I was flipping through our pictures from our most recent trip to this little North Carolina mountain town called Brevard. The trip was over Memorial Day this year but I have not managed to write two words about it yet.
Seeing all the memories stuck on "pixel paper” I told myself: boy, we surely do pack a lot in a weekend! I think it’s safe to say that both of us are more towards the couch potato side of the spectrum when it comes to how active we are rather than the sprint-like, marathon runner type. However, if it’s accessible by foot (and car), we can manage it!
We’ve never been to Brevard before, and let me tell you - that fact alone is a rarity for someone who’s lived in or around North Carolina as long as we have. Especially for two mountain lovers like us. One of our favorite bands (The Steep Canyon Rangers) has their roots here - for this reason alone we should have graced them with a visit way before this late. Well, better late than never, they say.
We rented a small “cabin” (when you see the pictures you’ll know it’s a lot more like a super-modern, Japanese-style hut in the woods) outside of town but within just 15 minutes’ drive from downtown. We drove to Brevard for all the meals and wandered the streets and the many art studios.
Like any mountain town, Brevard is put on the planet to force you to live your life at a different beat. Your heart rate slows down, you breathe deeper, you are forced to look around and not just see but understand what surrounds you. Everyone that’s been to Brevard will use words like “hippie”, “chic”, “arty”, “unique”, “original” to describe it.
I’ll share some of the things we found and you’ll be the judge.
Brevard, in a picture
There is a downtown area along Broad and Main Streets where the soul of the town seems to be: all the interesting shops, art galleries, boutiques, wine bars, bookstore, ice-cream store, etc strung together like a bead necklace. Being a holiday weekend, these establishments were thumping with folks! We tried to find a place to eat dinner our first night in town and we could not find a place that took reservations - everything was booked (and yes, apparently even in a “hippie” town you need reservations when everything is in such high demand!). We ended up in an Irish Pub off the main drag which was just fine, too.
Above the entrance door of a downtown store - again: Brevard in one picture. (OK! Maybe two.)
In the first art gallery we walked in, one of the painters that provided some of the works was there that day - she lives in Florida but always comes up for the weekend to find inspiration to paint. This year, she said, she has a whole birds series where she paints stylized birds that could be any kind of bird in a rainbow of colors. She chuckled “I don’t want to be too specific about what kind they are and what color they can be. For obvious reasons.” - she said with a wink.
I’ll tell you, one of the things that intrigued me about Brevard was all the talk about “the white squirrels”. They have lots of “white squirrel this and that” (stores, streets, etc) in this town. I thought for sure we’d see at least one live white squirrel. But we didn’t see even one ... any kind of squirrel. Not any squirrels, in fact. Not in town. There were a couple around our cabin, brown and bushy-tailed. But no white ones and not in Brevard. As a matter of curiosity: the White Squirrel Shoppe offers “adult cocktails” while you shop. This speaks for the hippie vibe of the town, I guess: I am used to “no drinks or food in the stores”. Not in Brevard, apparently.
Outside the White Squirrel Shoppe
There is this store in town that is called “Mantiques” - it’s like “Antiques” but apparently for men only?! That intrigued me as much as it annoyed me, but it piqued my curiosity enough to go in. I kept wondering why did they need to skew their point of view so much towards men? Maybe as a matter of curiosity and to get people intrigued enough to step in?! As if women could not be interested in all-leather furniture, or rough wood dining room sets, or massive walnut china cabinets with antique mirrors. Or as if all men would be into killing things (stuffed wildlife alert at every corner in this store); or as if women would not drink beer and scotch (they had lots of funny signs with both floating around bar stools for sale). Because the store had a viewing room upstairs on the second store where they were projecting the first Top Gun movie that day, they gave free popcorn away to all the customers. Again: shop and eat! They surely know how to please a crowd around here.
We also found this “other” area of the town called “The Lumberyard District”. It was in the heart of what looked like a neighborhood full of small, old homes mostly ranches made of wood. Here, we had a delicious, locally farmed breakfast at Morning Social one day, and afterwards we perused the antiques and beautiful lumber pieces at The Underground Salvage Co. - a lumber, antiques, and reclaimed wood store in the district. Our next coffee table might just come from some of the wood my husband picked up in this store.
The Brevard Lumberyard Event Hall in the Lumberyard District
Funky mural in the Lumberyard District
The vinyl corner at The Underground Salvage Co.
We loved the dinner on the second night at Marco’s - the trout and mashed potatoes was just the mountain comfort food that could hit the spot! The following morning, the bagels at Sully’s Steamers (steamed bagels never tasted this good!) were amazing! They make you feel like a pig even when you order a vegan bagel with all the fixins’.
One of the most attractive qualities of Brevard is that it’s located in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains which themselves offer an infinite amount of attractions. So, if you ever get cabin or “city” fever and want to escape - the roads are full of even more treasures ...
You can chase waterfalls along the mountain roads, as there are many around these parts. We stumbled upon Connestee Falls, Looking Glass Falls (this was impressive but also by far the most crowded), and another smaller waterfall tucked away off of a graveled road about 20 miles long, off of which lots of people just camped in the woods.
Looking Glass Waterfalls
A short trip to Asheville to the Sierra Nevada Brewery is only 20 miles away. The place looks brand new and offers an informational tour of the brewery (which can be guided or self-guided) and is complete with one of the best and possibly largest tap bars I have ever seen. They also have a pretty large restaurant with a huge patio in the back - it’s a must-see for anyone who likes beer, food, mountains, and just to have a good time.
The entrance of the Sierra Nevada Brewery in Asheville, NC
Corner of the fermentation room at the Sierra Nevada Brewery
The tap bar at the Sierra Nevada Brewery
There are many wineries around Brevard, too. Hopping wineries is one of our favorite things to do on lazy afternoons when we have no energy for much else. Sipping a glass of something new and listening to a band, or just looking at the mountains and taking in the vineyards and the roses popping with color is just food for the soul. We stopped at St. Paul Mountain Vineyards and Sawyer Spring Vineyards. They had a bluegrass band from Eastern Tennessee at the first one, and a special flight made of “red-white-and-blue” wines at the second one, since it was Memorial Weekend and all. They told us to “go on google and find out what plant they used to make their wine blue”. We tried, but we never found out the secret. It was kinda mean not to tell us, I guess, but I suppose it’s good to be a bit mysterious. It keeps calling you back.
The red-white-and-blue wine flight at The Sawyer Springs Vineyards
On the way back home, we stopped for lunch at Burntshirt Vineyards right under Chimney Rock State Park - this is an old favorite of ours. Just like the Sierra Nevada Brewery - they have a beautiful restaurant and good looking tasting bar, too ... People here are so nice, too, that we always come back - it’s almost always on the way from anywhere in the Western mountains back to our house.
The peach wine slushy at Burntshirt Vineyards
After lunch, we made the drive up to Chimney Park - a first again for both of us - although we’ve seen the park from the highway possibly hundreds of times. In order to climb all the way to the top of this rock, after you made it to the parking lot through the steep, winding mountain drive, you need to walk through a 198-foot tunnel carved in the rock of the mountain that leads to a 258-foot elevator shaft. After you take that elevator up, you have 40 wooden stairs to climb to the top of Chimney Rock. The view is an incredible 360 degree vista of the valley of the Eastern edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I will have to say, we would do this backwards next time: go to the Chimney Rock to work up an appetite and then go down to Burntshirt Vineyards for lunch, instead of the other way around.
I loved all the amazing things we saw on this trip for the first time, although a stone throw away from us. I also loved how these communities have a sense of timelessness around them - the beauty of nature, the willingness of people to share their land, food, and art with strangers proudly, the permanence of rock and water and forests - it anchors you. It gives you a place to start once you come back home full of renewed energy and willing to see the world with new eyes.
There is this corner art store in Brevard called Number 7 Arts. Call me nuts, but to me, it brought back memories of Seinfeld, so you know I had to go in! It’s beautiful, clean, and roomy, with generous windows flooding the light in; it is filled with local art treasures. However, what stays with me is this: as we were walking in there, this kid, could have been probably 15 or 16, sporting a jazz hat on his frizzy head was walking out of the place with a couple of his friends and burst into song: “Good Golly, Ms. Molly!” - started snapping his fingers to the beat in his head and did a twirl in the middle of the sidewalk. It made me wonder for a minute what century we are in? And how can a 21st century kid know a 1950’s song so well?! And then I realized: this is what this trip felt like: from here and now into the beauty and newness and oldness of everything timeless.
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