Changes

I’m listening to WFMT radio in Chicago via the magic of the Internet. Likewise I am brooding over news from home – home being Tryon, North Carolina. Tryon, population 2000, celebrated its 125th anniversary this year. I was nine when Dad and Mom arrived with me in Tryon. Before that they had avoided the place because it was supposedly the home of the rich and famous. We weren’t either.

They had spent the previous two summers house-hunting in Charlottesville, Virginia with me in tow. We’d just spent another week in Charlottesville. None of the houses there were what they wanted. At the wise ages of seven, eight and nine I had seen a LOT of houses. All had bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens… Most had bathrooms and electricity. All had running water. I had no idea what my parents were looking for that these places didn’t have. It didn’t matter if I liked a place or not, so obviously my opinion wasn’t a deciding factor.

Two days before driving to Tryon, my parents had decided to try looking in North Carolina, so we left Virginia heading south. It was just another interminable car ride to me. A few more mountain roads, hairpin turns, rocks falling from sheer mountain faces, and drops to gorges we couldn’t see the bottom of.

We’d arrived in Asheville in the evening and my parents had arranged to meet a realtor in the morning. He didn’t come. When my parents called the realty office, they learned he had died. This was in the days when realtors were scarce: there was no one else to show us property in Ashville.

Not wanting to waste the day, my parents called the realtor in Hendersonville and agreed to meet for lunch and then see some property. We spent the rest of the morning driving south to Hendersonville where we waited for the realtor. He didn’t come either. When my parents called the realty office, they learned that he had been hospitalized. So we ate and got back in the car and headed further south, down the mountain to Tryon, where we found accommodation at the then flourishing Valley Courts Motel. My parents called the local realtor who promised to come first thing in the morning.

Between that fateful phone call and the following morning, I found a friend, a girl my age whose parents owned the motel. We had a glorious time swimming and talking horses. So on that fateful morning, when Mr. Hester arrived in a flawless white suit – the temperature was hot and muggy – my parents went off without me for the first (and only) time. Never let your parents out of your sight: they might do something stupid! They did. Meanwhile I learned to like sausage and grits for breakfast!

They arrived back for lunch. What do I mean “they”? It was two people who looked like my parents but who acted like… How do people act when they’re in love with an object? That’s how they acted. All they could talk about was the house. The original part was modeled after a small French chateau – but the second owner had doubled the size of the house adding two bedrooms. So what? Every house we looked at had bedrooms! The living room was huge! So what? Every house we’d seen had a living room! They described the rooms, bathrooms, kitchen… and they weren’t making any headway getting me in the least enthused about their dream.

My father got desperate, devious, and inspired. The house had a secret staircase, a secret room…. Okay, I could be persuaded to go see this place and I could bring my friend. The trip there took us through Tryon. The main thoroughfare, not just through town but from Asheville south to South Carolina, was Trade Street. It sported both typical small-town USA facades that rose two and three stories on one story buildings, but also a unique Tryon blend of shops that might have been extracted from a British country village. Along the very elegant Melrose Avenue, starting with Oak Hall Hotel (which has not survived), there was a hodge-podge of head turning architectural styles that could have come from around Europe and the US. My head was swinging from side to side as I took in all the places that turned my head!

After winding around streets that were a seeming maze of greenery, fine homes, and foresty areas we reached THE HOUSE. The place was (is still) definitely a head-turner too. It even had a witch’s hut on the property – actually it was an old garage for the original owner’s Model A that had been somewhat refurbished as a potting shed by the second owner, but oh so much more romantic to two nine year olds as a witch’s hut! The house itself had a staircase worthy of a romance and balconies to suit scenes from Romeo and Juliet. The gardens were a labyrinth of paths perfect for Hansel and Gretel to get lost in. And yes the secret room was there, but the secret stair looked more like a closet – until you opened the door.

Mom and Dad spent that evening and night agonizing over whether or not this was the place. They woke starry-eyed at dawn and asked each other the important question: should we? They decided we should. Mr. Hester returned that morning to take us all to breakfast at Mimosa Inn – which meant I didn’t get to have another breakfast of sausage and grits with my friend. Sometime that afternoon my parents met the sister-executrix of the deceased second owner. The place had been on the market for some three years and though my parents offer for the house was low, it was deemed sufficient. So we ended up moving in three years later when my parents retired although we did manage to spend summers there between buying and moving in.

In those days air conditioning was still relatively new and Tryon was still a summer town – people left “hot” areas like Charleston and Miami to enjoy the cooler climate in the mountains. But Tryon was no longer in its heyday. Tryon is beautifully situated in the mountains – although in recent years building has begun denuding those mountains of a number of trees and is causing erosion and other problems. Back then, folks were either local folks or they were rich. We weren’t local or rich. But our house had a history: built by artist Homer Ellertson who was a friend of musician George Gershwin – who reputedly wrote part of Porgy and Bess while staying with Ellertson. Guests to Tryon had included folks like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Clara Edwards and David Niven. Many had had lavish homes there. Historic inns like Mimosa and Oak Hall had catered to the needs and whims of glittering socialites.

Slowly over time these homes and inns are all losing their appeal. Not only aren’t they young anymore, today no one needs a butlery; very few people desire entire cabinets dedicated to silverware, or have sufficient table linen to devote an entire closet to it. Besides why deal with hard wood floors when wall to wall carpet is the rage? More importantly, their amenities no longer meet “code” and upgrading them is expensive almost to the point of impossibility of restoration. Nowadays folks moving to the area prefer to build new homes, homes not worn by age and neglect and loaded with the current list of modern conveniences. It is not just the mountains being eroded; it is the charm of the atmosphere. Why paint, carpet, shore-up and retrofit new plumbing or electric wiring into an old home when one can get a pristine new place without those headaches? Why save or plant trees to retain mountains when everyone wants a flat place to build and a clear view of the mountains?

Oh I know: old homes have problems! The first summer we stayed there, something dripped on my toe at night. I wiped it off but my toe was sticky. Another drip. I sat up to find out why a drip would be sticky. I tasted the sticky stuff – fearless I now realize. It could have been anything. It was honey. There was a false ceiling in the studio. Between it and the roof, honey bees had been diligently making honey for years. They’d even taken over the chimney. Unfortunately we had to exterminate them and that ruined the honey, but… and then there was the family of flying squirrels that occupied another part of the roof – until they came into the house and started using my bed as a trampoline. I woke one morning to a small warm furry bright-eyed squirrel sitting in my hand. I merely closed my eyes and went back to sleep and told my parents about them later. Getting rid of the squirrels was much more difficult than getting rid of the bees: they kept coming back!

Hopefully future generations enjoy the valleys where thunderstorms get caught in the arms of the mountains and struggle like young children to get out of a parent’s grip like the storms of my youth that rumbled up and down the valley until their clouds disgorged their rain-load and moved off.