WALTER Magazine - May 2017

MAY 2017

waltermagazine.com

THE

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FEATURES

VOL 5, ISSUE 8 MAY 2017

104 WALTER PROFILE Carolina Courage

by Liza Roberts photographs by Ray Black III 64 STORY OF A HOUSE Revival living

by Jesma Reynolds photographs by Catherine Nguyen 70 AT THE TABLE Charlotte: Toasting the Queen City text and photographs by Dean McCord 78 ARTIST’S SPOTLIGHT John Beerman

by Liza Roberts photographs by Lissa Gotwals 90

70 RALEIGHITES Saint Mary’s School at 175

by Hampton Williams Hofer photographs by Jillian Clark 96 THROUGH THE LENS A daughter, a muse

by Diana Bloomfield 104

On the cover: Sir Walter Raleigh bottle cap mural by artist Denise Hughes Photograph by Christer Berg

10 | WALTER

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DEPARTMENTS

130 108

Worth the drive Belhaven

by Samantha Thompson Hatem

111

Hear U2’s Joshua Tree

by Charles Marshall

114

116

86 50

Givers Triangle Family Services

by Settle Monroe Destination WALTER Fearrington Village

Our Town The Usual: Triangle Trogs Shop Local: Phydeaux Game Plan: Philoptochos Society On Duty: Adrienne Cole

by Jessie Ammons photographs by Ray Black III, Travis Long, and Elizabeth Galecke

60

Our Town Spotlight Topsail Island Skating Rink photographs by Julie Williams Dixon

86

Drink Sanctuary Vineyards

by Jesma Reynolds photographs by Brooke Mayo

12 | WALTER

120

The Whirl Parties and fundraisers

130

End note May flowers

In Every Issue 14

Letter from the Editor

18

Contributors

20

Your Feedback

22

The Mosh

24

Raleigh Now

36

Triangle Now

60 60

D e s i g n i n g a n d B u i l d i n g t h e We l c o m e H o m e s i n c e 1 9 8 4

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EDITOR’S LETTER

View from the Porch 2013, oil on linen, 16 x 20 inches, by John Beerman, on view at Lee Hansley Gallery.

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Welcome to WALTER’s fourth annual travel issue! Every year in May, we get out of town, at least in print, for North Carolina adventures of all kinds. We hope to tell you stories that’ll nudge you off your porch (as the artist John Beerman invites us to do, above) to go to places you’ve never been before, and invite you to see with new eyes some of the places you know already.

If any story can do the latter, Dean McCord’s latest culinary escapade is it. Four days and three nights in Charlotte might sound to many of you like the grudging requirements of a particularly long business trip, but in Dean’s hands (At the table, pg. 80), it becomes a cause for foodie celebration.

Jarvisburg sounds enticing when you decide, like Jesma Reynolds did, to stop for a taste of some locally made fine wine – yes, locally made fine wine – at Sanctuary Vineyards (pg. 86). A non-golf stay in Pinehurst actually makes sense if you go for a summer “chef and maker” weekend (pg. 40); a paddle on a lake you love becomes a whole new experience on an Asheville-made Bellyak (pg.36); Wilson starts sounding pretty groovy when you make farm-to-table destination SoCo part of your plans (pg. 44); and an easy drive to Belhaven on the Pungo River is a no-brainer after you read Samantha Thompson Hatem’s story about the town and its restored historic inn (pg. 108).

Closer to home, we’ve got plenty of diversions for your sunny days. Our brand-new professional women’s soccer team, the North Carolina Courage, has 10 home games on the schedule (pg. 64); The new outdoor art at the North Carolina Museum of Art’s Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park will make you proud (pg. 30); BandTogether (pg. 28) has a great lineup and an even greater cause this year in the Southeast Raleigh YMCA; and John Beerman, one of our state’s most revered living artists, has a mustsee show at Lee Hansley’s gallery (One of the show’s works is above; story is on pg. 90).

The sheer variety of art, culture, nature, and adventure are what makes this such a wonderful place to live. It’s one reason we chose Denise Hughes’ remarkable, multicolored, multitude-containing mosaic of our magazine’s inspiration, Sir Walter Raleigh, for our travel issue cover. Like North Carolina, it’s made of many disparate parts, it’s beautiful and scrappy, it’s celebratory and accessible, it’s giant, familiar, and it’s ours.

Liza Roberts Editor & General Manager

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LIZA ROBERTS Editor & General Manager Creative Director JESMA REYNOLDS Assistant Editor JESSIE AMMONS Community Manager KATHERINE POOLE Contributing Writers SAMANTHA THOMPSON HATEM, HAMPTON WILLIAMS HOFER, DEAN MCCORD, CHARLES MARSHALL, SETTLE MONROE Contributing Photographers CHRISTER BERG, RAY BLACK III, DIANA BLOOMFIELD, JILLIAN CLARK, LIZ CONDO, JULIE WILLIAMS DIXON, ELIZABETH GALECKE, LISSA GOTWALS, TRAVIS LONG, BROOKE MAYO, CATHERINE NGUYEN

Managing Director, Magazines and Events DENISE WALKER Denise.Walker@Waltermagazine.com

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Advertising Design and Production DAVID BAUCOM, LAURA PITTMAN, CAROLYN VAUGHAN Circulation BILL MCBERKOWITZ Administration CINDY HINKLE Published 10 times a year by The News & Observer Publishing Co. A McClatchy Company, 215 S. McDowell St., Raleigh NC 27601

WE WELCOME NEW PATIENTS! Schedule a new patient exam and mention this ad for a complimentary take-home tooth whitening kit or an electric toothbrush kit.

MAY 2017 Walter is available by paid subscriptions for $10 a year in the United States, as well as at select rack and retail locations throughout the Triangle.

For customer service inquiries, please email us at customerservice@waltermagazine.com or call 919-836-5661.

Address all correspondence to Walter Magazine, 215 S. McDowell St., Raleigh NC 27601.

Walter does not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Please contact editor and general manager Liza Roberts at Liza.Roberts@Waltermagazine.com for freelance guidelines. © The News & Observer. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the copyright owner.

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The Raleigh-based health care attorney also writes about food from time to time. He has finally come to grips with his excessive culinary indulgences, particularly when exploring a new city such as Charlotte, as he did in this issue’s At the Table. “I was getting tired of all the negativity my friends had about the Charlotte food scene, and so I may have overdone it by visiting 27 different eating and drinking establishments. And what I found was a community that knows that it may not be as evolved as the Triangle’s food, but they’re trying hard to fix that. It will be interesting to see what kind of food town it’ll be in five or ten years.”

The Triangle family photographer also has personal work focusing on quiet landscape vignettes from daily meditative walks. In this issue, she captured the subjects of both Givers and Our Town. “I was so excited when assigned two longtime clients, Alice Lutz and Adrienne Cole. I have photographed them with their families over many years. It was wonderful to capture them in a different way, as individual strong female leaders.”

CHARLES MARSHALL / W R I T E R

DIANA BLOOMFIELD / PHOTOGRAPHER

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The Raleigh lawyer also plays music with the Balsa Gliders. In this month’s Hear piece, he reflects on U2. “My favorite U2 album is actually Achtung Baby, but The Joshua Tree was the first CD I ever owned and the first U2 tour I ever saw. When the band announced their 30th anniversary tour earlier this year, I was struck by the feverpitched rush for pricey tickets among my 40-something peers. Talking to friends and musicians who first heard the record as high-schoolers, I quickly learned the influence of the record had grown to make lasting impressions well into adulthood.”

The native North Carolinian has been an exhibiting photographer for over 35 years. In this issue’s Through the Lens, she showcases her specialties in 19th century printing techniques and pinhole and toy cameras through images of her daughter. “She is the perfect subject – beautiful, inspiring, inventive, curious, intuitive, and both interesting and interested. The very act of photographing Annalee through all these years has been illuminating, inspiring, fun, and, most importantly, a real gift – made that much more special because she is not only her own person, self-aware and strong, but she’s also my daughter.”

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Yay Alice! #savethebees –Rena Earnhardt, @renaearnhardt (April, pg. 68) How amazing!

–Christy Iannelli, @ditzen (April, pg. 68) Just spent an entire afternoon in a rocking chair on my front porch reading @WalterMagazine cover to cover. As it should be. #Raleigh –Robin Fastenau, @in2theswim I can’t resist a macaroon and Lebanese ice tea every time I am downtown!

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A lovely afternoon @FearringtonNC w/ great food and beer, live music, and a garden tour.

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TICKETS ON SALE NOW FOR TOURS STARTING JUNE 16 Make plans now to visit the Southern Living 2017 Idea House, located on beautiful Bald Head Island, N.C. The Idea House, which is designed to provide creative design and décor inspiration for visitors, will open for tours beginning June 16, 2017 and will be prominently featured in the August issue of Southern Living magazine.

The home will remain open throughout the summer and on select weekends in the fall, with a portion of all tour ticket sales benefitting the nonprofit Old Baldy Foundation, which works to preserve North Carolina’s oldest lighthouse.

Along with developer Bald Head Island Limited and builder Whitney Blair Custom Homes, the talented design partners chosen by Southern Living for the project include residential designer Eric Moser of Moser Design Group in Beaufort, S.C., and interior designer Lindsey Coral Harper, who is originally from Cartersville, Ga., and whose studio is based in New York City.

Learn more about the 2017 Southern Living Idea House on Bald Head Island and reserve your tour tickets today at www.IdeaHouseBHI.com.

“Never yet was a springtime, when the buds forgot to bloom.”

– Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

Why not...

Surprise your mother with: a bluebird house from Logan’s One Stop Garden Shop...a funky-chunky piece by local HTY Jewelry...the shrimp-and-corn dumplings at Bhavana...an “air bee-nbee” solitary bee hotel for her backyard…an afternoon at Raleigh Little Theatre’s Art in the Garden event in the rose garden May 6... a little green tern made of glass from The Umstead Hotel shop...opening night of the N.C. Symphony’s Summerfest under the stars at Cary’s Booth Amphitheatre May 27...a visit to the CAM incubator wall... tickets to join author Belle Boggs and

DARQUIRITA Toast Cinco de Mayo with this complex cocktail, topped off with locally made bitters.

1.5 oz. reposado tequila 1 oz. Cynar .5 oz. lime juice .5 oz maple syrup Crude “Lindsay” pecan-magnolia-habanero bitters Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake lightly. Strain into coupe glass and top with one dropper of bitters.

Recipe courtesy Crude Bitters of Raleigh

COOPED UP

BULL CITY

Tour D’Coop, an annual self-guided tour of around two dozen hen houses and chicken coops in the greater Raleigh area, is May 20. This isn’t barnyard viewing: There are quite a few swanky bird setups.

This year, there’s an eco-friendly bike route through downtown tour sites, too. All proceeds benefit Urban Ministries of Wake County. tourdcoop.com

If your birthday falls between April 20 and May 20, you’re a Taurus. Known to be dependable and practical, these earth signs are said to prefer feeling grounded and secure. Cultivate your zodiac bull in Raleigh:

PINK, SMALL, AND PUNCTUAL

You might gravitate toward vivid greens; try drinking them via a cup of matcha tea. You can go big by ordering the ever-trendy matcha latte with homemade nut milk at Living Kitchen downtown. livingkitchen.com Persistent and level-headed, Tauruses are often good at tactile projects. You can drop into a $5 open studio gyotaku workshop at Artspace May 13, where you’ll learn the art of fish printing using a real fish. artspacenc.org Your penchant for beautiful, comfortable, quality will meet its match in a soft-as-can-be natural cotton throw blanket from local shop Port of Raleigh. $110, portofraleigh.co

22 | WALTER

Emily Dickinson’s Mayflowers were “aromatic, low / covert in April, / and candid in May.” Warm season annuals that will be happy if you plant them in sunny spots this month include African daisies, cockscomb, marigold, pentas, petunias, salvias, and zinnias.

Walter for lunch at The Umstead May 7...

MOTHER NATURE In the spirit of Mother’s Day, you can bring your family to learn all about different animals’ mothering styles and make a card for your own actual mother at Blue Jay Point May 13 from 2 - 3 p.m.

Online preregistration required; wakegov.com/ parks/bluejay

courtesy Crude Bitters (DARQUIRITA); Thinkstock (BULL CITY); The News & Observer file photo (COOPED UP); Thinkstock (PINK); courtesy Belle Boggs (BOOK COVER); The News & Observer file photo (MOTHER NATURE)

MOSH THE

THE AIR-KING A tribute to the golden age of aviation in the 1930s, featuring a prominent minute scale for navigational time-readings.

It doesn’t just tell time. It tells history.

OYSTER PERPE TUAL AIR-KING

rolex

oyster perpetual and air-king are ® trademarks.

Spot

I

COVER

ART 24 | WALTER

t takes an artist’s eye to find beauty in the everyday: Denise Hughes did just that with her family’s recycling bin. “First, I noticed how easy it is, even as a family of four, to fill up the massive blue recycling bin we roll down to the street,” says the local muralist and painter. Then she looked closer. “Most of it is plastic and actually very colorful.”

Hughes began making mosaics out of plastic caps, “just to see what I could do.” At first, her works were of marine life – compelling, multilayered renditions of an octopus, a seagull, a crab – meant to raise awareness about the impact of plastic waste on the environment.

As Hughes branched out to human portraits, an ode to her adopted hometown was, she says, a given. “I just love Raleigh.

What better way to show that than with Sir Walter? He was such a flamboyant dresser, with intricate patterns on his Elizabethan coats and the feather always in his cap. What a fun thing to try.”

The resulting 8’ x 8’ piece, which graces WALTER’s cover, contains some 12,000 caps, from family-sized yogurt container lids to itty-bitty brightly colored medical caps donated by health care professionals. It took Hughes three weeks of “all day, every day” work to finish the larger-than-life mosaic. “I wanted to do something of and to the city. I knew it had to be large to get the details of his hat and coat right. It’s kind of obsessive; it’s like putting together a puzzle. It’s a lot of fun.” –J.A.

Christer Berg

RALEIGH

LIght

Global Culinary Adventures Half the experience of traveling around the world can be summed up in a word: FOOD. In fact, 51% of leisure travelers are in search of interesting cuisines and a memorable meal while on vacation. Celebrity Chef, Anthony Bourdain’s culinary travelogues show how far passion for good food can take you, when travelling: do it for the food! Sound’s great, but what about those of us who can’t always get away?

How about a FOODCATION? Yes! Bon Appetit from the corners of the globe – Buon appetito!, Kuidore, Kalí óreksi! A cultural oasis of flavors are waiting for you at the 2017 Culinary Adventures series

by Catering Works, the Triangle’s top caterer. Enjoy full course dinners with optional wine and cocktail pairings, at their new venue The Laurelbrook.

Catering Works is now accepting reservations for the 2017 Culinary Adventure Series

Aesop’s Table June 1 Orient Express Aug 3

Mangia Bene Sept 7 A Night in Paris Nov 2

RESERVATIONS: 919.828.5932 TheLaurelbrook.com Your passport to the next culinary adventure is available at TheLaurelbrook.com

RALEIGH now

ART FOR ALL

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all month STARLIT SHOWS Concerts at the North Carolina Museum of Art’s Joseph M. Bryan, Jr. Theater in the Museum Park have become a tradition for many locals, and with good reason. This month kicks off the 20th anniversary lineup of eclectic performances with an indie and bluegrass bent. The series launches with Chapel Hill-based “newgrass” band Mipso, which will debut its latest album at the May 6 show. You can mark your calendar now for highlights including Sheryl Crow June 24, Mandolin Orange with Joe Pug July 22, Rhiannon Giddens Aug. 9, and the Paperhand Puppet Intervention (a delightful break from the musical-act norm) September 8 - 10. Concert-goers can bring a packed picnic and lawn chairs, and purchase drinks – including wine by the bottle – at the venue. Most concerts begin at 8 p.m.; $17-$300, depending on show; 2110 Blue Ridge Road; ncartmuseum.org/summerconcerts

Mipso’s Joseph Terrell and Libby Rodenbough

#* * "

PORCH SITTIN’ You can stop to smell the roses – and buy affordable art – during the annual front porch art walk in historic Oakwood and Mordecai May 13. For the event, neighborhood dwellers invite artists – painters, potters, jewelers, photographers – to set up shop on their wraparound porches and in their lawns.

Paintings mingle with plants, and everything you see is for sale. frontporchartwalk.org A SERIES OF FORTUNATE EVENTS Throughout the month, local nonprofit Arts Access will host a diverse series of art-oriented events, all featuring artists, musicians, actors, and writers with disabilities.

There’s a reading and subsequent discussion moderated by Piedmont Laureate Mimi Herman May 7; a concert by N.C. native Chris Hendricks in the home of local accessibility advocate Alex McArthur May 11; a theatre showcase May 22; and a film screening in Cary May 31. fortunateevents.org

courtesy NCMA (SHOWS)

MAY

5 A.M. VOLUNTEERING

Thinkstock (VOLUNTEERING); courtesy Marbles Kids Museum (BYOB)

If a set-in-stone work schedule makes it hard to volunteer in the community, this opportunity is for you. Once a month, the Emerging Women NC Leaders group serves breakfast at dawn to the downtown Raleigh men’s shelter on South Wilmington Street. You don’t have to be a group member to join in on a shift, but if you’d like to learn more, you can join volunteers for coffee and a snack post-shift. This month the group will volunteer May 5 and the next session is June 2. 5:30 - 6:30 a.m.; free; 1420 S. Wilmington St.; activategood.org/opportunity/3070

6

BYOB Bring your own bike (or trike) to the third annual Marbles Bike Rodeo May 6. The kids’ event welcomes all levels for a bike safety course, “bike bling makeshop,” riders’ education classes, friendly games, and a BMX performance. You can meet in the courtyard right behind the museum at any time during the event afternoon.

11 a.m. - 2 p.m.; free; 201 E. Hargett St.; marbleskidsmuseum.org/ marblesbikerodeo-1

SPOTLIGHT

BAND TOGETHER

Concert for a cause

W

hen pop-rock-classical musician and North Carolina native Ben Folds takes the stage at Red Hat Amphitheater May 6, he’ll headline “a celebration of everything that’s great about Raleigh,” says Matt Strickland.

Strickland is the executive director of Band Together, the nonprofit that puts on this annual fundraising concert by the same name. The music will be stellar, and the cause even better: This year, Band Together has partnered with the YMCA to raise “awareness and dollars” – about $1 million – for the Southeast Raleigh YMCA capital project, a $15 million undertaking that will include an elementary school, a Y branch, and a health care facility, among other resources. “It’s a pretty substantial capital project,” Strickland says, and the concert is a celebration of that: “the exclamation point on the end of a year-long partnership.”

Year-long community partnerships are at the heart of Band Together, which has become the largest annual charitable music event in the Southeast. Every year, nonprofits apply for

the Band Together partnership, which kickstarts months of fundraising through community support and corporate and individual donations. “We walk hand in hand with them to generate fundraising and support,” Strickland says. “But it all comes together in the spring” when as many as 500 volunteers put on the main stage concert.

When it all comes together, it’s a whole lot of fun. Besides Folds, “who puts on an incredible piano stage performance,” supporting acts this year are The London Souls, a classic-rockinspired indie rock band, and Asheville-based Travers Brothership, which won the organization’s annual “last band standing” competition at Lincoln Theatre in February.

The bulk of Band Together’s fundraising will be done by the May 6 show, which means the evening can focus on the other half of the Band Together equation: awareness. “Having 4 5,000 people at Red Hat generates a lot of buzz about what The Y is doing,” Strickland says. “This is where potential volunteers come from and even potential board members. It’s the way for us to connect the community back to the cause.” Rock on. –J.A.

bandtogethernc.org/events/main-event

28 | WALTER

Scott Sharpe/ The News & Observer

RALEIGH now

MIDTOWN EVENTS | SPRING 2017 WEDNESDAYS

March 29 – June 28 6:30-7:30pm Midtown Park at North Hills

SATURDAYS

April 15 – November 4 8am-Noon North Hills Commons

THURSDAYS

April 20 – August 17 6-9pm North Hills Commons

May 1 – August 15 North Hills Commons & Midtown Park

Midtown Beach Music Series Celebrating its 10th season, the Thursday evening Midtown Beach Music Series at North Hills is popular with event goers from around North Carolina. The series offers the best of Beach Music on warm summer nights and features Shag dancing, a time-honored tradition in the South.

May 4

Sleeping Booty

May 11

Legacy Motown Revue

SUNDAY

May 18

Band of Oz

May 7

May 25

Tams

3-6pm Midtown Park at North Hills

June 1

Catalinas

June 8

Steve Owens & Summertime

June 15

Chairman of The Board

SATURDAY & SUNDAY

June 22

Jim Quick and Coastline

June 2 & 3

June 29

Blackwater Rhythm & Blues

3-9pm Midtown Park at North Hills

July 6

Spare Change

July 13

Fantastic Shakers

July 20

Too Much Sylvia

SUNDAY

July 27

North Tower

June 11

August 3

Band of Oz

3-6pm Midtown Park at North Hills

August 10

Liquid Pleasure

August 17

Embers ft. Craig Woolard

Midtown Events is responsible for building community and creating memorable experiences through the planning and producing of events in Midtown Raleigh. In addition to special events, Midtown Events is also responsible for the ambiance. artful initiatives and branding throughout North Hills.

NORTHHILLSEVENTS.COM

SPOTLIGHT

BREATH

OF FRESH AIR NCMA’s outdoor art initiative has only just begun

“W

e want to connect art and nature and people,” says Marjorie Hodges, director of external relations at the N.C. Museum of Art, and a key player in the museum’s Art in the Environment Fund. To accomplish this simple but profound goal, the Fund has enhanced much of the 164-acre Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park, transforming it into a lush landscape of native plants, greenway trails, and art that complements it all. You might already know the iconic earth-cast ellipses that comprise Thomas Sayre’s Gyre, or remember those larger-than-life inflatable bunnies by artist Amanda Parer on loan last fall: They’re two distinct examples of what public outdoor art can look like, and just a sliver of the genre’s vast possibilities. “We don’t want (art in the park) to be static,” Hodges says. “We want to constantly inspire creativity and engagement.”

Since the park is free and open to the public

30 | WALTER

– visitors often come through on a greenway walk or bike ride – the art will continue to span the spectrum, with something to appeal to everyone. Hodges says it will remain dynamic thanks to a mix of permanent installations and works on loan, collaborations with other art institutions, and constant interaction with Raleighites.

The museum reached out to include all of its diverse park audience in March with the installation of its newest permanent work, Sculpt C. The zig-zag-patterned pig-shaped sculpture, meant to be an interactive kids’ play structure, inspired the museum to host a social media competition for its nickname (which had yet to be unveiled at press time). Meanwhile, last month, Jaume Plensa’s pair of massive human heads, Awilda & Irma, made of steel mesh (a stunning long-term loan) were installed. They are as as striking as Parer’s bunnies and will likely enjoy a similar level of local Instagram fame, Hodges predicts. “The idea of public art having a role in these shareable moments is, I think, a great way to think about art.”

The future holds even edgier Museum Park art. Hodges says we can look forward to works that combine light, sound, color, and digital interaction. The Art in the Environment Fund’s vision is an exciting one for NCMA, and also for the city and the region. “So much of public art is about accessibility. People can just stumble upon this. You don’t have to pay to see it, and it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. It’s accessible and it’s inclusive, and that’s so important.” –J.A.

Jaume Plensa, Awilda & Irma, 2014, stainless steel, H. 157.5 x W. 157.5 x D. 118 in. each, © J2017 Jaume Plensa, Courtesy Galerie Lelong, New York. Installation view: Jaume Plensa: Human Landscape, Cheekwood Museum and Sculpture Garden, Nashville, TN, May 22–November 1, 2015; Photo: Dean Dixon. Jaime Hayon, SCULPT. C, 2016, painted wood and metal, H. 117.3 x W. 288.2 x D. 94.1 in., North Carolina Museum of Art, Gift of the family of Bill and Holly Blanton

RALEIGH now

MAY

7

Grace Copeland, Copeland Photography (FUN); courtesy Architects for Animals (CATS)

FUN AND GAMES You can play with meaning at the third annual Kids Helping Kids Walk and Festival May 7. The event, organized by local nonprofit The Bryce Martin Foundation, encourages sighted and visually impaired children to interact with and understand each other.

Between the group walk, outdoor activities, live music, dance groups, jump rope teams, and friendly sports competitions, interacting – and enjoying it – should be no problem. All proceeds from the day go toward funding glasses, therapy equipment, Braille tools, and educational programming. 10 a.m. walk, 11 a.m. 3:30 p.m. festival; free; Laurel Hills Community Center, 3808 Edwards Mill Road; brycemartinfoundation.org

10 COOL CATS You can up the ante on your cat’s digs by bidding on a professionally designed modernist pet house May 10. The Cat’s Meow, a free fundraiser cocktail party and auction at furniture showroom Trig Modern, will benefit the nonprofit no-kill local shelter Safe Haven For Cats. Architects and designers donated original mid-century and modern-inspired cat houses meant to complement the store’s home wares. The cat houses will be on display May 4 - 6 in anticipation of the auction. 6 - 8 p.m.; free; 1053 E. Whitaker Mill Road, Ste. 109; facebook. com/trigmodern

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SPOTLIGHT

BUDDING TALENT

BY BIRD

“A

ll gardening is hopeful. It’s even more hopeful to plant a bush that, come fall, will be loaded with berries that help birds along their epic migration journeys. It’s hopeful to plant a native honeysuckle vine that will have flowers ready to welcome the first hummingbird to return to your yard after a long winter. It’s hopeful to plant an oak tree that will offer up enough food to feed all the baby chickadees in your yard year after year, decade after decade. These acts of hope add up to abundant, prosperous bird life in our cities and towns across North Carolina.” –Kim Brand, Audubon N.C. Audubon field organizer Kim Brand knows that despite her lovely notion of hope (quoted above), “planting for birds is easier said than done.” She says that’s largely because of a lack of information. That’s why the National Audubon Society has developed an ingenious, user-friendly online database. Punch in your zip code and email address, and it shows you hundreds of native plants for your region that do the trick.

You can learn about each plant, choose your favorites, and then receive an emailed list of garden centers near you selling the plants you’ve picked, plus growing tips. “This makes it easy for anyone to help birds in a meaningful way.” –J.A.

audubon.org/native-plants

32 | WALTER

TRIFECTA Raleigh Dance Theatre, the affiliate performance company of The Raleigh School of Ballet, shares the stage with other local troupes for its Spring Repertoire May 21.

The performance will include live music by the Triangle Youth Philharmonic, and also an act designed

by Carolina Ballet’s choreographer in residence. raleighdance.org

courtesy Typewriter Project

BIRD

OLD SOULS There’s a new local band in town,the “contemporary performance ensemble” earspace. Comprised of eight twentysomething musicians (horn, violin, clarinet, percussion, keyboard, cello, flute, piano), the innovative group creates modern melodies rooted in classical training. Led by Vincent Povazsay, a young conductor who hails from Clinton, N.C. and has a masters in conducting from Northwestern University, the group is lively, smart, and worth a listen.

They’ve been building a buzz during home concerts, and will debut their next season (rather than album) May 19 at the Google Fiber space. earspace.org

The News & Observer file photo (WINES); Abra Nardo (GIVE)

MAY

11

WINES AROUND THE WORLD You can keep your shoes on for this one. At RDU on May 11, the Rotary Club of Morrisville will host a benefit wine tasting event in the airport’s general aviation terminal. When you arrive, you’ll receive a passport to stamp as you sample wines and appetizers. Also available are beer and bourbon. Proceeds from the night go toward more than five local charities through the Morrisville Rotary. 6 - 8:30 p.m.; $35; 1750 E. International Drive; winesaroundtheworld.org

12 GIVE AND TAKE The Master Chorale, resident chorus of the N.C. Symphony, will perform a War and Peace program May 12. The program explores themes of conflict and reconciliation through a diverse array of songs, including folk music, classical selections, and a guitar-accompanied setting of four Civil War-era poems to melody. 7:30 9 p.m.; $13 - 20; Hayes Barton United Methodist Church, 2209 Fairview Road; ncmasterchorale.org/war-and-peace

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13 14 PAPER BLOOMS You can help spruce up the visitors’ center at Historic Yates Mill Park on May 13 and 14. Arrive to the Finley Center reception desk any time during the weekend to create a few paper flowers. Your flowers will contribute to a community art project to decorate the public county park throughout the summer. Before or after the crafting, you can hike the manageable one-mile trail around the pond for a bit of fresh air; don’t miss the mini-waterfall next to the park’s namesake 18th-century water-powered grist mill. 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.; free; 4620 Lake Wheeler Road; wakegov.com/parks/yatesmill

18 21 CAPTIVATING BALLET The Carolina Ballet’s rendition of Carmen, originally a 1960s-era performance by a Cuban choreographer, has earned the ballet company national recognition. Raleigh choreographer Robert Weiss has put his own stamp on the show, running May 18 - 21, which tells of a free-spirited Spanish woman who is jailed in the 19th century.

On her journey to freedom, she steals the hearts of many men she meets. Cue the red-dress female dancer emoji. 8 p.m., plus 2 p.m. weekend matinees; $30 - 89; 2 E. South St.; carolinaballet.com

34 | WALTER

19 21

ARTSPLOSURE Art of every sort takes over downtown during Artsplosure May 19 - 21. This is the 37th annual festival, which lines Fayetteville Street with juried vendors and provides continuous live music on three different stages. There are also ample arts-and-crafts activities, collectively called Kidsplosure, on Saturday and Sunday. From larger-than-life puppets to charming local jewelry, serene sculptures to edgy painted mosaics, you can find something for everybody – or just take it all in. free; City Plaza and Fayetteville Streets, downtown Raleigh; artsplosure.org

20

ALONG FOR THE RIDE This month is National Bike Month, and the City of Raleigh is celebrating with a greenway ride May 20. Riders will meet at Eliza Pool Park to embark on a ride led by members of the Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources department staff. The 7-mile route will go at a low-key pace along the Walnut Creek Trail, through N.C. State’s Centennial Campus, and to Rocky Branch Trail which leads back to Eliza Pool Park. There’s a planned pit stop at Dorothea Dix Park, where you can catch your breath and chat with the staff about the park’s envisioned future. Bring your own bike, helmet, water, and snacks. 8:30 - 10:30 a.m.; free; 1600 Fayetteville St.; tinyurl.com/ dixparkride

Thinkstock (PAPER); courtesy Artsplosure (ARTSPOSURE); Armes Photography (BALLET); WALTER archives (RIDE)

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Lindsey Graham

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TUMMY

TIME

A fun new watersport: Made in N.C.

S

tep aside, stand-up paddleboard: There’s a new watersport in town. Bellyaking is “kayaking meets swimming meets surfing,” says founder Adam Masters, who invented the watercraft outside of Asheville about a decade ago. As its name suggests, a bellyak is quite literally a plastic watercraft you ride on your stomach. Masters, an avid kayaker, got the idea after lying on top of his kayak one day and hand-paddling: “It was an amazing experience.” After years of prototyping and “tinkering” in his basement, he began

36 | WALTER

to sell the patented Bellyak boat in 2012. “It’s a great way for people to get in the water, because we’re combining the best elements of both boating and swimming. In white water, you can teach people to bellyak much quicker than the traditional kayak. In lake water, it’s just super fun.”

The boats, which retail for around $500-$600, have been a hit at summer camps, and Masters runs guided trips along the French Broad river every summer and offers private lessons year-round. He and his limited part-time staff are proud to say that they’ve developed an entirely unique watersport. “Bellyaking is certified by the American Canoe Association as its own discipline,” he says.

If you can’t get to the mountains for a trip, the true beauty of the bellyak is that you don’t need a lesson: “It’s accessible to a wide range of people. Our models can handle up to Class 5 whitewater rapids, but the exact same boat can be used by somebody who’s paralyzed. It’s really cool to get a wide variety of people in the water.” –J.A. bellyak.com

from head of

the class to

king of burgers.

CHEF AL BOWERS, AL'S BURGER SHACK, CHAPEL HILL, NC

Here, the alumni stick around to serve up some seriously good eats. There’s comfort food waiting around every corner. And a well-crafted burger can reign supreme.

Extend your stay and discover a new side of the South in Chapel Hill and Orange County.

—————•—————

VISITCHAPELHILL.ORG

HOME OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL

—————•—————

TRIANGLE now

SPOTLIGHT

THROWBACK For a blast from the past, drive about a half hour east of Raleigh to the Wendell General Store. It began as a community fundraiser for the town’s chamber of commerce, but the old-school candy shop feel was such a hit that the store became a permanent Main Street fixture in 2014.

There, you’ll find retro sodas; pantry items including flour, sugar, pickles, and jams; and Hershey’s Ice Cream available by the scoop. facebook.com/ wendellgeneralstore

THE GLASS

STATION Glass blowing arrives at ECU

T

hings are heating up in Farmville, N.C. There, East Carolina University has helped transform a gas station into a glass blowing studio that’s open to the public. “It’s totally amazing,” says Dean of the ECU College of Fine Arts and Communication Dr. Chris Buddo. “To me, this is about the power of art to really transform a region.”

Buddo and colleagues teamed with The Farmville Group, a volunteer economic development association, to make the project happen. In a play on its former life, the studio is called GlasStation. Along with hosting glass blowing classes and open studio hours every week for undergraduate and graduate students in the college of fine arts (the university is about 15 miles east), the space hosts free demonstrations and classes for the public. This month, you can

38 | WALTER

make a glass candy bowl, a glass garden ball, or a glass paperweight in one of the two-hour classes. The studio is also available for professional artists to rent.

“Any and everybody can come learn to blow glass,” Buddo says.

This new hand-blown glass curriculum at ECU is the only one in the UNC system, he says; the public studio is one of only a small handful in the region.

“From Raleigh, Farmville is really only a hop, skip, and a jump.”–J.A.

Public classes are offered this month and throughout the summer; $100; ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/GlasStation.cfm

SEE THE LIGHT North Carolina’s oldest lighthouse, Old Baldy, celebrated its 200th birthday last month. The site will celebrate all year long with fun happenings during every season. This month, there’s a fishing rodeo May 18 - 20 and Memorial Day service May 29; next month is “North Carolina Treasures Weekend” June 2 - 4; and October’s “Roast and Toast on the Coast” looks tasty, too. oldbaldy.org

Cliff Hollis, ECU News Services

TAKE A TRIP

Town of Wake Forest (MUSIC); David McClister (LORETTA)

MAY

all month

MUSIC IN THE PARK If the errands-and-sports-games routine puts you north of Raleigh on a Sunday afternoon, you might keep in mind the Six Sundays in Spring concert series in Wake Forest. On six consecutive Sunday evenings, there’s a free musical performance at E. Carroll Joyner Park, a spacious plot with restored old farm buildings and plenty of green space for running around. There are food and refreshments available for purchase and you’re also encouraged to bring a picnic of your own, as well as chairs, games, and pets (if they stay on a leash). The series continues through June 4. 5 p.m.; free; 701 Harris Road, Wake Forest; wakeforestnc.gov/six-sundays-in-spring.aspx

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5 LORETTA LYNN The iconic country music singer – she’s won three Grammys, eight Country Music Association awards, and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award – is still going strong at 84. See Loretta Lynn in concert May 5 at The Carolina Theatre in Durham, where she’ll perform a selection of songs from the span of her career. 8 p.m.; $64 - 231 309 W. Morgan St., Durham; carolinatheatre.org

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SPOTLIGHT

Steve Watkins, who owns Ironman Forge, designs and creates heirloom quality knives from carbon steel and fine wood at his workshop in Charlotte.

PAR FOR THE Pinehurst Resort

COURSE Pinehurst hosts guests, chefs, and makers

I

f you’d like to visit the charming golf mecca that is Pinehurst – but aren’t much of a golfer – here’s a new reason to go. The historic Pinehurst Resort, known for its beauty and its storied PGA and U.S. Open history, will host a series of “Chef and Maker” weekends beginning this month. Each weekend will pair a celebrated chef with an acclaimed artist or craftsman/craftswoman for eating, learning, creating – eating once more.

You don’t have to have an artistic bent to attend (but you might want to bring your appetite). These weekends are meant to provide a creative framework for a retreat, and each weekend has its own distinct flavor.

The series’ first installment May 12 - 14 features chef Clark Barlowe of Heirloom Restaurant in Charlotte and artist Steve Watkins of fine knifemaker Ironman Forge. You’ll begin the weekend with an informal pig pickin’ Friday evening before a Saturday itinerary including knife forging, a cooking demo,

40 | WALTER

Katie Button’s tuna and tomato salad

and a four-course locavore dinner feast. Raleigh chef Ashley Christensen will be the chef July 7 - 9 when she will preside over a Poole’s Diner-inspired welcome reception, cookbook signing, and a Saturday dinner. Before dinner, there will be a glass blowing demonstration and whiskey tasting with artist Colin O’Reilly of Terrane Glass Designs. Come fall, Sept. 15 - 17, chef Katie Button of Curaté in Asheville and artists Scott and Bobbie Thomas of Thomas Pottery have planned a weekend of tapas, Spanish wine, a pottery demo, and a coffee tasting with Durham-based Counter Culture Coffee. –J.A. $399 per person; pinehurst.com/chefmaker

A stay that lasts Experience unforgettable beauty, comfort and renewal.

THEUMSTEAD.COM | CARY, NC | 866.877.4141

2016

SPOTLIGHT

courtesy N.C. Candid Critters

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SMILE!

YOU’RE ON

CRITTER CAMERA Statewide “camera trap” helps map and conserve wildlife

I

magine if you could stay up all night in your backyard wearing night goggles: What would you see? Deer? Opossums? Fox? You can find out, and contribute to wildlife conservation at the same time, by participating in a “camera trap” program going on throughout North Carolina.

It works like this: Sign up for free online; set up an approved trail camera in your backyard or along your nearby greenway; download the transmission software; sit back and watch. After three weeks, you submit any photographed animals to the Can-

did Critters project, a statewide collaboration between the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, and N.C. State.

While it’s bound to be interesting to see what sorts of creatures roam your yard, the information gathered will also become valuable data for scientific research. The project’s goal is to monitor up to 30,000 sites for the next three years in the largest-ever mammal survey of its kind. Such a massive number of images, organizers say, will help inform future wildlife management and conservation efforts.

Currently, there’s a lengthy waiting list to rent an approved trail camera from the N.C. State Natural Resources library. But if you don’t want to wait, and if one of the outdoorsmen in your life doesn’t have one you can borrow, an approved model can be had for around $25 from stores like Cabela’s. –J.A.

Sign up, see a list of approved cameras, and learn more at nccandidcritters.org.

42 | WALTER

courtesy StepUp Ministry (HIKERS); Thinkstock (HERB)

MAY

6

57

HERBFEST Looking to start an herb garden – or at least stock your kitchen counter with fresh sprigs for a while? Find the resources for either at Friends of the Page-Walker Herbfest in Cary May 6. You can tour the Anne B. Kratzer Educational Garden at the Page-Walker Arts and History Center to learn about starting a plot in your own yard. Or, back at the main center, you can stroll through booths selling herbs of every kind, as well as crafts and other garden products and recipe complements. With Mother’s Day around the corner, this might be a good place to stock up on gifts for the moms in your life, too. 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.; free; 119 Ambassador Loop, Cary; townofcary.org/recreation-enjoyment

HIKERS STEP UP Last spring, local hiker Craig Dunkley backpacked the 30-mile Art Loeb Trail near Asheville in western North Carolina to raise money for local nonprofit StepUp Ministry. His effort was such a success that he’s back at it this year – with a handful of friends. Dunkley’s organized group hike will again cover some 30 miles in western N.C., this time along a section of the Mountains to Sea Trail where it intersects with the Appalachian Trail. You can support the team with an online pledge. Proceeds go to StepUp’s employment and life skills training programs. stepupministry.org/hikersstepup

"

SPOTLIGHT

WORTH

THE DRIVE An hour east, you’ll find a feast

“Y

ou really don’t come here just to eat,” says Kimberly Kulers, who runs farm-to-table restaurant SoCo in Wilson with her husband Jeremy. “When people come for dinner, a lot of the time they’ll come and grab a glass of wine, walk around, meet the horses. Then dinner is usually about two hours. It’s about the whole experience.”

It’s a personal one, from the communal dining table the couple built themselves of old farm wood to the horses, bee hives, and organic produce the couple cultivates on their 11-acre working farm. Kulers calls it a “small batch” approach, a unique alternative, she says, to Eastern North Carolina’s more common barbecue and steakhouses.

When Jeremy Kulers worked as Vivian Howard’s sous chef at acclaimed restaurant Chef and the Farmer in Kinston, “we got to see that people do like this (upscale) kind of food, and they will drive for it,” Kimberly Kulers says. “If you build it, they will come.”

When SoCo opened in 2010, the Kulerses sat 14 people at a time at their communal table and only served a multi-course surprise prix fixe chef’s tasting menu. Gradually, they expanded

their service and hired staff, but Kulers says expansion felt disingenuous. “We enjoy when it’s just the two of us. We get to take more time with the diners and with the food. It’s exactly what we want to do.” They’ve now pared back down: Jeremy Kulers is in the kitchen and Kimberly Kulers in the front, serving 12 people at a time at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. The menu is four courses, prix fixe, and posted in advance. Once a month, there’s the more adventursome – and intimate – chef’s tasting dinner with 14 diners around a shared table feasting on a surprise, seasonal prix fixe menu.

Even the regular prix fixe menu includes “question marks.

We’ve got to see what’s coming up in the garden that day.” After all, this isn’t just about the food. “We get to know everyone who comes in here. This is sort of like us having a dinner party with our friends. Every weekend.” –J.A.

soconc.com

44 | WALTER

courtesy SoCo

TRIANGLE now

Jennifer N Bell (APEX); Joseph Rafferty (BOOK CLUB)

MAY

13

6

HILLSBOROUGH BOOK CLUB

APEX TRADITION PeakFest, an annual street festival in historic downtown Apex, began as a community gathering in a local school parking lot and has grown to become the largest public event in the small town. Celebrate “the peak of good living,” (a nod to the town’s name, too) May 6 at the wholesome afternoon of local art vendors, live entertainment, and fair-inspired food. 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.; free; Salem Street, Apex; apexpeakfest.com

If you had the chance to attend our Walter book club event with Lee Smith, or our recent Destination Walter event at Fearrington Village – or if you’re sorry you missed out on either – here’s a chance to experience both. Lee Smith will celebrate the release of the paperback edition of Dimestore at McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington May 13. Dimestore is novelist Smith’s her own story, a memoir of her childhood in the mountains of Virginia where storytelling and sense of place are sovereign. You can meet the author and pick up a copy of her book just before Mother’s Day. 11 a.m.; free; 220 Market St., Fearrington Village, Pittsboro; fearrington.com/event/lee-smith-dimestore

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SPOTLIGHT

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TRIANGLE now

REEL IT IN Topsail Island’s Spring Surf and Pier Fishing Challenge

A

nglers of all stripes are invited to vie for the Pier Cup at Topsail Island’s annual Spring Surf and Pier Fishing Challenge May 5 - 7. Surf and pier fishing tournaments are common along the coast in springtime, many presented by Fisherman’s Post newspaper. Among the paper’s competitions this month is this beginner-friendly surf and pier fishing challenge. Pier and surf fishing is considered a good entry point for angling because you don’t need a N.C. Fishing License to dive in; all are welcome to register for

May’s challenge.

The weekend involves round-the-clock fishing from midnight Saturday morning until noon on Sunday. Fish caught on one of Topsail Island’s three piers or any of its shores are eligible; prizes are for the heaviest bluefish, flounder, sea mullet, and black drum. But the biggest catch at stake is the Pier Cup. Winners have their name and their winning fish’s weight engraved on the cup, which they keep for a year before passing it on to the next champion fisher. –J.A.

$70; fishermanspost.com/tournaments/topsail-spring-surf-fishing-challenge

46 | WALTER

North Carolina Botanical Garden (WALK); Amanda Bergl (MOOGFEST)

MAY

14 MOTHER’S DAY WALK Treat your mom to fresh air for Mother’s Day on a guided wildflower walk May 14. Sponsored by the N.C. Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, you’ll stroll through the Mason Farm Biological Reserve’s 2.5-mile “old farm trail.” Along the trail is more than 250 years of cultural and natural history. A naturalist will point out particular flowers and landmarks of note. Walkers should wear sturdy hiking footwear and bring a walking stick, insect repellant, and water. 2 - 4:30 p.m.; $15; ncbg.unc.edu/calendar

18 - 21

MOOGFEST STAR PARTY Experience cutting-edge techno music and creative design thinking at Moogfest May 18 - 21. The annual event moved to Durham a few years ago and is one-part technology conference and twoparts electronic dance music (EDM) festival. It’s named for Bob Moog, who developed the analog synthesizer and other popular technology tools for artists. There are talks, workshops, Q&A sessions, and concerts and dance parties galore. $249 - $1,500; downtown Durham; moogfest.com

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MOUNTAIN WEEKEND

TXAKOLIFEST Have you ever heard of txakoli, pronounced chuh-coal-ey? You can find out if this sparkling, dry, white Spanish wine is up your alley May 21 at Txakolifest, an annual celebration in Durham. You’ll sample different varieties of the wine, including a few straight from the barrel, and also complementary hors d’oeuvres from local restaurants. To properly aerate txakoli, it’s traditionally poured a considerable height above the serving glass (or mouth); wine at an arm’s length is a whole lot of fun. Proceeds benefit the Immigration Legal Defense Fund. 12 noon - 4 p.m.; $75; The Rickhouse, 609 Foster St., Durham; blacktwigciderhouse.com/events

You can hit a few western high points on a three-day mountain trip May 24 - 26. Led by Raleigh-based company Visit NC Concierge, this weekend will have you based in Blowing Rock. From there, you’ll visit West Jefferson and the state’s oldest cheese manufacturer, Ashe County Cheese; hike Grandfather Mountain; visit Linville, home of rocky caverns and a gorge; and have plenty of downtime for shopping and self-guided exploration. The trip includes transportation to and from Blowing Rock, 2 nights in a bed-and-breakfast, a handful of guided tours, and many of the weekend’s meals. Wednesday morning - Friday evening; $1357 per couple (single rates available); visitncconcierge.com/north-carolinashigh-country

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Lucas Gambit (TXAKOlifest); Todd Bush Photography (MOUNTAIN)

TRIANGLE now

WALTER S BOOK CLUB with

Belle Boggs Author of one of

Oprah’s Top 10 Books of 2016 “Belle is an extraordinarily talented writer in both fiction and nonfiction. She is nothing short of brilliant.”

–Jill McCorkle

Please join us for a beautiful three-course luncheon with wine pairings with this award-winning author Sunday, May 7th, 12:30 p.m. at the UMSTEAD HOTEL & SPA 100 Woodland Pond Drive, Cary

BELLE BOGGS is an assistant professor in the MFA program at NC State University. Born in Virginia, she now lives in Raleigh with her husband, daughter, and two cats.

Space is limited.

Tickets are available to purchase at waltermagazine.com/ events.

$75 per ticket, two for $100 Complimentary 1-year subscription to WALTER magazine with each ticket purchase

Table gifts provided by

THE USUAL

OUR

“There’s usually more than one way to get through something.”

–Ken Walsh, Triangle Troglodytes vice-chair

W

hen can we go underground again? asks the Triangle Troglodytes tagline. The answer?

“About every other month or so,” says group chair Mark Daughtridge. This band of spelunkers – hobbyist cavers all – organizes trips to nearby caves, which in this region usually means Virginia and West Virginia. In between, they hold monthly open meetings at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, where members socialize, learn, and practice their skills. Recently, one item on the evening’s agenda was “drilling holes into concrete,” Daughtridge recounted jovially. Such bolting is serious, actually: a key skill for navigating challenging caves.

Despite the occasional power tools, these gatherings are friendly. Truly all are welcome, regardless of experience. When a newcomer asks about tight, dark spaces, Daughtridge reassures: “It’s generally not as scary as people think it would be,” he

says. When in doubt, he recommends sending a taller, heartier caver in ahead of you. “I’m great to go with beginners,” pipes up vice-chair Ken Walsh, who is more than 6 feet tall. “If I can fit, you know you’ll fit.”

In all seriousness, “I’ve never had anyone be freaked out and decide they didn’t want to go farther in the cave,” Daughtridge says. “If anything, most people really feel pretty adventurous.”

Adventurous is the common denominator of this diverse group.

Of the Tri Trogs’ 35 or so active members, ages range from 2 (cavers sometimes bring their children along) to 83. “We have a surprising number of Ph.D.s,” Daughtridge says, plus electrical engineers, college students, and people who “happen to move here from a place that had more caves than we do.” Rock climbing and diving are frequent gateway hobbies, he says. And there are also always just plain curious outdoorsfolk. –J.A. photograph by TRAVIS LONG

50 | WALTER

OUR Town

SHOP LOCAL

T

“We’re in the business of solving problems and helping people.” –Frank Papa, Phydeaux pet shop founder and owner

here was an aha moment about 15 years ago that motivated Frank Papa to leave his former software development job to start the holistic pet shop Phydeaux in Carrboro. He just can’t quite remember what it was. “I had an indoor cat at the time who had inadvertently gotten out,” he says, “somehow she did something that made me land on ‘pet store.’ That’s all I can recall.”

He blames the lost memory on the store’s trajectory since: Within three years, he’d moved Phydeaux to a larger location in Chapel Hill, and then quickly opened Raleigh and Cary outposts, too.

“It did take off pretty quickly … I wasn’t aware of how life-altering running my own business would be, how completely all encompassing. It’s pretty much the only thing I’ve done for the past 15 years.”

Not that Papa’s complaining.

Phydeaux stands out for its independent ownership, organic pet foods, and product selection. It’s the luxury boutique of pet stores. “As a staff we look at every single product we bring in. We try to find the best that’s available on the market, anywhere in the world.” Papa is mostly self-taught, despite a business undergraduate degree. “I took what I learned there and did the opposite,” he says with a laugh. “I had no experience in retail, and I figured it out as I went.”

Luckily, a dedication to “high quality” has paid off.

So has a passion for animal welfare.

Phydeaux puts on events with local animal nonprofits most weekends. “We do our best to try to sponsor any and all local rescue groups that we can. That’s always been important to me personally.”

–J.A. 2535 Atlantic Ave.; phydeaux.com

photograph by ELIZABETH GALECKE

52 | WALTER

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OUR Town

GAME PLAN

from left: Lekita Essa, Athena Hartwig, and Irene Iatridis

“We’re learning that there are more and more female veterans locally that are homeless. We want to bring awareness to that issue and contribute.”

–Lekita Essa, Greek Orthodox Ladies Philoptochos Society member

“P

hiloptochos is a Greek word that translates to ‘friends of the poor,’ and our local chapter is the Agape chapter, the Greek word for ‘love,’” says Lekita Essa. Essa went to her first Philoptochos monthly Sunday meeting at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox church with her godmother, a Philoptochos founding member, 108-year-old Pota Vallas (who was featured in the February 2016 issue of WALTER). She was impressed by the group’s civic projects and immediately plugged in. “It does beautiful work here in our community and all over the U.S.” Essa knows about the nationwide work because, in addition to serving with her 70-some fellow Agape chapter members, she serves on the national Philoptochos board. And, although she’s admittedly biased, Essa believes the Raleigh chapter stands out. “I’ve got to tell you: When looking at everything nationwide, obviously larger cities have more members and then they have the ability to

give much more money. But our chapter is known to be one of the hardest-working chapters, and we give thousands and thousands of dollars each year.”

Philoptochos dollars locally go to Backpack Buddies, the Pretty in Pink Foundation, InterAct, and Alliance Medical Ministry, among others. This month, the Agape ladies are busy focusing on a new cause to the group: homeless female veterans. They’ve been filling water-resistant backpacks with toiletries, fast food gift cards, and other personal items. When Holy Trinity hosts a regional laity conference in June – in which leadership from more than 70 regional Greek Orthodox churches will convene in Raleigh – the Agape volunteers will distribute the bags alongside Philoptochos members from throughout the Southeast. “We embrace and welcome everyone’s ideas in this organization. It’s an amazing community.” –J.A. photograph by RAY BLACK III

54 | WALTER

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OUR Town

ON DUTY

T

“I’m honored to be the first woman to hold the position. I’m excited to do the work that I love in a community I’m passionate about.”

he Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce’s new leader is not new to town, or to the chamber: Adrienne Cole’s economic development career includes roles as the executive director of the chamber’s county economic development program and then as senior vice president of economic development. “I’ve been in and out of Raleigh my whole life,” she says. Born here and raised in New Bern, Cole returned with her family in 2001 and has been a Raleighite ever since. “My family and I love Raleigh. We’ve been able to really grow our careers while also enjoying the community and providing what we think is a great place for our children to grow up.”

Cole has had a key role in creating that community: She says two of the high points of her past chamber work include helping to recruit Campbell Law School and the Red Hat headquarters to the city. The difference those business developments have made in the fabric of Raleigh epitomize what she loves about her work here, she says. “One of the things that makes this area so special is how effectively we collaborate together.

I think it’s part of our secret sauce: we work so well between organizations, elected leaders, business leaders.”

When she was named president of the chamber in March, she became the first woman to hold the position.

“Frankly, it wasn’t something that I thought a lot about. I was much more focused on the opportunity and future of our community. Being the president and CEO of the chamber is a very missiondriven role.”

Among her mission-oriented priorities are the economic development she’s familiar with, and also “a commitment to diversity and inclusion, as well as supporting small business and entrepreneurship.” –J.A.

–Adrienne Cole, Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce president and CEO photograph by ELIZABETH GALECKE

56 | WALTER

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OUR Town

SPOTLIGHT

TOPSAIL ISLAND

SKATING RINK Go around again

G

o around. Again and again. That’s what you do at a skating rink. At the Topsail Beach Skating Rink, locals and vacationers have been circling the wooden floor on sticky summer nights since it opened more than 50 years ago. Step inside, and you might think you’ve traveled back in time. There’s a stack of 45s with grooves worn deep. It’s not unusual to hear folks talk about bringing their children, and now their grandchildren here.

Doris Jenkins and her husband, Sonny Jenkins, opened the rink in 1964. Sonny is no longer well enough to work, but Doris keeps things running with the help of her nephew Dan

Arnold and his family. The rink is upstairs above the post office, which Doris also runs.

These photographs were taken on a balmy Saturday in late October, long after the usual summer season. When I first photographed the rink a decade ago, it was only open in summer months, so I was thrilled to find Doris and Dan assembling some new skates and tuning up some old ones even into the fall. Dan says that these days, Facebook allows them to announce extra openings post-season and ask the locals and regulars to let them know if they plan to come. If there’s enough interest, they’ll open their doors.

text and photographs by JULIE WILLIAMS DIXON

60 | WALTER

Clockwise from top left: Late afternoon sun quietly streams through open windows at Topsail Beach Skating Rink; Doris Jenkins opened the skating rink in 1964 with her husband Sonny Jenkins and today she runs it with her nephew Dan Arnold (pictured on following page) and his family;The entrance to the skating rink.

MAY 2017 | 61

OUR Town

62 | WALTER

SPOTLIGHT

WALTER profile

PROFILE

C

64 | WALTER

IN (N.C.)

COURAGE

by LIZA ROBERTS

photographs by RAY BLACK III

IT’S A LATE MARCH AFTERNOON AT WAKEMED SOCCER PARK IN CARY, WHERE 25 professional soccer recruits are gutting it out on a secluded practice field behind the stadium.

These players – some of the best athletes in the world – have a lot on the line. They’ve survived a first cut from an initial list of 30. They have less than two weeks before a final 20-player roster will be announced. It’s their second practice of the day. And everything they’re doing is new.

They’re creating a new team for a new organization in a league that’s only five years old. They’ve moved to a far-away, new place to do it. And they’re a new kind of professional player for these fields: They’re women.

With fuel-injected speed, precision skills, and athletic grace, they tackle their practice scrimmage like they take nothing for granted. None want to miss a chance to suit up for the North Carolina Courage’s inaugural National Women’s Soccer League season, just a few weeks away. All want to be prepared once they get there.

MAY 2017 | 65

Team owner Stephen Malik compares them to the NFL players of the 1920s, pioneering athletes who built a sport from the ground up not for dollars or fame but “for the love of the game.”

That’s clear. They’re willing to give a practice all they’ve got, even though the core of the squad on the field ranks as national champions already. They secured that title last year in their previous incarnation in the National Women’s Soccer League as the Western New York Flash. Some also represent the best of their native countries, playing for the national teams of Brazil, Japan, New Zealand, Canada, and the U.S. Maybe it’s that earned confidence that frees them up to smile, joke, and laugh as they do their precision drills; why they’re loose and chatty as they sprint and kick. A possession drill is underway: They need to complete eight passes before shooting. Coach Paul Riley counts their passes and shouts instructions and encouragement as they go: “Five passes, guys, come on … play it, play it, OK! Great football!” Then: “Everybody down!” The women drop to the grass and deliver 25 sets of push-ups and crunches with gusto – and more laughter.

“They have a lot more fun in training than the men,” says Marco Rosa, director of communications for the North Carolina Courage and the North Carolina Football Club, who watches from the sidelines. “The vibe is different. It’s joyful, almost. Happy.”

Also happy: Malik, the team owner and local entrepreneur who also owns North Carolina F.C. (the North American Soc66 | WALTER

JOYFUL VIBE

cer League men’s team formerAbove: Players need finesse to keep ly known as the Carolina Railfrom bumping into one another as they run within a tight circle in Hawks) and sits on the board of a pre-practice drill. Opposite: N.C. the U.S. Soccer Federation. His Courage forward Jessica McDonald goal of building world-class soccer during a pre-season scrimmage against Wake Forest University. in the Triangle got a major boost when he bought the Flash and brought them here in January; the announcement came just one month after he renamed the RailHawks, put in a bid for a Major League Soccer franchise, and said he’d build a new 24,000 seat stadium to hold it all. He started pursuing a women’s NWSL team at the same time but wasn’t expecting it to come together so quickly. When he realized the Flash was “a perfect fit for our area,” he sped things up.

“Not only are they the champions,” he says, “but they’re young.

They have a lot of soccer ahead of them.” His vision for the team is bold: “I think we can be the best women’s team in the world, and I’m not so sure we aren’t already.”

Malik’s counting on fans to agree. In another strategic move, he announced a partnership in March with two youth leagues, the massive Capital Area Soccer League and the Triangle Futbol Club Alliance, creating the largest youth-to-pro soccer club in the country. “Now we have 14,000 youth playing with us,” he says.

“And half of them are young women. To be able to offer those girls a chance to see some of the best women players in the world…”

And, for a few, the chance to train with those players. In April,

MAY 2017 | 67

the club announced a girls’ development academy similar to the NCFC’s existing boys’ development academy. It will begin competing in the fall.

Sportsmanship, fellowship The Courage development academy will undoubtedly teach girls skills and stamina. But if these professional players – and their coach – are also able to pass on some of their sportsmanship, they just might be able to create another generation of world-class stars.

Ask a Courage player what she likes about soccer, and she’ll tell you about the team: why the players like each other, what motivates them, and why they respect their coach, who also led the Flash.

“We take it day in, day out,” says Jessica McDonald, a 6-foottall forward who was a starter and top assister for the Flash last year and helped win the 2008 national championship when she played at UNC-Chapel Hill. As she cools down from the twohour practice, she doesn’t hesitate to zero in: “We encourage each other.” Captain Abby Erceg, a defender who also serves as captain for the New Zealand national team and was captain for the 68 | WALTER

LIKE FAMILY

Flash, says the squad is unusually Above: Head coach Paul Riley keeps it tight-knit. “I’ve played on a lot of light as the team stretches. Opposite, top: Elizabeth Eddy (4) gets to the teams around the world, and this ball first in a pre-season scrimmage is more like a family,” she says; her against Wake Forest University. teammates nod. “It’s good for the Bottom: The eleven players who game.” She credits coach Paul Riley started the game. Back row: Courtney Niemec, Jessica McDonald, Abby for providing the glue. “He’s done Dahlkemper, Katelyn Rowland, Taylor a really good job of bringing the Smith, Ashley Hatch. Front row: Debinha, McCall Zerboni, Liz Eddy, girls together. He’s included us in Meredith Speck, Makenzy Doniak the process, and he’s instilled a lot of confidence in the players.”

Goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo – a member of the Canadian women’s national soccer team, an Olympic bronze medalist, and a former star at the University of South Carolina – agrees. “We’re lucky to be with Paul,” she says. McDonald sums it up: “He opens our eyes, and takes us to a place we didn’t think we could be.”

The visionary coach is modest. “It’s just about the process, about the journey,” Riley says, smiling, low-key. “We spend a lot of time talking about the mental part of the game. And it’s fun if you work hard. It pays off at game time. Our mantra is ‘stay the course’ … We just try to have as much fun as we can.”

MAY 2017 | 69

STORY

of a house

REVIVAL GREEK REVIVAL Circa 1840, Cotton Valley is a Greek Revival home. The original plantation dates to 1819 and consisted of 7,000 acres reaching over three miles eastward from Tarboro.

70 | WALTER

LIVING A young family returns

to a Tarboro homeplace

by JESMA REYNOLDS photographs by CATHERINE NGUYEN

WHEN ELIZABETH MILLER LEARNED IT WAS HER TURN TO HOST Magazine Club last April, the pediatrician and mother of three realized her current living room furnishings – two small loveseats – might not accommodate the 20 ladies who comprise the membership of the venerable 100-year club in Tarboro. So she sent up an emergency flare to Eliza Stoecker and Louise Stowe in Raleigh. The sisters and Tarboro natives were already well acquainted with her gracious Greek Revival home, known as Cotton Valley. They’d long been friends with Miller’s husband Ken, who had grown up in the historic house and recently purchased it from his parents for his young and growing family.

Fortuitously, Stoecker, Stowe, and business partner Christina Allen had recently expanded their services as owners of Fleur Boutique, a women’s designer clothing store in North Hills, to include interiors, so they were ready to jump in. For her part, Elizabeth was more than ready and willing to hand over entirely the task of redecorating. What began as work in one room quickly morphed into an entire house redo.

MAY 2017 | 71

GRACEFUL WELCOME Above: In the living room, a crystal and brass chandelier from Niermann Weeks sets an elegant tone. Mint green silk Zoffany curtains billow like ball skirts. Walls are covered in a metallic grass cloth. The wing chair features a Schumacher chevron velvet while watercolor silk pillows by Beacon Hill add softness to the pair of loveseats. The Stanton La Paz wool rug came from Eatman’s Carpet and Interiors.

Opposite, top: In the entry hall, a pair of Travers & Co. chairs covered in an animal print velvet flank a chinoiserie chest.

Opposite, bottom: An inherited chest of drawers and gold frame mirror were relocated to the front of the entry hall. Seen through the doorway to the living room is a portrait of homeowner Elizabeth Miller, painted by her mother Marie Easley, sister to former N.C. governor Mike Easley.

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MAY 2017 | 73

AWASH IN LIGHT Above: Custom Gracie wallpaper covers the dining room walls where light pours through the mineral glass windows. The JF rug’s Greek key pattern echoes the design of the window and door moldings as well as the original pine mantel.

Right: Daughter Finley’s room showcases bright floral curtains by Scalamandré, a Kelly Wearstler lamp, and Redford House chest and bedside table.

Opposite, top: The kitchen was gutted and reconfigured. It now features a customdesigned metal light fixture by Coleen and Company and China Seas Java Java fabric on barstools by Bungalow 5. The counters are white quartz and cabinetry features brass hardware from Byrd Tile.

Opposite, bottom left: In Web’s nursery, wallpaper and chair fabric in a custom colorway

by Quadrille lend a dreamy quality. The wool rug is from Eatman’s Carpets and Interiors.

Opposite, bottom right: Two of the Miller children, Ken and Finley, peek through the stair railings on the way to the third floor.

74 | WALTER

MAY 2017 | 75

After tackling the stately living room, where they added ethereal mint silk curtains strewn with birds, the Fleur trio moved to the family room, where they lacquered the walls in a deep peacock blue, a bold and modern approach. In the dining room, they hung wallpaper by Gracie, adding custom touches of peacock blue birds and birdcages to echo the family room walls. The light-filled kitchen was gutted and bedecked with custom cabinetry and oversized brass hardware. Fabrics throughout the rooms were chosen from Brunschwig & Fils, Schumacher, Zoffany, and Quadrille. Other punches of color – a zebra wallpaper in the powder room and pops of yellow on pillows – added a zing to gracious, important architecture.

The overall effect is simultaneously timeless and vibrant. With three children ranging from 6 months to 7 years, that’s a good thing for the active two-doctor family who both practice in Rocky Mount. Elizabeth says her 15-minute commute home to the tranquility of Cotton Valley is transformative. Meanwhile, Ken, an orthodontist and onetime musician, enjoys caring for the extensive grounds, playing his guitar, and riding around in his golf cart with a glass of wine when he returns from work in the late afternoon, taking it all in, proving that you can indeed go home again.

76 | WALTER

BLUE WONDER Above: Peacock blue lacquered walls lend a dramatic, modern touch to the family room. A Van Collier ottoman is upholstered in custom China Seas Java Java fabric. The velvet on the sofa is

by Duralee with pillows in Clarence House and Schumacher fabrics. The metallic cowhide rug is from Italy. Fleur’s trio, Christina Allen, Eliza

Stoecker, and Louise Stowe stand between the family room and dining room.

Opposite: The back hall wallpaper is by Celerie Kemble while the powder room features a bold Brunschwig & Fils zebra print. Van Collier’s Gingko side table holds a vase of viburnums cut from the grounds. The fixture is by Coleen and Company.

MAY 2017 | 77

at the

TABLE

CHARLO About time

we toasted

the Queen City text and photographs by

DEAN McCORD

C

CHARLOTTE, WHY DO WE DISDAIN THEE? WHY DO WE RALEIGHITES ACT like you’re our dreary, plodding, putting-on-airs cousin? We pick on your street names (Queens Road, Queens Road East, Queens Road West, etc.) and your excruciating traffic. We call you soulless, boring, filled with buttoned-down bankers; a ghost town after 5. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say (and I quote), “I have to go to Charlotte. Ugh.” But nowhere is our snobbery more evident than when it comes to food.

78 | WALTER

TTE A cocktail at Halcyon

When I asked my friends to identify good places to eat in the Queen City, I got a lot of snarky comments. “Charlotte? Just hit the (insert name of national chain here) downtown.” It’s true that a city-versus-city comparison of James Beard Award winners, finalists, or even nominees puts Raleigh on top by far, especially when we count Durham and Chapel Hill, which we do.

But I found it hard to believe that Charlotte’s bad food rep was entirely fair. In an effort to learn the truth, I spent four days and three nights dining and drinking all across town. I visited more than 25 restaurants and bars and reached a simple conclusion: We in Raleigh are flat wrong. Charlotte’s dining scene is vibrant, eager, growing, and worth a visit.

Uptown / Downtown Raleigh seems to look down its nose most of all at Charlotte’s downtown (which is called Uptown, another of our petty grievances). That’s where the national steakhouses can be found in skyscrapers with various banks’ names at the top. But before we yawn too loudly at the sight of plush banquettes and predictable menus, it’s worth admiring the urbanity that gives rise to them and energizes the city’s spirit. Charlotte is a big city

done well, with lots of public art, murals, fountains, open space, and hustle and bustle. While walking through the streets of Uptown, it was easy to forget that this metropolis was in my home state of North Carolina.

And it has to be said: Exciting things are happening in Charlotte’s hotels. Take The Dunhill Hotel, my plush home base for three nights. The Dunhill is a 10-story historic boutique hotel that has been around for nearly 90 years. It has an intimate bar in the lobby and one of Charlotte’s best restaurants in The Asbury, named after the architect of the building itself.

The Asbury’s dining room is intimate, comfortable, and filled with regional artists’ work. But the focus of the Asbury is Chef Matthew Krenz’s food. Krenz’s family owns a small cattle ranch that produces beef for local restaurants, including The Asbury, and this connection with the food producers is clearly evident in his cooking. His take on liver and onions – in the form of a risotto with beef liver mousse and vidalia onion broth – blew me away. Along with everything else I ate in a memorable seven course meal, a mignardise (an assortment of bite-sized pastries and sweets) included my weakness: caramel corn with just a hint of spice. They knew how much I loved it, in fact, because there was a dish waiting for me in my room when I got back MAY 2017 | 79

Pickles at Stoke

Apple cake at Heirloom

very late that night.

But the boutique hotels don’t have a monopoly on interesting food and drinks. The Marriott – yes, the Marriott City Center – houses a great restaurant, bar, and coffee shop.

The coffee is in Coco and The Director, a huge, funky space featuring stadium seating with oversized pillows, meeting areas, great music, and exceptional coffee. It was a warm and welcoming home on a cool and rainy Friday morning. The Marriott’s watering hole is Stoke Bar, which has 24 taps of local craft beer and creative cocktails in a comfortable and warm environment. But the crown jewel of the Marriott is its restaurant, Stoke, featuring a wood-burning oven in an open kitchen.

Chef Chris Coleman, a Charlotte native, has created a menu that is not just for special occasions or the itinerant hotel guest, 80 | WALTER

but for regulars. The food is not fussy, but it is ridiculously delicious, reminiscent of the best neighborhood restaurants I’ve visited across the South. Try the oversized pork Amélie’s shank with a spicy sorghum glaze or the beef marrow bones with quince jelly and toast. I can only wish that a Marriott in Raleigh (or anywhere else I travel) had a restaurant this good.

Another hotel, The Ritz-Carlton, houses arguably the best cocktail bar in the city. The Punch Room, on the 15th floor, is helmed by master mixologist Bob Peters. It’s an exclusive place, with only 37 seats, and just 4 at the bar. The seating limitation is important, because the Punch Room doesn’t allow for standing and drinking – seats must be available to gain entry, and you may have to wait outside the door in a perfectly ordinary-looking hotel corridor. If you’re lucky enough to get in, you’ll be warmly greeted with a glass of the day’s punch, followed by perfect cocktail after cocktail after … well, you get the picture.

But hotels don’t have an exclusive on glitzy Uptown

Smelly Cat

Wooden Robot Brewery

dining. The Mint Museum houses the beautiful Halcyon, Flavors From the Earth. Fittingly, the chandeliers in Halcyon are works of art themselves, and the restaurant’s large windows offer dramatic views of Uptown. The menu is extensive, featuring ingredients from local farmers and artisans, and the food coming from Chef James Stouffer’s kitchen is clean, classic, and absolutely delicious. After you finish with dessert, including the most caramelly caramel cake ever, check out the Dale Chihuly glass sculpture hanging just outside Halcyon’s doors.

At the other end of the glitz spectrum is the 7th Street Public Market, a food hall filled with cheese shops, raw bars, crepe makers, coffee shops, and other merchants. The baristas at Not Just Coffee use Counter Culture beans, if you need a reminder of home, and the raclette and ham grilled cheese at Orrman’s Cheese Shop is alone worth a trip.

Conclusion: Uptown Charlotte is not nearly as bad as we think it is. Some of it is even great. Even with the chain restaurants.

’Burbs But what about the neighborhoods? Is there anything good to eat in suburban Charlotte? Of course there is. Plenty. It is in those neighborhoods where you get to see another side of the

Sprouts, potatoes, and bacon at littleSpoon

city’s culinary identity. Because Charlotte had the foresight to add a light rail line south of Uptown, many restaurants and bars have developed along that corridor, known as South End. You want coffee? Give HEX, just a stone’s throw away, a try. It’s a small, family-friendly place that doubles as a bottle shop. Coffee in the morning, beer at night. What else do you need?

How about a pastry? Down the street a bit is Renaissance Patisserie, the smallest bakery you may ever visit, but with a comprehensive menu. Their sweet pastries (which are also sold at Coco and The Director) are top-notch, but if you’re in the mood for something savory, try the bacon and cheese minibaguette, a slice of quiche, or one of their flaky croissants.

If it’s lunch you want, you could try The Liberty, a gastropub that has extraordinarily quality food, including housemade pretzels. It also has its own “pickle program.” How many gastropubs have a pickle program? The dinner menu is even more interesting, and delicious, including chicken-and-dumplings with freshly made gnocchi as dumplings.

To truly do lunch properly in South End, however, I recommend the following. Start at Price’s Chicken Coop, one of Charlotte’s oldest restaurants, across the street from the light MAY 2017 | 81

Price’s Chicken Coop

rail line. The offerings extend far beyond fried chicken, but it’s the bird that brings you here. It’s a cash-only place, and they don’t have any seats, so be prepared to take your white box of chicken a block north along the tracks, where you’ll find a tall picnic table in front of the Charlotte Historic Trolley Museum.

Price’s is one of those places where the hype is legit: The chicken is among the best in the South.

Don’t eat too much of it, however, because you need to save room for ramen. Just across the tracks from your lunch spot is the always-packed Futo Buta. Grab a seat at the counter and order ramen, and do it right: Make your own customized bowl with choices of broths and addenda. Try the fried brussel sprouts with shaved bonito, which writhe around from the heat of the sprouts, looking like they’re still alive.

Now that your belly is full, you can walk a couple of blocks for a beer at Wooden Robot Brewery or ice cream at Golden Cow Creamery, including a flavor that incorporates haystack candy, that old chow mein noodle and butterscotch confection.

Beer or ice cream? It’s a dilemma, so I recommend the beer.

Then the ice cream.

NoDa Charlotte’s light rail system is expanding, with new lines in the works, and the NoDa neighborhood northeast of Uptown will be a major beneficiary with the line running right past.

This area was a hub of Charlotte’s textile mills in the 19th century and evolved into an historic arts and entertainment district, 82 | WALTER

Pretzel atThe Liberty

an eclectic area that would fit right in with the vibe of Asheville – except for the lack of mountains, of course. Restaurants, galleries, music houses, and bars are found throughout the area.

And, of course, coffee. Great coffee.

You can get it at Smelly Cat, named after the wonderfully horrible song by the Lisa Kudrow character Phoebe Buffay in the television series Friends. Smelly Cat has that perfect coffeehouse feel, with hip baristas who know their craft. Of course you can get pour-overs, cold-brew on tap, and lattes of every flavor, but at Smelly Cat they even make their own flavored syrups.

After your coffee, drive over to Charlotte’s classic and funky joint that never, ever closes, Amélie’s. Bakery by day, brasserie by night, its kitschy art and antiques would alone be worth a visit, but it would be a shame not to grab a croissant sandwich at a sun-drenched table by the window and enjoy the morning.

For dinner, you won’t go wrong at one of NoDa’s newest establishments, Haberdish, a casual and lively restaurant that nails all the traditional Southern dishes like fried chicken, pimento cheese, cast-iron-charred okra, and, best of all, livermush toast. Yes, the world of livermush toast may be quite small, but this is as good as it gets. However, it’s the cocktails at Haberdish that really captivated me. Colleen Hughes is the genius behind these drinks, which are creative, delicious, and eye-popping, served in antique-looking glassware. Even the layout of the cocktail menu – beginning with aperitifs and punches and finishing with digestifs – eases you into an enjoyable night of spirits.

Haberdish

Myers Park Charlotte is filled with lots of other gems throughout its neighborhoods, but they’re not next to a rail line. So you may need to visit them the old fashioned way, with a car (or be hip like me and let ride-sharing be your friend).

Two great spots are in the tony Myers Park area, including one of my most surprising finds: Aix en Provence, a small bistro in a nondescript building next to a Starbucks. The menu is mostly French, with an emphasis on Provençal cuisine, but the food is not beholden to the classics. Chef Nicholas Tarnate tweaks dishes when he thinks it will improve them, but he leaves well enough alone when the ingredients demand it. His seemingly simple rendition of celery root velouté, for instance, includes merely cream, butter, celery root, and salt. The ingredients may be simple, but Tarnate’s alchemy resulted in what was perhaps the single best dish I tasted in Charlotte.

Another Myers Park spot is littleSpoon (yes, little “l” and big “S”), which is not a breakfast restaurant or a lunch restaurant. It is, quite simply, a place for brunch. The cuisine is a seemingly impossible but completely workable mixture of hipster Californian, East Asian, and traditional Southern. Fried brussel sprouts with a Korean gochu-jang chili sauce, quinoa bowls, and livermush are all available, and superb. Owner and California native Alesha Sin Vanata also loves her cocktails and sparkling wine, so the bar menu is equally eclectic and diverse. And

she loves her hip hop, so don’t be surprised to hear a little Biggy with your bubbly.

And don’t miss…

Vanata has another restaurant in the Plaza Midwood area of town, just a little south of NoDa. Comida is not your typical burrito and quesadilla Mexican, but is instead a contemporary take on the cuisine. The masa for the tortilla chips (intentionally served just a bit chewy) is made from organic heirloom corn and ground in-house. The food is complex, but wonderfully flavorful. And if you want tequila or mezcal, you’ve come to the right place, with nearly 40 different types available each night.

Comida is one of the most underrated places in Charlotte, but that should change over time.

One place that is not underrated, but perhaps underappreciated, is Heirloom. Chef Clark Barlowe’s love letter to North Carolina, Heirloom was the restaurant farthest from the city center that I visited (and still barely more than a $10 ride-sharing fare away), but it was more than worth the trip. A surprisingly large restaurant, Heirloom is housed in an old fish camp, which is just the first surprise.

The walls are covered with wood from Barlowe’s family’s barn in Lenoir and the bar is adorned with family photos and frames from his great grandmother’s window sashes. The food comes from more than 70 North Carolina farmers and producMAY 2017 | 83

WHEN YOU GO 7TH STREET PUBLIC MARKET Open daily, hours vary; 7thstreetpublicmarket.com AIX EN PROVENCE Lunch Tues. - Fri., dinner Mon. - Sat., closed Sunday; aixenprovenceclt.com AMÉLIE’S 24/7; ameliesfrenchbakery.com THE ASBURY AT THE DUNHILL HOTEL Mon. - Fri. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., weekends 9 a.m. - 10 p.m.; theasbury.com COCO AND THE DIRECTOR AT MARRIOTT CITY CENTER Every day, 6 a.m. - 10 p.m.; cocoandthedirector.com

Ramen at Futo Buta

ers, including Barlowe’s own honey from hives on the roof of the restaurant. Food is served on dishes made by local potters; the wines are mostly North Carolinian; and every single spirit used in cocktails is from the state. It turns the bartender into a mad scientist of sorts, making use of the dozens of hand-made infusions, tinctures, and bitters at his fingertips.

Fortunately, the dedication to North Carolina ingredients of all kinds does not compromise the quality of the drinks or food, but inspires it. Purple sweet potato soup, wild game ravioli, fried chicken skin “chips” or N.C. crab cakes are all impeccably executed, beautifully presented, and serve as a reminder of the amazing bounty of our state.

My travels also took me to many other breweries, donut shops, and bakeries, and didn’t even manage to touch the myriad hole-in-the wall Asian, Mediterranean, Latino, or Eastern European places that put the Triangle to shame with quantity and quality.

Which leads me to the take-home message from my trip to Charlotte: North Carolina’s biggest city does have great food, and it’s getting even better. The Queen City has dedicated chefs, baristas, bakers, farmers, and bartenders who do not believe they produce anything inferior to what is coming out of the Triangle – because they don’t.

Charlotte is not just an upand-coming food town; its time has arrived, and it’s time we accept it. (But I still don’t want to call it Uptown.)

FUTO BUTA Tues. - Thurs. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. and Sat. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m., Sun. 12 noon - 10 p.m.; futobuta.com GOLDEN COW CREAMERY Sun. - Wed. 1 - 9 p.m., Thurs. - Sat. 1 - 10 p.m.; goldencowcreamery.com HABERDISH Tues. - Fri. 5 p.m. - midnight, Sat. 11:30 a.m. - midnight, Sun. 11:30 a.m. - 11 p.m.; haberdish.com HALCYON, FLAVORS FROM THE EARTH AT THE MINT MUSEUM Tues. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.; halcyonflavors.com HEIRLOOM Tues. - Thurs. 5 - 9 p.m., Fri. and Sat. 5 - 10 p.m.; heirloomrestaurantnc.com HEX COFFEE Weekdays 7 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sat. 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.; hex.coffee THE LIBERTY Every day 11 - 1 a.m.; thelibertycharlotte.com LITTLESPOON Tues. - Sun. 8 a.m. - 3 p.m.; littlespooneatery.com PRICE’S CHICKEN COOP Tues. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.; priceschickencoop.com THE PUNCH ROOM AT THE RITZ-CARLTON Wed. and Thurs. 5 - 11 p.m.; Fri. and Sat. 6 p.m. - 1 a.m.; ritzcarlton.com/en/hotels/charlotte RENAISSANCE PATISSERIE Mon. - Sat. 7 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sun. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.; renaissancepatisserie.com SMELLY CAT Open daily, hours vary; smellycatcoffee.com STOKE AT MARRIOTT CITY CENTER Every day, 6:30 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.; stokecharlotte.com Stoke Bar: Sun. - Wed. 11 a.m. - midnight, Thurs. - Sat. 11 - 2 a.m.

Deviled eggs at The Asbury

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WOODEN ROBOT BREWERY Closed Mondays; woodenrobotbrewery.com

The King, who strides across the wall of the old Carolina Theatre in Uptown (where he played in 1956), likes the Queen City too.

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DRINK

THE

WRIGHT STUFF

by JESMA REYNOLDS

A TRIP TO THE OUTER BANKS VIA HIGHWAY 158 WILL TAKE YOU THROUGH the hamlet of Jarvisburg, on Currituck Sound. It’s known to beach travelers who drop by the landmark gift shop The Cotton Gin – which used to be an actual cotton gin – before they continue on.

Since 2008, it’s also where Sanctuary Vineyards has been growing varietals of European-style vinefera grapes and putting this coastal outpost on the map as a fine place for making award-winning fine wine. photographs by BROOKE MAYO

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When the words wine and North Carolina combine in a sentence, fine does not usually join them. But Sanctuary’s general manager and vineyard manager John Wright is determined to change that. He’s doing it on the seaside farm that has been in his family for seven generations, where cotton, potatoes, and soybeans have long flourished.

The UNC-Chapel Hill graduate returned home in 2001, armed with a degree in economics and a vision to preserve the rich agrarian tradition of his forefathers in an area where tourism and development were rapidly encroaching. He approached his father and uncle, joint owners of the farm, about setting aside several acres for grapes. Skeptical but agreeable, their only caveat was that he do it debt-free. As Wright says of the old-school farmers: “We don’t do loans.”

So Wright patiently explored which varietals would thrive in the farm’s harsh coastal climate. His research led him to places with similar growing conditions: Spain, southwestern France, Greece, and Croatia. Putting aside personal preferences, he found “oddball varieties” of grapes like petit manseng and albariño that could adapt well to the loose sand and shell-deposited soil of Currituck County. One grape he knew he didn’t want to grow was the state’s native scuppernong (the official state fruit); its distinctly aromatic sweetness inspires serious oenophiles to roll their eyes.

John Wright at his Sanctuary Vineyards

But Wright soon realized that the grape selection process was only the beginning of a lengthy slog. Agricultural restrictions, he learned, mandate a six-year quarantine period for imported vines before they can be planted. And converting a 30,000-square-foot former mail-order building on the property into a winery without incurring any debt pulled on Wright’s resourcefulness. But persistent pluck and thriftiness paid off: He found affordable, used wine tanks from South Africa that arrived via a shipping container after several months at sea, and in 2008, he harvested his first grapes.

Three years later, Wright opened the vineyard to visitors for events, and today, the picturesque location is a popular choice for tasting room visitors, weddings, receptions, and the annual Curri-Shuck oyster festival.

The grapes

Winemaker Casey Matthews samples from a barrel to decide on a blend for the newest edition of Coastal Collage 2015, a dry red blend.

The engine that keeps this all running is the fruit, cultivated and nurtured by Wright and his winemaker Casey Matthews, who came from Raffaldini Winery in the Yadkin Valley. Their current roster of 16 varietals includes viognier, chardonnay, traminette, chardonnel, vidal blanc, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, petit verdot, merlot, tempranillo, pinot noir, syrah, tannat, aglianico, petit manseng, and albariño.

A visit during growing season reveals depleted-looking grapevines, which Wright says is purposeful, forcing later ripening, and small, and intensely flavored berries. Because the soil is eroded and keeps the plants from growing large, Wright plants more of them in a row to increase their vigor.

Harvesting begins in early August and runs through the end

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DRINK of September when the labor force swells to 15.

The hard work is paying off. Wright now has 30 acres dedicated to growing grapes, and he’s doubled production from 5,000 to 10,000 cases a year. Though the majority of sales

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go through the “front door” of the tasting room, Wright has recently been picked up by a distributor who is placing Sanctuary wines in restaurants and local shops across the region.

Meantime, the accolades keep piling up. Recent awards include back-to-back gold medals at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition in 2015 and in 2016 for the Pearl albariño, a white wine made exclusively from estate grown albariño. The winery also received the 2015 N.C. Wine Grower of Excellence award by the North Carolina Winegrowers Association for its leadership and dedication to quality wines, something for which Wright is particularly proud.

He’s also proud of his state, convinced that North Carolina is a legitimate place for world-class viticulture. He likens his job to that of craft brewing, with its regular innovation. “I like the idea we are improving every year. Every year we’re adding something new.” And he wants the business to last, to be able one day to leave it to his now-young children. “It doesn’t feel like a job. It almost feels like reading a book. I’ve already started it. I’ve gotta keep going and find out what the ending will be.”

WHERE TO FIND IT CLOSE BY Southern Season Piedmont Restaurant Raleigh Provisions Wine and Beer 101 Seaboard Wine Warehouse The Glass Jug N.C. Museum of History The Wine Feed Provenance

sanctuaryvineyards.com

ARTIST’S spotlight

JOHN

BEERMAN

Home again

by LIZA ROBERTS

photographs by LISSA GOTWALS

T

THE 34 PAINTINGS CURRENTLY ON VIEW AT LEE HANSLEY GALLERY IN Raleigh – luminous, reverential landscapes and still lifes depicting North Carolina mountains, South Carolina beaches, Texas ranchland, and Tuscan hillsides – are the work of a transcendent depictor of light, a subtle student of color, a lover of nature.

John Beerman, lately of Durham, is the artist. “A master of the rural American sublime,” as Tibor de Nagy, Beerman’s gallery in New York, attests, Beerman was born and raised in Greensboro and lived for three decades on the Hudson River, steeping himself in the beauty of that valley and the work of the artists it spawned.

But the South never really left him, and now that he has returned to it, his work shows the gentle influence of the nature, people, and rhythms of his home.

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‘A NEW LIFE, A GOOD LIFE’ John Beerman at home in Durham.

Above him is Main Road at the Cage, Looking South, which he painted in 2012.

His house is filled with his works.

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“You bloom where you’re planted, I guess,” says Beerman, 59, in his soft-spoken way. He has, after all, built a successful career by embracing his surroundings. His Hudson River landscapes and other works received acclaim early on, and have been exhibited widely in the United States and abroad. His paintings can be found in the collections of the North Carolina Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the governor’s mansions in New York and North Carolina, among many others.

Many here know him for his large-scale Three Trees, Two Clouds, which has hung at the NCMA for 25 years and “represents the apogee of North Carolina art at that end-of-the20th-century period,” says NCMA director Larry Wheeler. “I think of John Beerman’s trees, and then I think of Van Gogh’s trees, and there’s a similarity, I must say.” The energy, physicality, spirituality, and surreal aspect of the work put Beerman on the map here, Wheeler says, and helped to make him one of North Carolina’s most prominently collected living artists.

Today, a well-rounded Beerman collection would have to include, in addition to the expansive landscapes, architectural studies and still lifes, too.

“His work is very mysterious, in a way,” says the author Frances Mayes, whose Hillsborough house and gardens, known as Chatwood, are often Beerman’s subject. “It has a kind of mythic 92 | WALTER

AM A STUDENT OF ART’ element. He will paint ‘I This page: Beerman works on a study of a tulip poplar a camellia on a branch, tree in his studio. All around him are sketches and and it’s just a camellia. studies of his natural surroundings. Opposite page: On at Lee Hansley Gallery, Autumn Memory, Toxaway But isolated like that, view 2013, oil on linen, 30 x 40 inches. and treated with such talent, and light, it becomes an icon.”

One recent Monday morning, Beerman was at the home he shares in Durham with his partner, the poet Tori Reynolds. It’s where he does most of his work these days. In a studio under the house, works in progress show how his painter’s eye has zoomed in on bits of the foreground that once gave way to the horizon’s sweep. Three poppies, a few lemons, a camellia. They seem to shimmer in focus, while behind them, almost blurred, lie the hillside, farm, or field that once would have filled his frame.

A painting, he says, always starts with good observation.

“Your imagination is only as good as your observation. Once you stop observing, your imagination becomes cliché.”

His close-in observation can be seen in his paintings from the last couple of years, scenes painted at Mayes’s Hillsborough estate, and in and around her house in Tuscany. With invisible brushstrokes, expansive skies, and a restrained palette, the images appear to have arrived fully formed, outside time, trend, or influence. As a student, Beerman says he revered artists as diverse in subject, style, and era as the Dutch-American abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning (“before he got really

more minimally; they come from a density to a minimalism.” abstract”) and the early Italian Renaissaince master Pierro della Francesca. “I have a thing for those wonderful old guys and the contemporary guys, and the mash-up of those two things.”

Early years Most recently, Beerman’s focus and universe have become Beerman’s education as an artist began at boarding school even more personal. “I’ve become more interested in … not in Vermont, where he learned photography and the value of about seeing new landscapes, but in seeing landscapes through self-direction. He began painting landscapes later, at the Rhode new eyes,” he says. When his car broke down several months Island School of Design, inspired in part by an uncle who had ago, he wanted to find out what painted on the deck in the sumit would be like to go withmertime at Beerman’s grandparout one. “I started discovering “I find solace in looking at the landscape. ents’ house at Lake Toxaway in things right here on this propthe Blue Ridge Mountains. At I think it’s a human thing. We all do.” erty I had never noticed before,” RISD, Beerman found a “phehe says. “The bark on trees – my nomenal” teacher, Gerry Im–John Beerman God, this is amazing – and it’s monen, who encouraged him just right here. And what I like to stick to (then unfashionable) about it is I can go out and look landscapes. “He opened up the at it again in a different light. That’s the wonderful thing about world for me,” Beerman says. “He was the real thing. I still think nature. You think the tree is like this, and then it changes.” He about him every day.” found a tulip poplar around the corner in a neighbor’s yard and If Beerman is to be believed, he had to work harder than set up his easel to paint it. When the neighbor drove up and other students at RISD to find his way. And that fact, he says, asked what he was doing, Beerman told him: “I hope you don’t has made his career. “The kids who came with all this talent, and mind,” he said. “I’m a painter, and I love your tree.” it’s all so easy, don’t stay with it,” he says. “The ones like me – I “Great artists evolve,” says Wheeler. “As they grow older, like the work of it. It’s a lot of trial for me, and it’s a lot of error, their work becomes reduced to the fundamentals of their ideand it’s mostly error, and I accept that. It’s a messy process.” ology. They often express their worldview more abstractly and His pocket-sized studio, a cave of efficiency, betrays none of MAY 2017 | 93

was young, just out of school, and in the public library in East the mess, but it’s filled with the trials. Studies, sketches, notes Hampton, N.Y. when he learned about their work. A series abound. The same tulip, again, again, and again. Books – dogof Maine landscapes by Fitz Hugh Lane (also known as Fitz eared, yellowed, annotated – on color. A meticulously crafted Henry Lane) gripped him. So inspired was Beerman that he card of color triads. Notebooks and notes on light and shape borrowed his father’s camper and perspective. He makes his van to drive up to Maine to own gesso, his own egg tempera.

“He is skilled at capturing that fleeting seek out the spots Lane had painted nearly a century earIf nothing else, Beerman moment of light, those few minutes – lier. “Lo and behold, the landremains a dedicated student of his craft. His time spent even seconds, where the light of day is scape, the topography, was studying, sketching, and writperfect,” Beerman recalls. “It shifting to dusk.” –Lee Hansley ing is his way of navigating was still essentially the same the images that shimmer in 100-odd years later.” But there his mind’s eye. “It’s incredibly was an important difference, small,” he says, looking around the tiny space where he does too. The color, Beerman could see, had come not from nature, all of this studying. “But it’s actually working for me.” He but from Lane’s own imagination. points out a simple easel perched at waist height. “The space It was an important realization: “It’s not all about obserthat’s most important is the space between you and the canvation. There’s this other component. It’s me. It’s personal.” vas.” He reconsiders: “No. The space that is most important The writings of Émile Zola, he says, also led him to believe that he had something to offer beyond craftsmanship: His is the space between your ears.” Beerman once read a quote sensibility. After that, he says, “I was on a mission.” from the photographer Dorothea Lange on the virtues of getHe put that mission to work in a studio he rented in East ting lost in the studio. In it, he recognized himself: “I go in the Hampton that had once belonged to the famed pop artist studio, I get lost, and every so often, I get found again.”

James Rosenquist; then he found his way upstate to Nyack, Beerman found an important form of inspiration early on N.Y., where he worked for abstract expressionist Jasper Johns, when he learned about the American Luminists, an 1850-1870 who introduced him to the New York art world. He made offshoot of the Hudson River School of artists who focused prints in Nyack with his former mother-in-law, a printmaker, on the effect of light and tranquility in landscapes. Beerman 94 | WALTER

EN PLEIN AIR This page: A focus on vernacular architecure is a new subject for the artist, left. His notebooks are full of impressions, sketches, studies, and details, above.

Opposite page: Grandfather Mountain, Lavender Grey Sky 2013, oil on linen, 26x30 inches, on view at Lee Hansley Gallery.

and had some chosen for a SoHo show that was reviewed in The New York Times. A solo show followed, which sold out.

“It was very heady for me,” he says. “I can’t figure out if it’s a blessing or a curse to start out like that.”

Whatever the case, Beerman was in his element. Not only because he was surrounded in the Hudson River Valley by the subject of his artistic fascination, but because, as he learned after a full 25 years painting the river, he has a direct familial connection to the place: Henry Hudson himself is Beerman’s direct ancestor, his great-grandfather times six.

A similarly poignant and unexpected family connection to his surroundings greeted him when he returned to North Carolina six years ago. Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, the great-granddaughter of Washington Duke, for whom Duke University is named, bought a painting Beerman had done of Maple View Farm for the Duke Cancer Center. She told Beerman when she met him that his own great-grandfather, John Calvin Thorne, was a wonderful man she had never forgotten. She remembered well the time Thorne, who was the best friend and colleague of her own grandfather, Benjamin Duke,

accompanied she and her mother on a transatlantic voyage at her grandfather’s behest. Most of a lifetime later, the Duke Endowment bought a large-scale Beerman landscape of the Ayr Mount estate in Hillsborough for its boardroom in Charlotte. Shortly after Semans died in 2012, Beerman visited the boardroom to see his painting. The only other art in the room was of Semans, whose portrait gazed upon it. The connection had come full circle. “It was a magical, sweet moment,” he says.

Magical connections seem to find Beerman. When he met a fleet of wonderful new friends including Frances Mayes shortly after arriving in Hillsborough, he also found an enduring source of artistic inspiration. Mayes feels the same way. “It’s so great to see him out in the garden at Chatwood,” she says. “With his straw hat, and his wooden easel, and two cats bothering him, oh, it’s like Monet at Giverny.” She has a few of his works, and would like to have more. “He can certainly pack a lot of power in a small painting, and his large paintings are so, so moving,” she says. “It will be interesting to see what he does next.”

One safe bet: He’ll do it in North Carolina. “I feel at home here,” he says, taking in the art-filled house he shares with Reynolds, the delicious lunch she has just prepared, the nature just outside the door. Back in the state of his birth, Beerman has found “a new life, a good life.”

Beerman’s show at Lee Hansley Gallery runs until May 17.

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Raleighites

HISTORIC

SAINT MARY’S

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SCHOOL AT 175 Raleigh’s oldest continually operated school celebrates a major milestone by HAMPTON WILLIAMS HOFER photographs by JILLIAN CLARK

On May 12, Saint Mary’s School, the nation’s second oldest Episcopal girls’ school, will celebrate 175 years of educating young women on its historic campus in downtown Raleigh.

In the school’s main building is a parlor where General Tecumseh Sherman once had tea with the school’s founder, the Reverend Aldert Smedes. That room is now WiFi-accessible, scattered with girls leaning over their school-issued convertible laptop tablets. On the same front steps where tuition was once bartered for bales of cotton and sacks of flour amid the strain of wartime, girls now cluster in field hockey uniforms, chatting and listening to music.

The story of Saint Mary’s, Raleigh’s oldest continually operating school, is one of resilience and adaptation. The school has not only survived but thrived, thanks to its ability to change with the times, instituted on the ideals of Aldert Smedes. Some 78 years before women could vote, he boldly asserted that “an educated woman can make a difference in society.”

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At times serving girls from kindergarten all the way through junior college, Saint Mary’s is now a high school, comprised of 270 students from ten states and five countries. It’s like many high schools, where a student can take AP calculus and join the photography club and get revved up about spirit week and prom. However, Saint Mary’s is different from most high schools, and not just because the dining hall offers options like roasted vegetable quiche for breakfast. Saint Mary’s has a college-like 24/7 campus where girls – boarders and day-students alike – are encouraged to engross themselves in extracurricular activities, stay for dinner, and use the library at night – a library that is stocked with more than 39,000 catalogued holdings.

Students at Saint Mary’s have nontraditional academic options like an independent study program, individual instrumental lessons, and exchanges to Australia and France. A few weeks ago, the school’s Exploratorium was full of girls learning to code. Still, the school remains rooted in a storied history, a legacy that runs deeper than the foundations of its central buildings, which were built with stones left over from the construction of the North Carolina State Capitol, eight blocks away.

The original 13 It all started with the originals. Thirteen girls arrived in the Saint Mary’s Grove on May 12, 1842, greeted by the Rev. Smedes. The campus had been the site of a failed boys’ school that went bankrupt after just four years. But Smedes, a New Yorker who had moved south for health reasons, was determined to make a girls’ school flourish there. And he knew what he was doing.

He came from a family of strong women, his mother the headmistress of a prestigious girls’ school in Manhattan. When the original thirteen arrived, he opened the doors of Saint Mary’s; they have, amazingly, never closed.

Through the Civil War and the World Wars, periods of economic disaster and social upheaval, Saint Mary’s has stood as a place of solace and safety for young women to receive, as Smedes imagined, “a thorough and excellent education equal to the best that can be obtained in the city of New York, or in any Northern school.”

Now situated in the heart of an award-winning public school system, Saint Mary’s stays relevant in part due to its loyal following. The alumnae network includes 10,000 members from all over the world. “I was once on a plane and the woman seated behind me noticed my ring,” recalls Hollan Young (’02), referring to the school’s trademark black onyx school ring that bears the Saint Mary’s seal. “She held up her own hand, both of us proud SMS girls, and we spent the rest of the flight sharing memories.” Nearly a quarter of Saint Mary’s students are members of the Granddaughters Club, reserved for direct descendants of alumnae. This devotion to the school has created a healthy endowment, insuring a bright future for Saint Mary’s (the annual fund goal is $1.5 million for this year alone). And the legacy is not all about women. Former Raleigh mayor Smedes York is the great-great-grandson of the school’s 98 | WALTER

HELPING GIRLS THRIVE “Every aspect of our learning and living community is designed to give girls the tools and experiences they need to grow as confident, independent young women prepared to navigate their lives with intelligence, purpose, and integrity,” says Monica Gillespie, Head of School, above. Board of Trustees chair Ted Bratton, whose family ties go back to two of the school’s original 13 students, and board vice-chair Gloria Becker, class of ’92, below.

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photo courtesy Saint Mary’s School

founder: “I’m proud to have his name,” Aldert Smedes insisted on the continuous operation of Saint Mary’s throughout the Civil War. Relatives York says. “Our famof both Union and Confederate generals took refuge ily will always be there, including Robert E. Lee’s daughter, Mildred, who arrived at Saint Mary’s in 1862 when Richmond supportive of Saint was under siege, as did the family of Jefferson Mary’s – my wife Davis. After General Sherman’s march in 1865, his Union troops camped on the front lawn of Saint attended the school, Mary’s when they came through Raleigh. Sherman and my grandmother wanted Saint Mary’s to be turned into a hospital, as many schools had done during the war. He met was born there. It’s to negotiate with Aldert Smedes in the parlor of all especially gratiSmedes Hall in a room that is nearly unchanged today. Smedes and his wife Sarah had lost two sons fying in that Saint to the war, and almost every pupil on campus had Mary’s is flourishing lost someone, too: a father, a brother, a beau. Saint Mary’s would not become a hospital, but would conin its 175th year.” tinue functioning as a place of education, and even Saint Mary’s girls more importantly at that time, a place of solace.

After a peaceful tea, General Sherman left, walking are prepared for coldown the large front steps of Smedes Hall. When he lege and life at an turned for a wave, he caught sight of dozens of girls (most of whom were southerners) crowded into the institution that has windows of the floors above him, making faces and continually accliwiggling their fingers and sticking out their tongues.

With the victory of the Civil War almost certainly in mated to changing his hands, Sherman found humor in the boldness times – ditching the of their antics, and often recounted the story with amusement. dress code, for one.

Kaye Livermore (’61) remembers an old sign from the school’s early years that was left up in her dormitory reminding students not to leave the building without a hat and a corset, something even the girls in the late ’50s found comical. Today, with no uniforms and no boys, the Saint Mary’s campus has a lot of pajama pants and un-brushed

SHERMAN’S FAREWELL

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hair. But that, for many stu- LEGACY PROUD Grandaughters Club in the chapel, dents and their parents, is one The 2016. Nearly a quarter of Saint Mary’s of the greatest perks of sin- students are members of the club that gle-sex education: “I feel free is reserved for direct descendants of to voice my opinions because alumnae.

I know that I’m in a safe environment and that I won’t be judged.

I definitely feel that it’s because there aren’t boys,” says junior Lucy Glover.

Certainly some students lament their ability to have the sorts of relationships they see on TV, but ultimately, the single-sex setting is essential to the Saint Mary’s mission. “In the all-girls environment, there is no mold for what a teenage girl should be,” says mathematics teacher and ninth grade dorm head Rachel Hencher. “Our students come from many walks of life, cultures, and have vastly different interests. Here, they are presented with the challenge to simply be themselves.”

More than half of Saint Mary’s students board, which the school encourages. One of its best arguments for boarding is Raleigh. Brimming with culture and situated nicely between the ocean and the mountains, Raleigh allures students from all over the world, and ensures that girls who live at Saint Mary’s do not get bored on the weekends. Each Wednesday, a list of the weekend’s activities is posted; students can sign up for things like hiking at Umstead Park or shopping at Cameron Village. Gloria Becker (class of ’92 and the vice-chair of the board of trustees) spent her high school years boarding at Saint Mary’s and recalls a lively, festive atmosphere: “Living with hundreds of girls, it was

all photos courtesy Saint Mary’s School

THROUGH THE AGES Clockwise from top: The tennis team in 1908; Lacrosse in 2017; Biking across campus in the 1970s; Move-in day 1957: Says Eve Hargrave Smith, ’53, “Saint Mary’s was a wonderful place to be in the ’50s! With trouser pants still a thing of the future, we wore ankle-length skirts, sweaters and blouses, pulled-up white socks with saddle oxfords or penny loafers, and always lipstick to class every day. There was a certain big oak tree on front campus that often provided me a quiet spot to be, and sometimes do school work, that I loved. Saint Mary’s was a very special place for me and has remained so throughout my life. I am certain that the education I received there was the strength of my degree at Duke University. I have cherished living in Raleigh and remaining involved with the school and with the many close friends I made there so long ago.”

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historic photo Aldert Smedes courtesy Saint Mary’s School

The Story of Stella Shaw Nine-year-old Stella Shaw arrived for boarding and education at Saint Mary’s not long after the school’s founding. The 1840s and ’50s had brought rapid growth, as Saint Mary’s earned a respected name for itself. Stella Shaw’s mother, a composed and well-dressed woman, kissed her daughter goodbye and left in her carriage. Mrs. Shaw never returned to Saint Mary’s, and Stella never saw her again.

When Aldert Smedes and the rest of the administration were unable to track down any of Stella’s relatives, he and his wife Sarah raised the girl as their own. Although they never discovered Mrs. Shaw’s reasons, they believed her mother had left Stella at Saint Mary’s knowing she would be safe there.

When Stella finished her education, she stayed at Saint Mary’s and became a music teacher, devoting her life to the school until she died. A stained glass window in the Saint Mary’s Chapel is dedicated to Stella Shaw, who is buried with the Smedes family at Oakwood Cemetery.

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always someone’s birthday, or a sports victory, or someone getting asked out on a date – we always had a reason to celebrate.” Becker’s hall of girls played cards every evening to finish out the day: “Even Mrs. Selph, our hall mother, would join us. That sense of community and fellowship was instrumental during my high school years.”

Saint Mary’s boasts distinguished alumnae such as Nell Wilson McAdoo, daughter of President Woodrow Wilson and head of Washington’s largest Red Cross auxiliary. The first female speaker pro tempore of the North Carolina House, Marie Colton, graduated from Saint Mary’s, as did Bevin Prince, the actress known for her role on television’s One Tree Hill. Joining these ranks doesn’t come cheap; this year’s tuition and fees are $26,175 for day students and $52,185 for boarders.

Historic surroundings Of the 25 buildings on campus, five are Raleigh Historic Properties, and all are password protected with modern punch-code doors. East Rock, which was built in 1834, is now the headquarters of the school’s IT Department. But perhaps the most iconic building on campus is the Saint Mary’s Chapel, dark and quiet with intricate stained-glass windows and ancient wooden pews. For more than a century-and-a-half, the Gothicrevival style chapel has been home to school gatherings, Eucharist services, and alumnae weddings. It was designed by renowned architect Richard Upjohn, and now sits on the National Register of Historic Places. The entire Saint Mary’s community meets there twice a week, with frequent homilies from guest priests and, once a year, the Bishop.

Saint Mary’s students, while not pressured toward Christianity, are instead meant to be spiritually intrigued by their time at chapel. For many girls, chapel presents a time of rest, a chance to disconnect from the rigors of academic life.

To be sure, not all alumnae remember chapel time so fondly. Some recall old, strict

chaplains delivering lengthy sermons, while the girls waited impatiently to make a mad dash to the dining hall for a good spot in the lunch line. Chicken fajitas, no doubt, weighed more heavily on the minds of some teenagers than the Psalms, but at least in retrospect, alumnae agree that chapel is an important time for perspective: to have the whole school in one room, to see the scope of that community, and to realize that Saint Mary’s is about more than academics. “We love our little white chapel,” says junior Suiter Ragland, “I look around during chapel, watching each advisory swaying to the school hymn, and I know that what we have is unique.”

At the beginning of this school year, a group of student government members planted a red maple tree near the front gate to kick off the school’s celebration of its 175th year, which will culminate with a gala for as many as 1,000 on campus in May. The layered history of Saint Mary’s, for everyone in the school community, means something.

Current students feel a tighter grasp on history by crossing the same grove where Sherman’s Union troops once camped during the Civil War. “You look at this one school that reflects so many past time periods,” says senior Bess Moye. “I walk through Smedes Hall, so much of which has remained the same since the school’s opening, and I realize how far Saint Mary’s has come.” For many students, that legacy is deeply personal. Two of the original thirteen are great-great-great aunts of Gabe Bratton (’05); her father is the chair of the board of trustees. “To me, it was special that the school meant so many things to so many people in my family,” says Bratton, whose wedding reception will be held on campus this fall. “And then I got to have my own Saint Mary’s experience, and it’s something I’m still tying into my life.”

SAINT MARY’S BY THE NUMBERS 1:8 teacher-student ratio 12.5 average class size 10,000+ community service hours last year 9% students of color 11% international students 37 faculty and staff live on campus 83% of teachers hold advanced degrees 15 years average experience for faculty

$19 million in merit scholarships awarded to seniors since 2009 63% student athletes 11 sports offered 73% students participating in the arts 18 AP classes and 27 honors courses offered 1:1 academic advising program 33 clubs and student organizations

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THROUGH THE

A daughter, a muse 104 | WALTER

M

ost of my work focuses on the intersection of the past and my memory of that past. Memories, fugitive and ever-shifting, are always subject to interpretation, while photographs are tangible.

The interpretive nature of both memory and imagery lends itself to a kind of narrative. That’s the form that most of my work follows.

These particular images are of my now 29-year old daughter, Annalee. All are selections from my Figurative series, a larger and ongoing body of work I began in 1999. As extended metaphorical portraits, each has a story to tell, either singly or as a whole. They not only speak to movement and gesture, but are also meant to suggest the essence of a person, or simply a brief moment in time.

When I began this series, Annalee was around 12 or 13, and seemed to be evolving daily. I wanted to somehow preserve those fleeting moments – not so much as they really were, but only how I remembered them.

All of these photographs were made in North Carolina, either at the beach, or here in Raleigh. When we go out and

photograph, which we continue to do whenever she’s home, the process remains very much a collaborative one. I rarely, if ever, tell her how to pose or what to do. She seems to instinctively know what I want in an image. As a daughter and also the subject of much of my photographic work, she is most definitely my muse.

I choose to print in 19th century printing processes, because I love the one-of-a-kind, hand-made quality those processes offer. I printed these images in a process which involves colordistinct, separate negatives, and multiple layerings of watercolor pigment, gum arabic, and dichromate.

This process, which offers infinite possibilities that can veer into whole new magical worlds, is the one I find the most creative and interpretive. Multiple hand-brushed layerings offer a richness and a softness that makes hard, clearly defined edges disappear. The more layers that are added, the richer the colors become, while the image itself grows softer. The inevitable slight mis-registrations of the various negatives suggest movement, ambiguity, and remove all the sharp clarity – much the way we see and remember.

text and photographs by DIANA BLOOMFIELD

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THROUGH THE LENS

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MAY 2017 | 107

WORTH the drive

courtesy Dana Jo Photography

A HAVEN reborn

by SAMANTHA THOMPSON HATEM

Y

YOU CAN SEE THE TEMPTATION PULLING AT KATE TILLMAN BROWN AS SHE stands on the dock looking out over the glassy Pungo River.

Years ago, she would have rounded up her friends, suited up, and headed out in her dad’s Boston Whaler for a long day of skiing on some of North Carolina’s prettiest waters. But today, Brown has different plans for this river. She hopes it can help lure people to Belhaven not just to water ski, but to fish, hunt, relax, go antiquing, have a great meal, or, most importantly, stay a night or two at her family’s newly renovated River Forest Manor and Marina.

“It’s a gorgeous house,” Brown says. “It’s meant to celebrate life’s more important occasions.”

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If you’ve been to Belhaven, about two hours east of Raleigh, you’ve no doubt seen this majestic beauty on the edge of town with its sweeping views of the Pungo, Pantego Creek and, way out in the distance, the Pamlico River and Sound. Built on four acres along the Pantego Creek in 1904, the 13,000 square-foot historic manor has nine bedrooms, 11 fireplaces, and dramatic ionic columns on the wide front porch, making it a stunning backdrop for brides seeking the quintessential, picturesque Southern wedding.

Brown’s father, Brantley Tillman, a Raleigh developer best known for the Food Lion shopping centers he’s developed throughout the Mid-Atlantic, bought River

WHEN YOU GO

Forest out of bankruptcy in 2014 for $600,000. The roof leaked. Some of the floors were ready to collapse. The kitchen wasn’t operable.

Tillman says it wasn’t a moment too soon: “If we hadn’t bought it when we did, I don’t know if we’d been able to save it.” Since then, he and Brown have led painstaking efforts to restore the manor and marina, saving what they could, like the ornate period chandeliers and original fabric wallpaper, and repurposing others, like the tennis court, now an outdoor reception space.

B

elhaven may be a small Eastern North Carolina town, but with three bodies of water nearby and an emerging food scene, it’s worth the drive.

“You will never have a better experience coming to Belhaven than you will now,” says Teresa Van Staalduinen, the owner of Spoon River Artworks and Market, a local farm-to-fork restaurant, with a killer Bloody Mary, that’s getting plenty of buzz for its seasonally changing menu and decor. “We’re more eager than most places to have people come visit.”

Van Staalduinen is so bullish on Belhaven’s future, she’s bought six more buildings in downtown Belhaven, including one that will allow her to expand Spoon River with a bar and room for private dining, which is in increasing demand.

courtesy Spoon River Artworks and Market

Restaurants like Van Staalduinen’s are driving much of the town’s resurgence, says Dianne Bowen, the president of the Belhaven Community Chamber of Commerce. Get a pizza at The Tavern at Jack’s Neck. Share a peck of fresh steamed oysters at Georgie’s Sport and Oyster Bar. Or eat breakfast any time of day at Gingerbread Bakery & O’Neals Snack Bar. The renovated River Forest Manor and Marina is also helping drive business in the town as boaters rediscover Belhaven as an overnight destination along the Intracoastal Waterway.

Renewed, recycled When the River Forest reopened last summer, just in time to welcome late-season brides, hundreds of people flocked to the opening party, eager to see the manor restored to its heyday, back when it still had the power to draw celebrities like James Cagney, Harvey Firestone, Walter Cronkite, and Twiggy. Then a bustling inn, marina, and restaurant, known up and down the coast for its “smorgasbord” Sunday buffet, River Forest had helped put Belhaven on the map. For boaters, it was a must-stop when traveling the Intracoastal Waterway, the perfect overnight layover en route to Oriental or the Alligator River.

But bad management, lack of upkeep, and the Great Recession took its toll. By 2011, boat traffic had slowed to a trickle, and the restaurant and manor closed.

Belhaven has seen its fortunes change a number of times over the last century.

When the inn was built, the town was known for the wood harvested nearby and the boxes made at local mills. When that business slowed, farming and then commercial fishing took over before falling on hard times.

Tillman, who grew up and met and married his wife Carol in Belhaven, saw promise in the place. Not just for the River Forest, but for the entire town, population 1,600. Tillman knew bringing the Manor and Marina back to life could mean redemption for Belhaven.

Today, thanks in part to Tillman and other natives, the town is resurging again, says Dianne Bowen, the president of the Belhaven Community Chamber of Commerce. She also credits young energetic retirees who’ve moved from bigger cities and want to share their business knowledge as well as invest in their new commu-

“No one ever would have thought Belhaven would become a restaurant destination, but we are,” Bowen says. “We have wonderful restaurants here.”

Burning off those restaurant calories is easy to do exploring the area, either by water or land. Charter a boat to go fishing or simply to explore Ocracoke, a two-hour boat ride away. Lake Mattamuskeet is a 30-minute drive for bird watchers. And there’s plenty of hunting: The River Forest Manor can find you a guide. Take a drive to explore nearby Bath, North Carolina’s first town, or Oriental, the state’s unofficial “sailing capital.”

Or do what River Forest owner Kate Brown suggests: Relax on one of the manor’s many porches, decks, or docks.“It’s a perfect place to come and vacation and get away from the hustle and bustle to enjoy life and nature,” she says. “Belhaven really does have a lot of charm. It’s a small town. Everyone speaks to you.”

Spoon River Artworks and Market: 263 Pamlico St., spoonrivernc.com. The Tavern at Jack’s Neck: 238 Pamlico St., tavernatjacks.com.

Georgie’s Sport and Oyster Bar: 458 Pamlico St., 252-943-2102. Gingerbread Bakery & O’Neals Snack Bar: 278 Main St., 252-944-0099.

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nity.

“Belhaven has reinvented itself several times,” she says. “We’re on the cusp of a renaissance.”

Belhaven’s identity Together with 14 partners with ties to the town, including a handful of childhood friends, Tillman spent 22 months restoring the marina and manor. Each partner brought not just equity but important skills. One was in construction. Another knew boating.

One was a banker. Another knew how to navigate underground tanks.

Fortunately, they had good bones to work with.

The manor had been built to last, commissioned in 1899 by lumber and railroad executive John Wilkinson. Some of the same Italian craftsman who built the Biltmore Estate in Ashville had also worked on the River Forest Manor, and it shows in its carved-oak mantels and finely detailed, hand-carved plasterwork, its Honduran mahogany wainscoting, its leaded glass windows.

After Wilkinson died, the manor was sold in 1933 to J.W. Hines of Rocky Mount, who sold it in 1947 to Axson Smith, a Belhaven resident. Smith changed the name to the River Forest Manor and turned it into the inn, restaurant, and marina beloved for so many years.

Not least of all by Tillman. Though he left Belhaven to raise a family and grow his career in Raleigh, he had a second home in the town, where the family spent summers and holidays. Brown,

who still lives in Raleigh, remembers bridge clubs at the River Forest, celebrating Mother’s Day at the manor’s Sunday buffet and, of course, water skiing out of the marina.

Meantime, Tillman was working to help Food Lion expand its footprint with new stores. Eleven years ago, Brown joined the family business as vice president of development, and she credits those years working with her dad and his mentoring to helping her prepare to tackle this latest project. “He taught me that it’s all about relationships and track record,” Brown says.

She’s banking on those skills to help her build back the River Forest. She wants brides, of course. It was restored with them in mind, with a catering kitchen and an entire floor of flawlessly decorated rooms situated to accommodate a long aisle of bridesmaids. Brown also thinks the manor is ideal for corporate and board retreats, college reunions, rehearsal dinners, milestone birthday parties, girls’ weekends, or just couples and families looking to get away and relax.

There are nine guest rooms in the main house, six of which were original to the home. All are named for local flowers. The Queen Anne’s Lace room has two matching double beds, both original to the home. The Gardenia room has an adjoining bathroom with an original oversized claw foot tub overlooking the front portico. The Magnolia suite has stunning views of the water. There’s also a bungalow off to the side of the manor house with three adjoining guest suites, all named for nearby bodies of water.

Behind the manor is the marina, with 30 long-term rental and transient boat slips that can accommodate crafts up to 150 feet. The marina office has a wide

two-story deck, perfect for evening cocktails. Above the marina office is another guest suite with its own deck overlooking the Pungo River and Pantego Creek.

Tillman credits a doubling in boat traffic at the marina to the new dock master, Henry Boyd III, one of the River Forest partners. In all, the partnership spent $1.65 million to restore the entire property. Most all of the work was done by locals, something that was important to Tillman and Brown. In return, many contractors took ownership in the project, taking care to see the town’s beloved River Forest was restored to last another 100 years.

“When you are working on something that has a historical meaning to people, everyone wants to take ownership in it,” Brown said. “We all hope this place will endure long after we’re all gone.”

“The identity of Belhaven is around the River Forest Manor,” Tillman says.

riverforestmanor.com

courtesy Charles Marshall

HEAR

N.C. Senator Jesse Helms with Bono, circa 2001.

by CHARLES MARSHALL

U2’S JOSHUA TREE 30 years later, the record’s lasting impressions are evident

A

AS IRISH ROCK BAND U2 CELEBRATES THE 30-YEAR anniversary of its blockbuster album The Joshua Tree this year, the record’s impact on the Triangle can be felt even today in our music, political, and faith communities.

If you recall, the record catapulted U2 into global stardom in 1987 with songs like Where the Streets Have No Name and With or Without You, breaking alternative rock onto mainstream radio stations previously dominated by the likes of Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, and John Cougar Mellencamp.

Those who were teenagers when The Joshua Tree was released are forty-somethings now, but their initial introductions to the record made lasting impressions, leading some into careers in the music business, others to use music to spread the word of God, and still others to bridge political divides to champion global health.

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HEAR Stephen Judge, for one, credits U2 for inspiring his career in the music business. He now owns the venerable Schoolkids Records, a music magazine, Blurt, and a record label with a current roster that spans the globe and includes acclaimed local indie artists like The Veldt and Happy Abandon. Thirty years ago, as a high-schooler in Rocky Mount, Judge remembers anxiously awaiting the release of The Joshua Tree. He recalls rushing back to his cassette tape deck at the top of every hour as WRDU played each song from the album in sequence before it was released.

Others taken by the record were inspired to make music of their own. Bob Sar, now a Raleigh lawyer, took a part-time job just to earn money to buy a delay pedal for his guitar so that he could mimic U2’s guitarist, The Edge; his band LowBrow still includes The Joshua Tree songs in its repertoire of deep cuts.

Joe Lanier, former legislative director for U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, recalls the partnership forged between his boss and Bono to eradicate AIDS. In another realm, Hayes Barton Methodist Church’s worship band has used U2’s music to spread its own message.

says John Booker, a veteran Raleigh musician and music executive with Deep South Entertainment. Booker’s own path was shaped by The Joshua Tree when he received a copy of the cassette tape for Valentine’s Day when he was six years old.

That early exposure led Booker to start his first band in seventh grade. In 2007, he co-founded and co-fronted the acclaimed local band I Was Totally Destroying It, whose uplifting, anthemic songs naturally reflect the emotive and cinematic scope of The Joshua Tree. Booker also was influenced by Chapel Hill indie icons Archers of Loaf whose guitarist, Eric Johnson, regularly integrated guitar techniques and textures influenced

by The Edge.

But Booker says that the strength of U2’s influence in his music didn’t really hit home until he agreed to form a U2 tribute band to perform at the wedding of a former owner of Tir Na Nog in Raleigh. That band was so well-received that it continues to this day as an alter-ego to Booker’s “real” band. Booker says that rediscovering U2’s songs by learning to play them has “opened up a lot of doors for us musically to take different approaches in our own songwriting.”

Inspiring careers

Outside It’s America

It was ultimately the more mundane side of U2 – the management side – that lured Schoolkids Records’ Judge into a career in music. While The Joshua Tree was exploding up the charts, Judge was reading about U2’s legendary manager Paul McGuinness and the band’s intentional focus on building a professional business enterprise that was as successful as the music itself.

Armed with McGuiness’s playbook and buoyed by the burgeoning success of local bands like Let’s Active and The Connells, Judge cut his own path into almost every corner of the music business. As a student at N.C. State, he willed his way into a job at Schoolkids on Hillsborough Street before interning for The Connells, managing a slew of rising local artists (including Athenaeum, Hobex, and Mike Garrigan) and rising into several executive positions for Redeye Distribution/Yep Roc Records in Hillsborough.

Judge proudly patterns his disciplined and focused management style on McGuinness and U2. “I realized early on how bands fall apart,” he says, adding that U2’s success taught him that “every band has to work as hard on the business of music as they do on the music itself.”

Today, the connection between U2 and Judge’s career in the music industry has come full circle. After spending considerable time in U2’s home city of Dublin for both work and pleasure, he officially relocated to Dublin this year to continue his management, marketing, and publishing work under the Schoolkids brand. He marked the 30-year anniversary of The Joshua Tree’s release date by visiting 30 U2-related sites and transmitting the event on Facebook Live.

“I consider Stephen not just a source of U2 knowledge, but a source of music business knowledge in every way imaginable,”

U2’s music has always been as political as it is poetic. But The Joshua Tree gave the band a far broader platform to espouse its critique of American interventionist foreign policy (Bullet the Blue Sky) and to advocate for social justice. U2’s singer, Bono, was never shy about using his platform in inventive ways, perhaps never more so than when he forged an unprecedented collaboration with the former U.S. Senator from North Carolina, Jesse Helms, to expand foreign aid to help children in Africa devastated by AIDS. Joe Lanier, a Sanford native now living in Raleigh, had been drawn to The Joshua Tree as a high school student at The Asheville School, but he had no idea that 15 years later Helms would broker an actual introduction to the band. As the Senator’s legislative director from 1998 - 2002, Lanier witnessed Bono and Helms pursue a shared global health policy that both defied and transcended traditional politics. Lanier was impressed by how Bono publicly praised Helms’s work in a way that revealed a more compassionate side of the Senator than the media often allowed. “Bono was a canny advocate, and he cared far more about eradicating AIDS than he did about partisan politics in the Senate,” says Lanier.

After visiting Helms in his office on several occasions, Bono invited Helms and his wife, Dot, to attend U2’s Elevation tour in Washington, D.C. Lanier says that Bono wanted Helms “to come see where (Bono) worked.” The Helmses did attend the concert, and Lanier and some other lucky aides – many of whom now reside in Raleigh – fondly recall mingling with the band members and other D.C. luminaries. “The Senator asked me if it was going to be loud. I remember simply suggesting he turn down his hearing aids,” Lanier recalls, laughing. “Bono and the Senator had dramatically different backgrounds and world-

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views, but they were both uniquely sincere about their spirituality, and that allowed them to bridge the gap.”

In God’s Country Spirituality is a foundational element of The Joshua Tree, most notably on two of the band’s most iconic hits, Where the Streets Have No Name, and I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. Eric Bolash, a musician and associate pastor at Church of the Apostles in Raleigh, says he always hears the hopefulness of the resurrection in The Joshua Tree’s more tuneful songs. Musically, he credits the spiritual tone, in large part, to the unique guitar style of The Edge, who uses a barrage of soundscapes and effects to create notes that float endlessly in a way that Bolash says resembles “eternity built into the fabric of the music.” Listen to any of the legion of praise and worship bands throughout the Triangle and you’ll hear them try to recreate what Bolash describes as the “bounce and weightlessness” of The Edge’s guitar sound as a backdrop for their own worship music.

The LightHouse worship band at Hayes Barton United Methodist Church, for one, has incorporated more than The Edge’s dreamy guitar work into its worship services. In 2014, a collection of LightHouse band members performed a “U2charist” – a musical worship service designed to incorporate the message of U2’s spiritual anthems into the church’s outreach

mission to serve the local community. Contemporary worship director Stephen Howell says it was an “eye-opening experience” for the church community and revealed the connection between songs like Where the Streets Have No Name, Beautiful Day, and Pride (In the Name of Love) and the mission of the global church.

U2’s summer stadium tour to celebrate The Joshua Tree will, sadly, skip the Triangle. But given how deep its roots run in the Triangle’s musical, political, and spiritual communities, it is not surprising that many Raleighites are traveling to see a concert that many of them missed as teenagers.

Richard Bolton, for one, tried camping outside of the Record Bar in Cameron Village on a cold night in 1987 to buy tickets to see U2 in Hampton, Va., but when he woke in his car that morning the tickets were already sold out. Thirty years later, Bolton had better luck getting tickets to see U2 in Philadelphia, but he says he would gladly trade places with Stephen Judge, who has tickets to see them in Dublin’s famed Croke Park. He might have even tried camping out again for that one.

GIVERS

TRIANGLE FAMILY SERVICES Helping families in crisis for 80 years

by SETTLE MONROE

L

LIKE MOST PEOPLE WHO END UP AT TRIANGLE FAMILY SERVICES, MIKE Zayas never expected to be there. In fact, he’d never heard about the organization that has been helping families in crisis here for 80 years until he desperately needed its help.

In 2006, the SAS engineer was enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday with his family when he fell while skateboarding with his teenage son. The freak accident resulted in a traumatic brain injury that left Zayas in a coma for months. When he came out of the coma, the devastating effects of the injury led to a complicated and trying custody battle over his three children. Thanks to the work of Triangle Family Services, Zayas did not have to suffer alone, he was able to rebuild relationships with his children, and is now able to spend time with them on his own.

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MAKING FAMILIES WHOLE Triangle Family Services CEO Alice Lutz with Mike Zayas, who says Lutz “and all the people at Triangle Family Services are unbelievable.”

Triangle Family Services CEO Alice Lutz says stories like Zayas’s fuel her energy to build stronger community by strengthening families. “We help make families whole,” she says. “We get to do work that truly changes lives. Our programs help the individuals and families who come to us in their darkest hour.” No one plans to need a TFS program, Lutz points out. But when crisis arises, the organization serves as an indispensable safety net and support system. The results have a broad impact: “Our programs are also good for the larger community,” she says. “When families are healthy, communities thrive.”

As TFS celebrates its 80th year, it is photograph by ELIZABETH GALECKE

being recognized for its impact and ability to meet the critical needs of the Triangle. Last year, the agency was inducted into the Raleigh Hall of Fame, and this year, Band Together, a local organization that uses live music as a platform for social change, announced Triangle Family Services as its 2018 nonprofit partner. (Read more about its 2017 partner on page 28 of this issue.) It’s a big deal: Together, TFS and Band Together hope to raise over $1 million for the agency through corporate and individual donations and grants. With this partnership and the funds it will raise, Lutz says she’ll be able to expand the organization’s work to reach even more families and communities.

“I am surrounded by incredible people who care about this city and care about families in need,” she says. “I get to work with leaders I can learn from.” Her approach is simple: “Always be humble and kind.” Perhaps it is this mantra that leads her to deliver handwritten notes to her

trained staff of therapists work to treat a variety of mental health issues including depression, anxiety, trauma, sexual abuse, and post-traumatic stress.

When Mike Zayas first came to Triangle Family Services in 2011, it was through a court-ordered custody arrangement.

For two years, the organization enabled him to meet his three children every week through its “Time Together” Supervised Visits and Exchange program. Zayas attributes the close connection he now shares with his children to the years they spent together at TFS. “After the accident, I was unable to be with my children unsupervised. It was a very hard time for all of us.

But at Time Together, we were a family.

The children loved the games, books, and activities we were able to use. When we were together there, we felt normal. We actually had fun! We were happy again.”

The program not only provided Zayas with a safe and comfortable environment to rebuild his relationships with his chil-

“Our programs are also good for the larger community. When families are healthy, communities thrive.” staff, acknowledging a personal triumph or challenge, or simply a job well done. Or maybe it drives her desire to celebrate the organization’s 80th anniversary not with an extravagant gala, but by continuing to “quietly change lives.”

Wraparound approach Triangle Family Services has a fulltime staff of 60 and an annual budget of $3.2 million with which it serves 13,000 families each year. Its work focuses on three main areas: family safety, financial stability, and mental health. Supervised visitations, domestic violence and anger management programs, and housing assistance work to keep families safe and secure. HUD-approved financial literacy counseling through individual and group workshops helps individuals improve their money management and financial wellness. And TFS’s credentialed, highly

dren, it also provided parental support and documentation that allowed him to eventually graduate from the program.

Zayas now enjoys unsupervised visits with his children every other weekend. They go to parks, movies, and malls together. “I wouldn’t be able to do any of those things now if we hadn’t had that experience at Time Together to help us heal.”

Zayas credits the agency and Lutz’s leadership for changing his life. “I cannot imagine how Alice Lutz handles her job so well,” he says. “But it is so important.

Alice and all the people at Triangle Family Services are unbelievable. No one wants to need the support of Triangle Family Services. But when we need it, we sure are glad we have people like Alice in our corner.”

WALTER EVENTS

D E S T I N AT I O N

WALTER

T

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky for Destination WALTER at Fearrington Village in Pittsboro April 9. On a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon, readers from throughout the Triangle, and from as far away as Charlotte and High Point, convened at the village’s garden terrace.

Low-key bluesy melodies from Gasoline Stove set the tone for casual beer tasting from five breweries that represented the middle chunk of North Carolina, from Asheboro to Tarboro. With beer in hand, there was exploring to be done: Shops throughout the village offered a 10 percent discount to Destination WALTER’s

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photographs by RAY BLACK III

MAY 2017 | 117

150 attendees. Some peeled off for a wine tasting at The Granary restaurant, while others perused the pop-up shops at Dovecote boutique and the Haven Spa boutique. Meanwhile, Wendy Moses, one of Fearrington’s six full-time gardeners, led an hour-long tour through the grounds, which were showing

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off in full spring bloom.

Back on the terrace, a few intrepid children embarked on the self-guided farm tour, complete with a Fearringtonprovided paper passport guide. Chef-prepared snacks for all included fried chicken, bite-sized grilled cheese sandwiches, truffle tarts, and crispy kale; vibrantly hued desserts were almost too pretty to eat.

The easygoing afternoon was a celebration of the season and the region, and was possible thanks to Fearrington Village, Bond Brothers Beer Company from Cary, Four Saints Brewing Company from Asheboro, Fullsteam Brewery from Durham, Mother Earth Brewing from Kinston, Tarboro Brewing Company from Tarboro, and Gasoline Stove Band.

–J.A.

NOVEMBER 2016 | 115

Melissa Scutt, Melinda McKee

Liz Condo

Kari Stolz, Brooks Bell

WINNOVATION REUNION Past attendees of WALTER and Bank of America’s WINnovation 2016 event gathered at CAM Raleigh on March 30. Sponsored by CAM and Catering Works, the evening was a chance to check in with fellow female innovators in an intimate setting. Past speakers Brooks Bell, founder of the Brooks Bell company; Jackie Craig, founder of The Green Chair Project; and Tashni Dubroy, president of Shaw University, also mingled.

“It’s really been exciting to see how this event has evolved in just three years,” said Kari Stolz of Bank of America, during a brief welcome. “If I went around the room, I could point to something that each of you all are doing right now to make a difference in our economy and support the growth of the Triangle.” Mark your calendars for WINnovation 2017 at the Umstead Hotel & Spa on September 8.

Gab Smith

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Tashni Dubroy, Janis Treiber

Jackie Craig, Alison Roane

Kait Gorman, Cecilia Roberts, Martha Heath, Liza Roberts

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Catering Works provided a lavish display of local cheeses and chocolates, and also poured the wine.

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Steve Burriss, Richard Bryant, Suzy Bryant

Dr. Zidar speaking to Ed Willingham Howie Devane, Kay Taylor, Bill Rogers

Ruffin Hall, Tina Burriss, Jim Hansen, Mayor Nancy McFarlane, Cyndi Hall

UNC REX Healthcare hosted a VIP opening event for its new Heart and Vascular Hospital March 2.

More than 400 benefactors, elected officials, hospital leadership, and community members explored the $235 million state-of-the-art facility and enjoyed a heart-healthy dinner from the hospital’s Mediterraneaninspired Kardia Café.

Bob Thomas, Linda Quarles, Mary Ann Thomas, Kay Schoellhorn

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Melissa Keener, Jon Keener, Amanda Guillois, Gabe Guillois, Alkesh Shah, Lavanya Nagaraj, Sharat Nagaraj

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HARGETT PLACE SHOWHOUSE One of the first row houses to be completed at the new Hargett Place was the setting for a designer showcase celebrating urban living. Open to the public April 1 - 2 and April 8 - 9, proceeds benefitted the Southeast Raleigh YMCA.

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Martha Howard, Martha Michaels, Paul Michaels, Dorothea Bitler

Bonnie Medinger, Ann Dunn, Michael Rooks, Carroll Clancy

Susan Garrity, Lochie Overbey Laura Brody, Jill Gammon, Leslie Silverstein, Glenn Dunn

NORTH CAROLINA ARTISTS EXHIBITION OPENING The largest juried art exhibition in the state opened March 12 at the Duke Center for Performing Arts. Presented by the Raleigh Fine Arts Society, the show featured 72 pieces from 61 North Carolina artists.

Artist Brandon Dudley with his work Man Drawing a Sword

Lochie Coffey

Betty Nelson, Windy O’Connor, Gay Eatman, Julie Daly

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Chris Collier, Betty Nelson, Beth Collier

EATMAN’S CARPET & INTERIORS GRAND OPENING More than 260 people toasted the new location of Eatman’s Carpet & Interiors March 30. The interior design, furniture, and fine rug store has been in Raleigh for more than 50 years.

Bedtty Nelson

Emily Slater, Betty Nelson, Hyla Dewitt

Ted Richardson

Kari Stoltz, Bank of America Elizabeth Gulledge, Bell Leadership Institute

Chuck Purvis, Coastal Federal Credit Union

HABITAT CEO BUILD The annual CEO Build, a partnership between Habitat for Humanity affiliates in Durham, Orange, and Wake counties, brings Triangle executives together for a day building a Habitat house. This year’s build was April 4. Participating executives or their companies provided the funding for construction materials.

Geoff Lang, MetLife, and Indira Everett, Duke Energy

Chris Bell, Chandler Burns, SunTrust Bank

Waltonwood Lake Boone Meet & Greet Thursday, May 18th Stop in between 4:00 and 7:00 p.m.

The Oak Kitchen & Bourbon Bar 4035 Lake Boone Trail, Raleigh, NC 27607

Relax, mingle and get to know your neighbors at Waltonwood’s community social.

RSVP by May 15th (919) 561-5525

Lake Boone

Independent Living, Assisted Living, Memory Care On-site community Information Center located at 3550 Horton Street, Raleigh, NC 27607 W W W. WA LT O N W O O D . C O M

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The Temptations

Ron Gibson, Brenda Gibson

Tish Turner, Sue Turner, George Turner

© 2017 f8 Photo Studios

Honoree Ron Doggett, WakeMed President & CEO Donald Gintzig

WAKEMED GALA WakeMed Foundation hosted an appreciation gala April 8 at the Raleigh Convention Center. The event brought together nearly 1,000 donors and sponsors for a night of giving thanks and a celebration of the year’s successes. The evening concluded with a special performance by The Temptations.

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Lucy Bode, Carolyn Hunt, Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.

Rep. Cynthia Ball

Benita Jones, Johnnie Jones, III

Wake County Commissioners Sig Hutchinson, Jessica Holmes

SMARTSTART GARDEN PARTY Wake County SmartStart celebrated 20 years of early childhood investments that help young children get ready for success in kindergarten and life ahead. The Garden Party April 1 kicked off a month-long celebration period that also included a forum for professionals, a kids’ morning at Marbles, and a storybook gala honoring educators.

Justice Cheri Beasley, Jack Nichols, Carol Spruill

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The WALTER Scribo The answers to the following clues are in this issue.

Happy reading!

ACROSS 1. Destination Walter brought readers to this idyllic Pittsboro locale 2. This issue’s photo essay features images of the photographer’s muse, her __ 3. “Kayaking meets swimming meets surfing” DOWN 1. This artist is known for his landscapes and still lifes 2.The Triangle’s new women’s soccer team 3. The local all girls school celebrating its 175th anniversary 4. The Triangle_ are a local group of caving enthusiasts 5. A longtime local favorite destination in Topsail Island 6. In this issue, Dean McCord takes on the restaurant scene in this city

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Flashback

North Hills’ time capsule

Wedding bells At home in Raleigh

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ho doesn’t like coming home to fresh flowers? This lovely bucket of poppies, delphiniums, and ranunculus is just a sampling of what Kelly Morrison grows on her Color Fields farm in Hillsborough. She’s working with local food hub Farmers’ Collective to deliver fresh flowers to Raleigh addresses May 17 - August 16. Based on the CSA (community-supported agriculture) model that delivers seasonal produce from nearby growers, her flower share subscription gets you a bouquet of fresh blooms every Wednesday evening. Hump day just got a whole lot cheerier. –J.A. $168 for 14-week share; colorfieldsfarm.com/flowershare

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courtesy Color Fields

End NOTE

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