|
Summer 2011 Newsletter:
Ready to put a little altitude in your summer?
No doubt about it, the season is in
full swing in our North Carolina mountains. The July
4 weekend in Franklin saw the town crowded with visitors
and returning summer folks, starting with our usual
Friday afternoon “rush hour”. Which means
you may have had to wait through an extra turn at our
lights.
Even as early as May, our Main Street
retailers and restaurant owners all over town had begun
talking about encouraging business signs. People just
can’t stay away from the mountains. And no wonder.
More...
Spring 2011 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
Happy spring, everyone:
As much as we delight in the experience
of all four seasons in the North Carolina mountains,
the transition from a cold winter to a glorious spring
was especially welcome this year.
Spring flowers are busting out all
over. Which means the summer can't be far behind. Which,
in turn, means our region's most active season is nearly
upon us.
More...
January 2011 Newsletter:
Best wishes for a joyous 2011
Those wishes have special meaning this year and are
delivered with an especially hopeful tone of voice.
Economists tell us we’re finally headed out of
the nation’s Great Recession, and signs of a
reawakening in our neck of the woods are unmistakable.
Even with all the uncertainty, folks we know have
started new businesses on Franklin’s Main Street.
And we’re greeting more and more visitors who
tell us they’re more anxious than ever to make
the move to life in the mountains.
More...
Fall 2010 Newsletter:
Fall’s Here. How ‘bout you?
Not that we want to rub it in, but the season has
changed here in the mountains, bringing back those
crisp nights and blue-sky days we longed for during
summer’s hazy days. Gosh, we had lots of days
this summer over 90 degrees.
Oh? You say it was way more unbearable where you live?
And summer is still hanging tough for you? Sorry. We
said we wouldn’t rub it in.
Let’s try another tact. Now’s
a good time to plan a fall getaway to Franklin. The
leaves will be changing soon, peaking around the third
week of October. It’s our second big tourist
season, especially welcome to many this year after
the long summer in the lowlands. (Sorry, there we go
again.)
More...
Mid-Summer 2010 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
Hot summer where you live? Here in
the mountains it's been unusually warm, as well; though
we shouldn't complain about days in the 80’s
and nights in the 60’s when the rest of the Southeast
is sweltering. Besides, I think we get the better end
of the deal we make with summer when the tomatoes come
into season. And boy are they here now.
It could be the altitude or the dirt
or the nighttime temps. Whatever it is, our tomatoes
are in a class by themselves. And our Franklin farmers
market is suddenly loaded with them.
It's not just tomatoes, either. In
season now is an incredible assortment of beans, beets,
potatoes, onions, corn, peaches, and berries of all
types. Our growing community is expanding to meet increasing
demand. So we can look forward to harvests of local
delights for years to come.
More...
Summer 2010 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
Are you ready for the summer? We are.
Or at least we’re getting there.
We’ve heard from so many of
you this spring, we expect the summer season in the
mountains to be a period of reconnecting. So we’ve
been getting ready for you.
Our first project was to realign our website so
that it’s easier to go right to the information
you need. Now, as soon as you land on our Sanctuary
Village home page, you get a quick explainer about
what we’re doing: We’re inviting you to
be part of a new-home neighborhood in the heart of
an historic NC mountain town. On the right-hand side
of the opening page are the newsletters like this one,
arranged in chronological order, with the most recent
on top. It’s a great way to see how our ideas
are evolving.
More...
May 2010 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
This spring marks a milestone
for me. On Saturday, April 24, I started my next
half-century on earth. That’s the way I’m
looking at my 50th birthday. It fits right in with
the theme of my
last newsletter about thinking and talking in the
future tense.
We used my birthday as an excuse
for our first potluck dinner of 2010, gathering on
the Sanctuary Village Square for a feast among friends.
It was a great evening, cool and clear before the
next day’s spring rains.
And it was fun for us all.
The party took some organization, though. Iva started
planning months ago, checking with friends via email
and phone. Who would be in town? What would they like
to bring to the potluck? How about contingency plans
for inclement weather?
More...
April 2010 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
Finally. After a long winter, spring
has come to the mountains. And in addition to the usual
pleasures of watching blooms and greenery change the
complexion of the landscape, we’re enjoying hearing
from friends who are experiencing their own re-emergence.
People are beginning to talk in the future tense again.
For too long, lots of folks felt stuck in a place where
they couldn’t imagine what might come next. The
cycle of the seasons rescues us from winter doldrums
each year. But it’s not so easy to reassure ourselves “this,
too, will pass” when we’re experiencing
a cycle that comes along once in two or three generations.
More...
Winter 2010 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
Looking back through our
newsletters , I’m struck by how often I’m
referencing the weather. That’s not a category
of conversation that popped into my mind regularly
when we lived in Miami. (Okay, maybe in August when
the heat was particularly oppressive.)
Here in the mountains, weather is a
big deal all the time. One reason, I think, is that
there are such obvious transitions between seasons.
Each is distinctive. And each inspires rumination about
what’s just past and what might be ahead. The
seasons organize the year.
More...
January 2010 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
Like much of the Southeast, we’re
starting 2010 in the North Carolina Mountains peeking
out from under down comforters and polar fleece. It’s
been cold. Record cold, in fact!
It’s the kind of weather that
brings to mind stories of “cabin fever,” a
malady brought on by winter isolation and made worse
depending on your distance from the nearest neighbors.
In the old days, it could be life threatening. Now
it’s just depressing when you find yourself cut
off from friends and deprived of the pleasures of community
because of the weather.
More...
October 2009 Newsletter:
Greetings
from the mountains of North Carolina
October in the mountains provides our
annual showcase of fall foliage. Which means, in turn,
the annual pilgrimage of visitors who enjoy visiting
the high country when everything is painted in autumn
colors. It's a glorious time. And we're looking forward
to seeing many of you. Be sure and give us a call,
so we can catch you up on life in Franklin and our
plans for Sanctuary Village.
Because we've had so much rain this
year -- a welcome change from the drought conditions
of a couple years running -- botanists are predicting
slightly less vibrant fall colors but a slightly longer
leaf season. You can read the latest predictions here
in the Franklin Press.
More...
September 2009 Newsletter:
“A place
for all ages”!
Remember when that wasn't such a big
deal?
For most of human history, places where
people settled were designed to accommodate all ages.
It was a matter of survival, taken for granted for
the eons that our species evolved in community. But
since the advent of the automobile and suburban sprawl,
many folks retreated to enclaves segregated by income,
building use, and age. The Young and the Cool live
here. Couples with Kids live there. Seniors live over
there in the "Active Adult" development until
they have to move to the Home (which is anything but).
More...
July 2009 Newsletter:
Greetings from
the mountains of North Carolina
Although we’re deep into July,
we’ve had a string of what have seemed like spring
days, with daytime temperatures in the 70s and the
evenings making us wish we hadn’t stored the
comforters for the season. A lot of us are convinced
we live in paradise most of the year. But even the
most enthusiastic community boosters know we’ve
been especially blessed lately.
The great weather made Franklin’s
annual Folk Festival a big hit this year. My family
appreciated it more than usual since this is the first
time we could walk to all the downtown fun in ten minutes
from our home in Sanctuary
Village. For a taste of the Festival, check
out our little video here.
More...
June 2009 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
Happy summer (almost)! Even though the season's official start date is another couple weeks away, we're celebrating in the North Carolina Mountains already. Summer in Franklin means the arrival of old friends and the return of favorite rituals like Saturday morning at the farmer's tailgate market and Saturday evening at "Pickin' on the Square". It means keeping sweaters handy for the early chills and the cool evenings but breaking out the shorts for the warm afternoons. The spring rains greened up the mountains so beautifully the whole region seems to glow.
At Sanctuary Village, we marked the transition from spring to summer on Memorial Day weekend with another of our potluck dinners on our own Village Square. We roasted a pig Cuban-style, in a charcoal-filled box designed for the purpose. Delicioso, if we do say so ourselves. And the 30 friends, new and old, who added their own dishes to the feast reminded us of the fun ahead, as homes and businesses around our Square multiply and the Village grows. The truth is, though, we're already a neighborhood. More...
May 2009 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
We hope the month is as welcome in your neck of the woods as it is in ours. We're celebrating for several reasons. The big one, of course, is the annual one. May is the when the mountains of North Carolina "green up" into spring, when gardens are planted, and when community gatherings move outdoors. Everything feels fresh and new again.
That goes for us, too. Needless to say, this has been a tough year for real estate development, the worst of it being the level of uncertainty regarding all the interconnected markets -- financial, housing, employment. But it looks like the economy is experiencing a little spring fever, as well.
More...
April 2009 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
Hello, friends, and hello spring (for sure, this time):
We should have known we'd have the last storm of winter this last week, since this was the week we planned to have water flowing in our Market Square fountain. Sure enough, after a weekend that flirted with 70-degree temperatures on gloriously sunny days, we got a two-day taste of the departing season; which makes the coming weeks of spring weather all the more welcome!
The weekend weather did allow us to wedge in what we intend to be the first of many open-air dinners on the Square. Even with just one house up, we already have a neighborhood in the making. A couple dozen well-wishers, some of them planning to be future Village residents, answered our invitation to help us christen the Square with a potluck dinner under the stars. It was everything we expected. More...
March 2009 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
We're on the way to spring in Franklin.
Despite a day or two of low temps and the occasional blustery wind to remind us that winter's not yet over, we'll soon be seeing the buds and shoots. Spring's a glorious season in the mountains and greatly unappreciated, because our summer visitors don't arrive in time and because the fall hogs all the oohs and ahs for seasonal color. In a way, that makes spring a reward for those of us who live here year round.
The rewards of living year-round in a place have been on my mind lately, because we're now living full-time in our in-town community, Sanctuary Village. We're comfortably settled into the first Village home, an Idea Home I'll talk about a little later. And we're just beginning to show folks around the house and talk about our vision for the Village. More...
February 2009 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
We’re trying to keep ourselves from celebrating spring prematurely. After several weeks of wet and cold weather, the skies turned blue, the sun came out, and the temperatures hit the 60s here in Sanctuary Village.
It’s a tease, of course. It will be another month before flowers begin leaping out of the ground for real – and we really do have glorious springs here in the mountains. More...
January 2009 Newsletter:
The Power of Hope -- and Faith in the Future
I've always been in the can-do camp. So I welcomed the positive energy coming out of Washington, D.C. on January 20. We don't have to abandon reality or ignore the hard work ahead of us to embrace the hopefulness of a new era. And this IS a new era. Despite all the bad news, the whole country seems re-energized. We're feeling it in the North Carolina mountains, too. Some of us, in fact, never lost faith.
Those of you who've watched our progress creating a new in-town neighborhood in Franklin, NC, will be pleased to see we're moving ahead with next steps for Sanctuary Village. The Village's first home, a three-level beauty (elevator served), is up. And my family has moved in. More...
Fall 2008 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
Like me, you must be thankful that the October madness in the markets and now the elections are behind us! Here in Franklin, fall and all of its glory is in its peak. The weather and colors are perfect and while our highs are now in the low 70’s, last week we even had some snow. I have never seen such a beautiful contrast of colors!
I have thought about how I could speak to the times we are living now. If my world were only here in Franklin, I would feel all is right. Locally we have new restaurants, a fine arts theater under construction, our community college is expanding, we will soon have a new paved State Road to Mountain Grove (and our high mountain community – Sanctuary at Mountain Grove) and next month, our first idea home and welcome center here in Sanctuary Village will be open to visitors and sales will officially start in this exciting community. More...
July 2008 Newsletter:
The Sanctuary Village “Green” Way
Joining the Western Carolina Green Building Council has truly been an eye opening experience. Through the process of preparing our homes for NC Healthy Built and Energy Star certification, we've learned that every choice you make in the home building process - things as simple as paint and windows- can impact the environment for present and future generations.
That’s why we’ve made the decision to create Sanctuary Village and its homes in a way that not only lessens that impact but also strives to make things better. For today and tomorrow. More...
June 2008 Newsletter:
Sanctuary Village, One Exciting Piece at a Time
I am happy to say the warm “lazy” days of summer are here. Although for us, we still have cool breezes and ours are definitely not “lazy days” with all we have going on in Sanctuary Village.
Creating Sanctuary Village is, in many ways, like piecing a puzzle together. Each corner, each section, each piece must come together in just the right way to duplicate the scene depicted on the box. More...
Spring 2008 Newsletter:
Greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
It's full-bore spring in the mountains, and my spirits are high. Adding to the inspiration of our setting here in Western North Carolina is the weekend I just spent at the 16th annual gathering of the Congress for the New Urbanism. It was my third CNU conference (www.cnu.org), marking almost exactly the time I've spent on one of the steepest and most thrilling learning curves in community development. More...
Winter 2008 Newsletter:
Greetings
from the mountains of North Carolina
- Construction is under way at The Sanctuary Village!
- The Sanctuary Village, a Model for Planned Development
- Reaching Beyond The Sanctuary Communities
- Fun at Mountain Grove
More...
October, 2007:
Fall greetings from the mountains of North Carolina
We hope your autumn
has been a glorious as ours (though we have a hard
time imagining that). Because of the dry summer,
experts predicted the fall color show in our region
wouldn’t be nearly as spectacular as it usually
is.
But nature frustrated the predictions with a delightful
display of color especially at the higher elevations,
where our Sanctuary at Mountain Grove is located. More...
September, 2007:
Happy fall from the mountains of North Carolina
The change of season
is especially welcome this year, isn’t it?
For most of the
Southeast, the summer of 2007 was a scorcher. Our
mountains suffered, as well, though not as much as
the lowlands. The local organic farmers at Franklin’s weekly tailgate market talked about coping with the dry weather, but the tomato crop seemed as spectacular as usual. And we still heard the annual jokes about squash being so plentiful that you have to keep your car windows rolled up when you park anywhere in town if you don’t
want farmers off-loading surplus squash to your back
seat. More...
August, 2007:
Summer Days in Franklin, NC
These last two months of summer mark the peak of our traditional family tourist season in Western North Carolina. And this has been a special season in lots of ways.
First of all, it's been heartening for those of us who've tied our futures to these mountains that so many others feel the same way. Despite high gas prices, a jittery housing economy, and the kind of news that might tempt folks to stay home and cover their heads, we're working on a record summer of visitors. More...
June, 2007:
A Summer of New Beginnings
We’re in full-bore summer in the mountains now, hoping, like the rest of the South, for a little more rain but mostly settling into the seasonal routines that are part of the rewards of living in Western North Carolina’s
high country. More...
April, 2007:
Letting Go of the Need for Certainty
Since a river outing a week or
so ago, I’ve
been thinking about how often in life we over-analyze
decisions. We seem to crave the assurance of knowing
how things are going to turn out before we commit to
a new direction. More...
March, 2007:
Regulatory barriers cleared, site planning begins
We’re on our way
After a year of planning, the design of our new in-town community has sailed through all the Town of Franklin approval processes. More...
February, 2007:
The paths we walk lead home
For as long as I can remember, I have
always gone for long walks. Whenever I need to find
some answers or shed some stress, I head to open ground
and fresh air. More...
January, 2007:
From this side of the ridge
Our memories make us who we are
Looking back over the three years since
our family moved to Franklin from Florida, I am struck
by how the memories we are crea-ting now are so different
from those that defined us not so long ago. More...
December 14, 2006:
As we come to the close of 2006,
we can hardly wait to continue our momentum into the new year. More Details...
October 31,
2006:
Town planning board approves zoning
proposal
By Colin McCandless.
Staff writer The Franklin Press
The Town of Franklin planning board held a
special called meeting Thursday to review a set of proposed
Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) overlay regulations.
Developer Tim Ryan presented them to the town in conjunction
with his plans for a community called The Sanctuary Village. Complete
story
August 29, 2006:
Sanctuary Village Master Plan book completed, including:
master plan concepts, residential architecture and architectural
guidelines.
August 1, 2006:
Construction of the first home begins at The Sanctuary at
Mountain Grove.
Click here to view photos.
July 13, 2006:
Master plan created for The Sanctuary Village.
May, 2006:
The Sanctuary Communities hires the firm of Allison
Ramsey Architects to design a traditional neighborhood
development in Franklin, NC. |
