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| The Park at Flat Rock |
The Henderson County Board of Commissioners voted today to purchase the Highland Lake Golf Club in Flat Rock to convert the property to a soccer complex and public park.From that day to this has involved many people, lots of time, and a big financial commitment on the part of the village council and the citizens of Flat Rock once the decision was made to buy the property. The village avoided county control of a large area of pastoral land at one of the gateways into the village as well as the traffic and noise that would have resulted if a soccer complex had been built, especially since the county saw it as a regional soccer destination for tournaments and possible night play.
In a 4-1 vote, commissioners agreed to buy the 65-acre site, currently a 9-hole public course, for $1.15 million.
Commissioner Larry Young was the lone dissenter. He said he could not support the project at a time when the county has cut its budget by 7.5 percent. . .
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| Ed Foster and his dog, Spook, watch the event. [photo by Taylor Heery Griffith, Hendersonville Lightning] |
Nowhere east of the Rockies can a more commanding porch view be had than from the spacious verandas of the Club. Ordinarily, such views are only possible as the result of long drives. But in our own location we have a source of continual joy. One can sit and enjoy by the hour the grandeur of Pinnacle Mountain as seen over Highland Lake, or else, to the North, the Bear Wallow Range, in the centre of a beautiful picture framed by Sugar Loaf and Pisgah Mountains. The reader should know that Sugar Loaf is eighteen miles from the Club, and Pisgah is forty, although both are easily seen.
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| 1910 survey of Highland Lake Club lots |
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| Heidelberg, now Bonclarken |
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| Antoinette Francesca Guérard Rhett |
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| Part of the perimeter trail in The Park at Flat Rock |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Village of Flat Rock invites the public to a ribbon-cutting ceremony at The Park at Flat Rock as we officially open the completed portion of the perimeter trail on Tuesday, April 22, 2014 (Earth Day), from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
After opening remarks by Mayor Bob Staton, students from Flat Rock Middle School will help plant a tree to commemorate Earth Day and to enhance the park’s natural beauty. Lemonade and cookies will be provided by the Flat Rock Park Advisory Board, and representatives from the Flat Rock Park and Recreation Foundation and the Flat Rock Greenways Committee will be there as well.
The perimeter trail is the first amenity to be developed in the park and is about three-quarters completed. Once finished, it will follow the outer boundary of the park and provide a 1.5-mile loop through a variety of landscapes. The current loop of completed perimeter trail and part of one of the secondary trails totals approximately 1.3 miles of flat, all-season walkable surface that begins and ends at the parking lot. The trail’s soft surface is made of finely crushed compacted rock, and is able to handle possible flooding with minimal damage.
While there is currently no seating in the park, we encourage those coming on Tuesday to bring blankets, folding chairs, and their lunch so that they can enjoy a day in the park.
Anyone wishing to donate towards the park’s reforestation project is welcome to contribute to The Village of Flat Rock, with a designation that the money be directed to the Flat Rock Park and Recreation Foundation for trees.
The Park at Flat Rock is located at 48 Highland Golf Drive, Flat Rock, N.C. For more information, please contact Judy Boleman, Flat Rock village administrator, at 828.697.8100.
Michelle Bailey pumped a triumphant fist in the air as "Got To Be NC Competition" host Jimmy Crippen announced that she had become the first woman chef to lead a team to victory since the series started in 2012.Read it all.
Bailey, the chef at Season's at the Highland Lake Inn in Flat Rock, won the close battle with Asheville's Sam Etheridge of Ambrozia Bar + Bistro with the dessert course.
Eight chefs from Asheville, Boone and Flat Rock competed in the seven-dinner series that began March 10 and concluded Monday night at the Lioncrest at Biltmore in Asheville. Diners watched tensely as the final scores and numbers posted for each dish. Bailey triumphed in the close battle by almost three points. . .
If anyone can live together peacefully in 200 square feet of space, Lily and Matt Kirk (along with their dog Uwharrie) think they can do it.Read it all.
Lily Kirk has been busy building the tiny house they will live in once she starts graduate school at the University of Florida this April.
“We're not staying there forever,” she said. “We have to figure out where to park it.”
The house, based on a design by tiny house advocate, teacher, and book author Dan Louche, has a trailer bed for a foundation, so it's good to go on the road. . .
Last fall, the Kirks enrolled in a workshop Louche was giving in Flat Rock, as they'd been curious about tiny houses for a while.
Ignoring the fact that she had never built anything in her life, not even a bookcase, Lily Kirk undertook the task of building a tiny home.
To learn some skills, she asked to assist in the construction of a tiny house — designed by Flat Rock resident Roger Bass — which, once complete, will be lifted onto stilts among trees at Highland Lake Cove. . .
The Village Council is also looking at a new project, adding a fenced dog park, which had not up to now been a high priority. But dog owners have been letting their dogs run loose, which has set off complaints from non-dog walkers and opened a debate over what amenity to add first.All I can say is, Henderson County has six parks--all allow dogs on leashes and only one, Jackson Park, also includes a dog park. When you visit the county parks, you will see visitors walking their dogs on leashes, not letting them run loose. It is factually incorrect to say that "If you don't have a dog park, the whole park becomes a dog park." I think it's a short-term problem that has been decreasing as people have become more used to the rules and more aware that the park will not stay an open field, but will include amenities throughout.
"If you go out to the park now the biggest problem we have are dogs," [Nick Weedman, council member] said. "A former council member stated it perfectly. If you don't have a dog park the whole park becomes a dog park. That's what's happening right now."
The Village Council last week authorized new signs that remind park visitors to leash their dogs. "Not everyone is comfortable with dogs," it adds.
Given the size and sparse use of the park now, "People's common reaction is that doesn't apply to me," Weedman said. . .
The Henderson County Republican Party plans a series of Thursday night campaign forums in April that it hopes will include all 15 Republican candidates on the primary ballot for local office.Read it all.
The forums will be held starting at 7 p.m. April 3, 10 and 17 at the Opportunity House.
Here's the lineup. . .
Area quilters will display their work during the National Quilt Day exhibit at Blue Ridge Mall this Saturday, March 15.Read it all.
Quilters Hardy Chandler [of Flat Rock] and Dawn Bartholic of the WNC Quilting Guild helped organize this year's exhibit, whose theme of "Initial This!" required quilters to incorporate their initials into the pattern. . . .
People who thumb their noses at the rules and behave badly should not be rewarded, it’s true. But dog owners in and around Flat Rock should not be punished by the actions of a few scofflaws.Henderson County has six county parks and only Jackson Park includes a dog park. The other parks allow dogs on leashes. These parks do not have lots of dogs running loose just because they don't have dog parks. The Jackson Park dog park is just three miles from Flat Rock, so there is more than enough space there for dogs to run in the immediate area. [ed. - I deleted info on the size of the dog park at Jackson Park because I have not confirmed that with the Parks Dept.]
Dog parks are extremely popular, as evident by the hordes of people and pets using one that recently opened at the Mills River Park.. .
At last Thursday’s village council meeting [held 9/12/13], at the Flat Rock Park Development Advisory Committee presentation, the idea of including a dog park was suggested by several people, including some council members. At yesterday’s park development advisory committee meeting, Ed Lastein showed his latest design of the park, which included an area designated for a dog park.
I am strongly opposed to including a dog park for several reasons:
1) The village council went to great effort to ensure transparency and accountability on the park issue.
Community garden
- The Flat Rock Park Exploratory Committee provided a survey for residents to complete, held a public forum on the park, and encouraged all residents to participate in letting the village know what they wanted to see in a park.
- Based on that information, the exploratory committee created a list based on number of responses.
- The Flat Rock Park Development Advisory Committee then took that list and determined that they would include the top seven items in the park design.
- This allowed the process to be public, since the exploratory committee’s report was public, and all Flat Rock residents could understand why these particular seven items were to be included: they are the top seven rated features gathered from residents’ input.
- To now preempt that process negates the work of the Exploratory Committee and the decision by the Development Advisory Committee. It also makes unclear how park decisions will be made. All residents were informed of the survey and the public forum. The residents who took the time to come or respond to a survey could now consider that their input is being dismissed. Based on the initial input, they could well ask why these items are not being included:
Tennis/pickleball/multi-use courts
Community center
Bocce court
Horse shoes
All of these features rated ahead of a dog park in the survey/public forum.
I understand that the needs of residents will change over time and that at a future date, a dog park may be something the village decides to build, but to include it now—to even show a future site (because as soon as it’s on paper, people will assume it will happen)—brings into question the methodology for deciding park features.
2) One of the top concerns I heard from residents was the ongoing maintenance costs of a park. A dog park will require extensive maintenance, including clean-up, providing a water supply, and continuous replenishment of whatever ground surface is used inside the dog park. Some municipalities are also concerned about increased liability with a dog park.
3) While all parks have some of the same features, they do not need to duplicate each other. Jackson Park has a wonderful dog park—it’s where we take our dog. It is just a few miles away and very accessible. There is no need for Flat Rock to duplicate that facility.
4) While the homeowners nearest the park cannot dictate what goes into the park, I do think their wishes should get some weighted consideration. Their understanding was that there would be no dog park in the foreseeable future—that is one reason they welcomed the park. To make a switch to including a dog park at this date seems very counterproductive to maintaining good relations with those most affected.
Thank you.
Faced with a pack of complaints about loose dogs at its new village park off Highland Lake Road, Flat Rock council voted 3-2 Monday to lay plans for a contained dog park and, in the meantime, increase signage that pets must be leashed.Read it all.
“The park has gone to the dogs,” said former Councilman Dave Bucher, who now chairs the village's Park Advisory Board. When approached and told their unleashed canines are breaking park rules, “people have been pretty darn nasty and rude,” he said. . . .
“Let's make it official,” said Councilman Don Farr, who made a motion to erect fencing and establish a contained dog park. He later amended his motion to instruct the Park Advisory Board, working with Project Manager Ed Lastein and Park Development Director and Councilman Jimmy Chandler, to plan for a dog park.
But Councilwoman Anne Coletta said she opposed the idea because a fenced dog park wasn't compatible with the “look and feel” of the passive, dawn-to-dusk park, which she said was conceived by an advisory committee and council largely as “a nature park with observation areas to look at the wildlife.”
Coletta added that not every park has to “provide everything to everybody,” pointing out that Jackson Park has a dog park for those who want to exercise their pups.
“We're also rewarding people that are breaking the rules,” she said. “It's clearly stated that dogs must be on a leash. And I know that it's difficult to keep them on a leash and that right now it looks like a big, open field. But I think once the (new entrance) road goes through and once it starts to look like a park, that perhaps some of this problem will disappear.”. . .
Ken Grossman, co-founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and author of “Beyond the Pale,” and novelist Cassandra King, author of “Moonrise,” will be the featured speakers at the sixth annual Blue Ridge Bookfest at Blue Ridge Community College on April 25 and 26.Read it all.
The theme for the 2014 festival is “Tell Us Your Story.”
Grossman will speak at the Friday evening reception. King, wife of well-known author Pat Conroy and an established writer in her own right, will speak at the luncheon on Saturday. . . .
For more information, visit www.blueridgebookfest.org.
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| The Park at Flat Rock |
The Flat Rock Village Council last week authorized a $15,411 contract for stream and creek work and tentatively committed about $150,000 to renovate the clubhouse for restrooms at the village’s new park.Read it all.
The council also agreed to appropriate $23,000 to operate the Flat Rock Recreation Foundation, which has set a goal of raising $567,950 for the park over three years through grants and donations.
The council agreed to move ahead on public restrooms in the clubhouse when cost estimates for a planned pavilion and separate restroom building came in above forecast.
Project manager Ed Lastein told the council that the village could achieve most of what it planned for the clubhouse including the restrooms, a park information area, office space and required changes for wheelchair access for about $147,000.
“I think this really satisfies all our needs,” he said. . .
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| Aiken-Rhett House, Charleston, SC |
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| Interior of the Aiken-Rhett House |
William Aiken, Jr. died at his summer home in Flat Rock, North Carolina, in 1887. He left his property to his wife and daughter. Harriet Lowndes Aiken [his wife] continued to live in the [Charleston] house until her death in 1892. Her daughter, Henrietta, and son-in-law, Major A.B. Rhett (CSA), raised their four sons and one daughter in the house. Upon Henrietta’s death, the house was divided between her children and their heirs. Two sons, I’On Rhett and Andrew Burnet Rhett, Jr. continued to live in the house until the mid twentieth century. . .Aiken's daughter, Henrietta, was given the Flat Rock property in 1873 and it remained in the family until the 1910s.
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| Harriet Lowndes Aiken, wife of Gov. William Aiken |
With e-book sales up and paperback sales down, The Book Exchange of Flat Rock said it will change its prices and exchange procedures to bolster declining revenues.Read it all and go buy a book!
The Book Exchange is a nonprofit bookstore in the old Flat Rock Post Office. Run by roughly 50 volunteers from the Ladies Aide Society of Flat Rock, the bookstore donates its profits back into community nonprofits, but because of lagging sales, its contributions are dropping.
In 2012, the bookstore was able to give $16,000 to nonprofits, but in 2013 the donation total dropped to $12,000. . .
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| Looking south at King Creek |
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| Causeway over to what we call "Big Island" |
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| From Big Island looking north to the point |
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| Bonclarken |
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| King Creek winding through the lake bed |
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| Towards the north end of the lake, right past the point |
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| Resting |
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| Uncle Burney's |
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| Northern part of the lake, looking at the school |
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| Northern part of the lake (the dam is at the far end) |
But there were also a few surprises on the first official day candidates can file for the 2014 elections. Retired GE worker Hogan Corn declared his run for the District 1 seat on the Board of Commissioners held by fellow Republican Mike Edney. That raised the field to three, as retiring county GOP Chair Andrew Riddle also came in after the noon filing opener to pay his $207 fee and officially challenge Edney for his post during May's Republican primary. . .Read it all.
