenagers, youngsters, toddlers, and babies braved the cold with scarves, gloves and Christmas cheer to participate in the annual Reindeer Run. Trotting alongside their masters were Rottweiler’s, dachshunds, Chihuahuas, whippets, many yellow labs and golden retrievers, boxers, mutts and you name it. 
Among the notable were a large green Will Farrell “Elf”, Santa with a modified stroller/sleigh with baby inside and a team of tutu clad runners. Check out these photos. The most spritely elf of all, working on behalf of the run, cheered the runners through the intersection with high fives and words of encouragement. In the crowd I spotted neighbors Fritz Healy, Kathy Lange and Ran Morrissette (5 or 10K). Andie Rose and her decked out dog rounded the corner with a smile on her face.
14
It shouldn’t be surprising, but it seems that people don’t know about Woodlake when they come to Pinehurst for golf and decide to stay. The area has been renowned as a golf mecca attracting world class golf to the sand and the pines for over a hundred years. But nowhere else do you find a third element, water in the form of a 1200 acre lake, enhancing the golf experience. Both courses at Woodlake Country Club, Maples and Palmer designs, weave the links and water together around the shoreline to create an unmatched setting. Twenty minutes closer to Raleigh and Fayetteville, it is easy to slip by the quiet lake on the way to the resort villages of Southern Pines and Pinehurst.
In particularly lovely touch, the Clubhouse at Woodlake is the historic Oates House built in 1700 that once occupied a prominent downtown setting in nearby Fayetteville. The historic restoration welcomes members as the hub of the gated community offering tennis, swimming and dining.
Enjoy the sunset from the dock of 720 Azalea Drive, a waterfront home at Woodlake that is modeled after the Clubhouse at Augusta National. Now you can’t say that no one told you about a best kept secret.
08
There is a fascinating story in this week’s New Yorker about getting “rid of the lush and plush” on golf courses and going “back to the lyrical imprecision of playing over natural country.” While John McPhee is writing about the British Open, his points relate directly to the effort to get back to the original intent on Pinehurst No. 2. The golf world will get a good look at the results of Ben Crenshaw’s leadership in this trend at the 2014 men’s and women’s Opens to be played in Pinehurst.
Click here:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/09/06/100906fa_fact_mcphee
Please enjoy the view of this initiative from Holly Hill at 250 Midland Road in Pinehurst. The property is available for a ringside seat at the upcoming Opens, overlooking the 5th Hole tee to green.
01
BY NOAH SALT • PHOTOGRAPHS BY GLENN DICKERSON
Pinehurst Luxury Homes Gardens
415 Fairway Drive, Southern Pines, North Carolina
“I’ll tell you a funny story about my passion for gardening,” says Cathy Smith. “I grew up in Miami where, because of the tropical cli- mate, everything is lush and alive with color. I was always outdoors, and plants always had a special attraction to me. In my 20s, I began potting up interesting plants to grow and give to my friends. I even started a small business making baskets of plants and flowers.
“I was always looking for ways to make things grow. One day, I had this crazy idea to give my Swedish Ivy birth control pills. It’s true. I dropped a pill in the watering can and watered my ivy with it, hoping it might stimulate growth.”
“Did it work?” wonders her garden visitor, admiring the some- what formal lines of her front yard garden where the early blooms in gracefully flowing beds include robust bleeding hearts, columbine and Virginia bluebells — all framed on one side by a new boxwood hedge and on the other by viburnum and hydrangea and an under- story of small flowering spring hardwoods.
“Did it ever,” says Smith with gusto. “Within almost no time, the leaves just tripled.”
Guiding her guest around her remarkable garden on three acres off Fairway Drive in Southern Pines, the garden-mad wife of Southern Pines’ popular Ford dealer smiles at her own unconventional experimentation in the garden — a true sign, many would tell you, of an old gardening soul at both work and play.
“I think of creating a garden as an almost sacred act,” Smith allows. “From my point of view, there’s something deeply spiritual about scratching in the dirt to help some little plant along — allow- ing the Lord’s work on this earth to just shine through. Gardening takes patience to do well. I mean, just look at that Solomon’s Seal —” she breaks off excitedly, heading off into her emerging spring beds to point out a small cluster of new iridescent leaves.
“Here’s a great little plant I’ve probably transplanted six or seven times in my garden, trying to find the perfect spot for it to thrive and grow. And look at it now — it’s really coming into its own.”
Smith’s garden, which islands the handsome brick manor house she shares with three of her eight children, three dogs and her hus- band, Bill, is effectively only a few years along — yet it reflects an attention to detail and touch of whimsy that expresses decades of acquired horticultural knowledge.
S
mith’s first Sandhills garden surrounded the cottage she and Bill owned in Pinehurst Village back in the late 1990s. As a result of relocating from the Boone area, where she learned to grow huge vegetables and spectacular perennials in the dark soil and cooler mountain climate, her first task was to come to terms with this area’s heat and sand.
“This is such a challenging climate for a gardener. I had a vegetable garden that eventually became a parking lot,” Smith allows, pointing out that she soon enrolled in Moore County’s Master Gardener program and revised the languishing grounds at the corner of Chinquapin and Magnolia with the help of her friend Benjamin Bessette. After a few years of dedicated work, that garden flour- ished, and Smith routinely left her garden gate standing ajar ala Charleston’s Mrs. Whaley, proverbially inviting all curious garden seekers to poke around.
Emily Whaley, who passed away at her Flat Rock summer home a decade ago, was the celebrated home gardener whose flair for color and zest for creative garden experimentation showed generations of staid Charlestonians there was far more to having a garden than a few flowering azaleas on display. Whaley’s Church Street cottage garden gained worldwide attention through the writing of Rosemary Verey and others, and her own bestselling garden book, Mrs. Whaley’s Charleston Garden, which appeared a year before her death.
“As she knew, “ echoes Smith, “the point of having a gar- den, after all, is to share its beauty with others. That’s just shar- ing God’s glory in nature.”
Her next garden project was on the 20-acre plot she trans- formed in horse country. Her friend Bessette once again helped out. “It was a very different kind of garden, with a pond, a terrace, more of a country landscape rather than a conventional garden.”
Three years ago when the Smiths took possession of the antique brick house on
Fairway Drive, Smith’s first job as mistress of a new garden space — once more with design help from Bessette — was to draw more light into the property. “There were all these great trees and mature indigenous plants around the house, but everything was overgrown and really had to be thinned out and clear so the light and air could get into the garden.”
Today, her gardens are naturally segmented into areas that seem slightly more formal in places and decidedly more relaxed in others. Through a gate and down the steps into a lower backyard space, flowering clematis and sweet-scented shrubs are designed to attract birds in profusion. Whimsically scattered around this garden are dozens of unique bird houses, some of them quite old but nobly still in service. “I love these bird houses. We col- lected them over the years,” explains Smith. “They sort of tell a story of our travels.”As she speaks, perhaps half a dozen cardinals and other songbirds flit from one of the 20 or so feeding stations spread around the premises.
In an adjacent gated area reposes a striking- ly attractive raised-bed vegetable garden laid out in precise geometric patterns and linked by formal gravel footpaths, the clever handi- work of local garden designer Hervé Bernier.
On this cool mid-April day, vigorous broc- coli plants stand in healthy ranks along one bed, and new spinach is growing in vibrant tufts. Young potatoes are already well along, and so are garlic and onions. “Last year we had broccoli until Christmas,” provides Smith, noting that her home veggie garden was so productive she gave away tomatoes and picked cucumbers all summer and still had plenty left to put up in jars and make into veg- etable soup.
“The coming of spring — particularly April and May — put me into motion,” she says, leading the way back up her steps where only a moment ago a pair of hummingbirds paused to explore a vine in bloom. “This place is my sanctuary. I’m so blessed to be able to come out here and get my fingers into the soil. The beauty of it constantly surprises and delights me,” she adds. “And isn’t that what a garden is really meant to do? As with my children, I take such pleasure in seeing this garden grow and bloom and change. I’m forever saying thank you to the Lord for all of this.”
With that grateful coda, Smith picks some- thing for her kitchen and heads back up the steps to her home, leaving her garden gate invitingly ajar. Somewhere, you sense, Emily Whaleyissmiling. PS
May 2009 ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… PineStraw:The Art & Soul of the Sandhills
01
Follow us on:
