Flat Rock ice cream social brings community together

A report on yesterday's annual Flat Rock ice cream social in the Times-News:

From butter pecan to rainbow sherbet, 84 delicious gallons of ice cream were scooped out for Celebrate Flat Rock on Saturday afternoon on the lawn of Village Hall.

For more than 12 years, village residents have come together at the beginning of summer to celebrate their community.

Master of Ceremonies Tiffany Ervin flew in from Australia on Friday night just in time for the celebration, which she's been a part of for seven years.

“It is just the perfect day for people to come out and enjoy the weather, the beauty of Flat Rock and all that Flat Rock has to offer, because they incorporate more than just free ice cream and music,” Ervin said. “You can go shopping, there's live music tonight, there's Connemara, there's the Playhouse, there's the merchants association—it's a great opportunity to bring everyone together.”. . .

Read it all. 

Annual Flat Rock ice cream social this Saturday

The Celebrate Flat Rock! Annual Ice Cream Social is tomorrow (Saturday, June 7) from noon to 4:00 p.m. (rain date June 8). See you there! From the Times-News:

ANNUAL ICE CREAM SOCIAL RETURNS TO THE VILLAGE

The village of Flat Rock will hold its annual Ice Cream Social at noon Saturday on the grounds of the Village Hall and throughout the village.

Mayor Bob Staton will open the festivities, which will continue until 4 p.m. Letters to Abigail will kick off the afternoon's entertainment.

As a change of pace, the Henderson County Sheriff's Office K-9 Unit will put on a demonstration of the unique ability of these special dogs and their handlers.

Various musical groups will perform, from The Studebakers to the West Henderson High Small Ensemble.

Caasie and the Clowns of Glory will entertain young and old with face painting, balloon making and temporary tattoos.

The Book Exchange will have a half-price book sale on all used books from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The Blood Connection will hold a blood drive from noon to 4 p.m.

The Blue Ridge Fire Department is again arranging for demonstrations by the Sheriff's Office Swat Team and the Bomb Squad as well as EMS and local fire departments. For the comfort of all attending, please leave pets at home.

For more information, call Carol Andrews at 697-0208.

Flat Rock stylin'

No one can say the village of Flat Rock doesn't know how to pick em'.

Not only is The Park at Flat Rock a beautiful place, but Wayland Shamburger of Shamburger Architecture, the architect designing the park buildings, is one well-dressed guy, as evidenced by his appearance in a Joseph Laughter ad.

You can check out some of his preliminary park designs on the village website here.

Caroline Long receives the 2014 ATHENA award

I'm a little late with this, but since there's a Flat Rock connection, I didn't want to miss it. From the Hendersonville Lightning:

Caroline Long, a Hendersonville mom who turned her own struggles and questions about raising two children with autism into a nationally recognized school for autism treatment, was recognized as the 2014 Athena Award winner for her contributions to the community and her mentoring of other women.

Long began working to create the St. Gerard House for children with autism near downtown Hendersonville in 2009, primarily using her own financial resources. In the four years since the St. Gerard House opened, more than 400 students and family members have been helped and served by the school's early behavioral intervention program. She is reachable after hours, before hours and on weekends to mentor moms struggling with an autistic child.

St. Gerard House, which carefully documents its findings, is gaining recognition as a national model for autism therapy. Caroline is also spearheading an international Rwandan Sisters Project to bring missionaries from Africa to St. Gerard House to learn how to help children with autism in Rwanda. . .

And from the Times-News:

Caroline Long, founder of the St. Gerard House in Hendersonville, was recognized Thursday [May 15] as the seventh annual ATHENA Award winner during the Business & Professional Women's Luncheon at Kenmure Country Club. . .

In 2009, Long turned her own experiences raising autistic children into a nonprofit organization that provides families of autistic children with support and educational resources — including The Grotto School, which provides individualized education to local autistic children based on applied behavior analysis.

“I happened to have two children that didn't fit into a mold anywhere, so we had to figure it out,” Long said Thursday.

Now that St. Gerard House and The Grotto School are in Henderson County, local families don't have to go it alone when their children are first diagnosed with autism, said Mike Farmer, treasurer of the St. Gerard House board of directors. . .

Naked Apple Hard Cider hits the shelves. . .

. . . at the local Ingles, anyway.

I understand that it is also being sold in some of the restaurants on Main Street. I bought a bottle of the blackberry gold (only flavor available at Ingles that day) a few days ago--it took three Ingles clerks to find it for me. It's in the hard cider section of their cooler, but it's a single large bottle, so don't bother looking in the six-pack area or the regular singles. Also, the clerk who finally found it for me said that the label is not very "stocking" friendly--the name is not on the front and the design gets lost in all the other bottles. But hey, it's local (Flat Rock Cider Works) so I'm buying it!

I haven't opened it yet (waiting for a very hot day), so. . . to be continued. . .

Naked Apple Hard Cider from Flat Rock Cider Works

Marini out as Flat Rock Playhouse director

From the Hendersonville Lightning:

Flat Rock Playhouse announced today that producing artistic director Vincent Marini will step down on May 31 to pursue new opportunities. Lisa K. Bryant, currently Flat Rock Playhouse associate artistic director, has been named interim artistic director. . .

The Playhouse board will conduct a national search for a new artistic director. . .

Even after he steps down, Marini has been contracted to return in July to work with the 2014 apprentice class and the professional Equity company on the Playhouse's blockbuster summer production of Miss Saigon. . .

Read it all.

Heart attack victim crashes into Flat Rock bookstore

More on Saturday's accident at the Old Post Office from the Times-News:

The heart attack [Lloyd T. Baldwin] suffered on his way back to his home on East Pinecrest Drive caused him to black out, cross the northbound lane, sideswipe a telephone pole and crash his 2005 Nissan pickup into the old Flat Rock Post Office, troopers said.

The crash caused the double-decker porch of the historic building to collapse and shattered the front windows of the Book Exchange run by the all-volunteer Ladies Aid Society of Flat Rock Inc.

“Luckily, there was no (oncoming) traffic,” said N.C. Highway Patrol Trooper M.R. Hinnenkamp. “He went off the left shoulder and hit the porch supports and basically took all of them out and the porch fell.”

Volunteer Mary Terrill was reading a magazine and eating lunch at her desk inside the Book Exchange — which had no customers at the time — when “all of a sudden there was a horrendous noise and all this glass started coming toward me.”. . .

Read it all.

Not a good day in the neighborhood. . .

Whoops!

I stopped by the post office this afternoon and saw this across the street--the porch off of the Old Post Office, which is owned by Historic Flat Rock.

A cameraman from WLOS was there getting footage. He heard that a pick-up truck plowed into the front and that one person inside the Book Exchange on the first floor was taken to the hospital to get treated for broken glass. That's all I know for now.

The Old Post Office, Greenville Highway

Some familiar faces. . .

Recognize some names here?

A group of Hendersonville businessmen will unveil a new line of hard ciders pressed from locally grown apples during a downtown launch party and tasting Friday.

John Coker, Tom Davis, Jim Sparks and Jim Revis are the co-owners of Flat Rock Cider Works, the first Henderson County company to jump into the growing hard-cider market with the introduction of their Naked Apple Hard Cider brand.

The business partners have opened their 4,500-square-foot cidery in South Crossing Business Park on Spartanburg Highway in Flat Rock, where apples from the company's own 10-acre orchard and other local suppliers will be sorted, graded, pressed, fermented and bottled or kegged. . .

Coker, who worked in corporate sales for the beverage packaging industry out of his home here for 10 years, said the new company has strong leadership. Davis and Sparks, who recently sold their Highland Lake Golf Course to the village of Flat Rock for $1.15 million, offer their finance and sales acumen to the team, while Revis brings years of experience in apple and berry growing to his role in operations and procurement. . .

You can check out both styles of cider this Friday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at their launch party at Hannah Flanagan's Pub, 300 N. Main St. in Hendersonville. The event will also feature finger foods made with hard cider or complemented by it, along with games, prizes and giveaways.

Mr. Peace's postcards

The Markley Blacksmith shop was on West Blue Ridge Road. No longer there, the location is designated by a Historic Flat Rock marker.

The old Rhett Mill was at the base of Highland Lake (formerly Rhett's Pond), next to the dam, and where the Flat Rock Playhouse got its start.

An end to the beginning. . .

The Park at Flat Rock

Yesterday, the Village of Flat Rock officially opened the perimeter trail at The Park at Flat Rock. Students from Flat Rock Middle School were invited to participate by planting a sugar maple at the park to commemorate Earth Day. The event was covered by both the Times-News and the Hendersonville Lightning.

For me, this felt like an end to the beginning. . .

On October 20, 2011, the front page of the Times-News declared:

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.

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. . .

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.

Much more work needs to be done, and part of that will fall to the Flat Rock Park and Recreation Foundation and their new director of development, Maurean Adams, as they start fundraising efforts.

Early on, in 2011, three residential neighborhood homeowner associations (HOA) worked together to keep the county from buying the property: Highland Golf Villas, Highland Lake Village, and Staton Woods. Those developments surrounded the Highland Lake Golf Club and would have been the most impacted by any soccer complex development.

In deciding how to handle the situation under time pressure, the HOAs made the commitment to seek legal counsel. Looking at it from the outside (since I wasn't on the village council at the time), I think this was the deciding factor in keeping the county from purchasing the property. Once counsel was retained, I think everyone realized they needed to take a breather and really investigate what was going on. The village discovered that they had the final control because of village zoning, and the county realized that they could not dictate the end result.

It wasn't an easy decision to hire an attorney since no one knew how much time would be needed to present a case and what the final costs would be. Ed Foster, then president of Highland Golf Villas, took the lead in committing to retaining legal advice, even though it wasn't what he signed up for when he became HOA president. Without that commitment from Ed, I think it would have been much more difficult to stop the county. Donations for the legal fund were asked for, and residents responded. In fact, the amount donated was just over what the legal bill ended up being--so all donors got a little back. I always thought that was pretty amazing.

Now that The Park at Flat Rock is a reality, I would like to thank Ed for starting the process of pushing back on the county when he called a meeting of local residents at the Henderson County main library on October 26, 2011; for always supporting the efforts to stop the county purchase; and for always being willing to take the next step in any way needed while this issue was being fought. I'm glad to see he was at the trail opening ceremony on Tuesday--with, I may add, his dog very properly on a leash!

Ed Foster and his dog, Spook, watch the event. 
[photo by Taylor Heery Griffith, Hendersonville Lightning] 

So if this is an end to the beginning, I guess that means we're at the beginning of . . . what? Huummm . . .

And in 1910. . .

The Highland Lake Club--"an exclusive colony in the mountains conducted on the co-operative plan"--was planned but never completed. The plat below shows the lots that would have been available for sale and a planned road at lake's edge that was never built (although parts of it still exist on county records). The large building was the club house, which was built and used for a few years until it burned (approximately where Highland Lake Inn is now) [correction: the club house was north of where Highland Lake Inn is now]. I have always heard that a real estate bust at the time ended the development idea.

From the Highland Lake Club booklet for the 1911 season:

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.

1910 survey of Highland Lake Club lots

When Bonclarken wasn't Bonclarken

Heidelberg, now Bonclarken

Bonclarken on Highland Lake was first named Heidelberg.

Built in 1886 by Dr. Arthur Rose Guérard (1851-1937, originally of Charleston) for his Swiss wife, Eugenie Engels, it was a private residence and for a short time, a planned school, Heidelberg Academy, "a modern home and garden-school for girls." Scheduled to start in 1914, the school never opened because of the beginning of World War I.

Dr. Guérard sold the property in 1921 to the Associate  Reformed Presbyterian Church and moved to Baltimore and then New York. With his first wife, Eugenie, who died in 1900, he had seven children and then five more with his second wife, Madeleine di Marcarellos.

One of the most well-known of his children is Antoinette Francesca Guérard (1881-1964), an artist specializing in etchings during the "Charleston Renaissance" period in the 1920s-1930s. Her work has been exhibited in various museums in Charleston and the South.

Antoinette Francesca Guérard Rhett

Park trail opening ceremony on April 22, Earth Day

Part of the perimeter trail in The Park at Flat Rock

From the Village website:

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.

Season's chef wins competition

From the Hendersonville Lightning:

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.

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. . .

Read it all.

Couple build tiny house to live in for grad school

From the Times-News:

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.

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. . .

Read it all.

Two village leaders would delay new park entrance (and add a dog park)

This was the lead story in the Hendersonville Lightning a few weeks ago, but it was put online just a few days ago. By now you know how I feel about adding a dog park (ranked 14 out of 16 in amenities by village residents):

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.

"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. . .

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.

The village council last year approved the master design plan unanimously. I'm not sure how the idea of a dog park became a priority over every thing else when it is not part of the master plan and ranks so low on what residents indicated they wanted in a park.   

Read it all.

Henderson County primary voting information

From the Henderson County Board of Elections, information on the upcoming primary election:

• Primary election day is Tuesday, May 6
• Voting will be held on Election Day from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at all 35 county precincts
• Early voting and absentee voting is from April 24 through May 3
• For those in the Flat Rock precinct, voting will be in the Flat Rock Village Hall from April 24-26 (9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) April 28-May 2 (9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.), and May 3 (9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.)

Don't forget to vote!

GOP sets forums for local races starting April 3

From the Hendersonville Lightning:

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.

The forums will be held starting at 7 p.m. April 3, 10 and 17 at the Opportunity House.

Here's the lineup. . .

Read it all.

Location of the Jackson Park dog park, just in case you're looking. . .

Jackson Park has a wonderful dog park--it's where we take our dog. There is plenty of space and lots of cool, fresh water.

Check it out on the map of Jackson Park--it's the blue rectangle on the left of the map.

And take a look on Google maps: