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Walking Away to The Outdoors

March 26, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

So this is a long overdue Brett update. After the post I wrote last year about walking away from everything the most perpetual question I get from people is: What will your husband do? I think people might have assumed he retired? Some thought we bought the inn we were staying at.

For the past few months Brett’s been renovating a building in downtown Bryson City. Just a little background, last October we were looking at places to live after the inn and we started with downtown Bryson City because we thought renovating some retail spaces that we could live above would be a fun project. After looking at a few places I had second thoughts about living right downtown, I needed more personal space. Right around then we ended up finding the House on Hospital Hill. But after looking at a few places an old building on the corner of Main Street, right in the middle of town square caught Brett’s eye.

When our agent Marty took us to look at it I was like: are you serious?! But Brett was serious. Last summer we got to know two guys, Ben and Dwayne, owners of a web company WNC Interactive. They were helping me change some stuff around on my website. Brett became instant friends with them. When they weren’t working on websites they were renting paddle boards at the lake under the name Bryson City Outdoors. Ben even took us out one day so we could try it out.

Brett: I think the building on the corner would be perfect for Bryson City Outdoors.
Me: That building is horrendous.

But Brett, Ben and Dwayne were able to look past the horrendous-ness. It took me a little longer to visualize it, but the more I heard Brett talk about how he thought he could help out this small local company the more excited I got about seeing him excited. Plus, we are all about giving back and the result would be fixing up the building that is always conveniently left out of Bryson City photos. And so we put in an offer and soon we had a deal. Shortly after that Brett became partners with Ben and Dwayne in Bryson City Outdoors.

It’s been an entirely different experience renovating a building downtown, in a small town. The locals stop by all the time to see the progress. Each visitor has an opinion how something should be done. You have to have a little bit of a thick skin for that, and a friendly demeanor: that’s Brett. Most everyone is glad that someone is finally updating the building that has sat there so long. And everyone just wants to know what it’s going to be. I usually reply: Walmart.

Here is the building when we bought it back in October:

I don’t want to scare you but here are a few photos:

The first stage of demo to the inside. That was awesome as the guys found secret walls and windows revealing the past history of the building:

The goal was to use as many reclaimed, recycled and locally sourced materials as possible. We were able to salvage all of the large windows from a home our friends were tearing down in Charlotte to replace the old ones in the building. Below is a photo of Ben and Brett installing the first windows….they had to cut through a concrete wall to enlarge it:

Slowly the exterior began to come off. A friend stopped me in the grocery store one day and said: every time another layer comes off of that building it gets a little uglier.

Making room for a new window out front:

All the new windows put in! But no roof.

Brett had our friend Erik Perkins sketch out and plan a new roof:

The Perkins brothers, Erik and Jaime, took control of this huge roof job:

Amazing what a pitched roof can do for an old building!

Then the awning was added:

See that diagonal walkway in the photo above? I always wondered why that was there, until I found this old photo below of Bryson City’s main square and you can see that the diagonals mark the old intersection. It’s now been squared off. This photo is from about 1910 I think. The BCO building stands at the bottom right corner where that pitched roof peeks up behind the brick building:

Everyone involved are the hardest workers. They were even out there when it was snowing.

(photo courtesy of Brett Hackshaw on Instagram)

That’s Erik sawing in the freezing cold:

(photo courtesy of Brett Hackshaw on Instagram)

Hemlock siding was chosen because it could be sourced from a local sawmill, which makes it low impact to the environment because it only had to be transported a few miles. Each piece was picked out one by one:

The siding was done in a board and batton pattern, which just means using vertical panels and then covering the seams with smaller strips of wood. The cedar shakes were stained (“Bark” by Cabot) before they started putting them on:

Industrial lighting was added under the awning:

(photo courtesy of Brett Hackshaw on Instagram)

The green door is Bryson City Outdoor’s signature color:

(photo courtesy of Brett Hackshaw on Instagram)

The finished exterior. We may have set a record for the amount of reclaimed, recycled, and re-used materials ever used to renovate a building on a shoestring budget. All the amazing industrial lighting inside Ben salvaged from a Buckle Store in Asheville. We even reused the old air conditioner that came out of our house. Just wait until you see the inside!

And meanwhile the inside was also being worked on. You can read about that here.

So proud of this guy. And all the guys. And Ben and Dwayne thanks for having faith in us. And thank you to everyone who has been involved from the start. It’s been a lot of hard work. You can follow more of the progress and look for the grand opening at @brysoncityoutdoors, @bretthackshaw and @dwayneparton on Instagram.

And there’s an awesome outdoor blog too…devoted to one of the prettiest places on earth:

In closing, I would like to send prayers to the family and friends of Mike Jones. He was the electrical contractor that worked on our building, and even more recently our home. He lost his life unexepectedly earlier this week. It was a great shock to everyone. Our hearts are heavy. I had only met him a few times but I know many of our friends who worked on the building were very close to him. You just never know what’s going to happen in this life. Make the most of it. And like Mike did for me: be friendly and smile to everyone you cross paths with.

The Ghost of a Seminary School

March 24, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

When we were in D.C. two weeks ago my friend Sarah said: I have a place to take you. I think you’ll love it. And we went to the National Park Seminary grounds. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am obsessed with old, abandoned places. This place was like a dream for me. The original/unrestored portion of the grounds reminded me of The Shining meets Epcot, and in the best sort of way.

The Seminary isn’t necessarily abandoned because it’s slowly being rehabilitated, but it’s only half way there. The other half is still boarded up and in need of conservation and repair. It was a resort hotel until 1893, and then was turned into a finishing school for young women. Walter Reed Army Hospital acquired the property in 1942 and used it as a medical annex. Back when it was a school, the girls were required to join a sorority and held their social events in small one-of-a-kind themed clubhouses: a pagoda, a castle, a windmill-like Dutch house, Greek and colonial are just a few examples. The quotes I’ve listed throughout are from plaques on the grounds.

This was closed off, but my curiosity gets the best of me:

“The Forest Inn was built in 1887 as a summer resort hotel. In 1894 it was leased and alter purchased by John and Vesta Cassedy to be the National Park Seminary for young women. The hotel building became known as Main and was expanded several times, providing space for classrooms, dormitory rooms, and school offices. When the Walter Reed Army Hospital acquitted the seminary in 1942, it used Main for administrative offices and convalescent wards.”

Part of the hospital and power plant:

Buildings seemingly mismatched together and connected with more tunnels:

Details:

Love the round porthole windows:

Boarded up:

A room in one of the sorority houses:

“Although originally built in 1887 as a resort, the first structure on what is now National Park Seminary was converted into a girls’ finishing school by the beginning of the 20th century. Under the guidance of three different headmasters the site transformed itself into what has been called a “Fairy Tale Setting.” The 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago influenced much of the diverse architecture and landscaping, and the school’s first headmaster purchased a book of plans at the exposition from which many of the single family homes on the site were designed. At its peak, National Park Seminary boasted tuition rates higher that both Harvard and Yale and catered to some of the nation’s most influential families.”

I think this is the Colonial house:

A picture from the early 20th century:

Here’s an old picture of a young student on the porch of the Greek building. The students held their meetings and social events in the small unique houses. Eight houses were built between 1896 and 1905:

Here is the Japanese Pagoda house:

The castle is really cool. Really hard to access because the bridge was removed in the 1960’s:

Early photo of the castle. Match up the windows with the previous photo and you’ll see the changes.

“Hotel guests and seminary students arrived at the Forest Glen railroad station and entered the campus by one of several bridges across the glen. The natural beauty of the glen was enhanced with stone paths, stairways, and a grotto. The bridges were removed and part of the glen was lost when the Capital Beltway was built in the early 1960s. The Italian Villa, a dormitory built in 1907, and the English Castle, built in 1904 for the Pi Beta Nu sorority, can be seen across the glen.”

A great video showing before and after photos of the entire renovation process, plus the extent of ruin and disrepair they were in, can be found here. It’s all fascinating…reminds me of the big house in the movie Great Expectations.

The buildings were interconnected by covered walkways to protect the students as they walked from building to building and that’s what you see below. I think they were added by the 2nd headmaster of the school:

We toured this building which used to be the President’s house:

Here’s a photo from back in the day, the overlook doesn’t exist anymore, it’s now just a solid floor:

The “Main” building as it’s called:

Once the hotel here it is as a dining area for students. Pretty posh. All that woodwork has been restored:

Inside the hallways today. Walking through them I definitely heard the voices of the past:

A view of the Greek house with the smoke stack in the back. And how cool are those passageways?

The ballroom was built in 1927 as a social gathering place for students of National Park Seminary, and later, for soldiers recovering at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Want to know more? There is a full lecture with photos and history on the ballroom here.

Girls outside of the gymnasium, which by the way is being completely renovated and the swimming pool will be a sunken living room for whoever lives there.

Yes, a fairy tale setting. I’m so glad it’s being saved. Nothing makes me more disappointed than old historic buildings being bulldozed.

You can read more about the history of the Seminary here. I love this project.

New York City

March 22, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

Our trip last week wasn’t just limited to Washington, D.C and the Holocaust Memorial. We headed up the coast a little farther to NYC. We stayed with our friends Maya and Amy and they gave us the grand tour:

Boo has wanted to see the Statue of Liberty since she was about 3 years old (since seeing it on an episode of Wonder Pets):

So awesome:

Ellis Island:

Boo wanted to visit the 9-11 Memorial and Museum. Taking it all in:

Leaving a message:

It was definitely an emotional few hours, but the museum was awe inspiring. So well done and I can’t imagine how much work went into it to keep it respectful and show the imprint of the 2 towers. We’ll never forget it.

*****

We probably had more fun at Maya and Amy’s house than visiting the big city. They have so much cool stuff going on: poetry, artwork, classes. And lots of neat little collections of inspiration. Boo would wake up early, get dressed all by herself and head downstairs to play with all the neat things she’d find:

Out in front of their house they have a Little Free Library…..and a Wish Tree (with sharpies and tags ready to add wishes!). I’m totally going to start a wish tree somewhere in Bryson City: