Story Frame 54 – Escape to the Mountains

Okay, so a slight explanation here regarding the ‘destination unknown’ aspect of our roadtrip. In terms of a map, I knew where we were headed, but it was still a completely unknown world to me. This time, it wasn’t a film guiding me there, but someone who worked in film who suggested our destination – and this wouldn’t have happened had I not worked at the documentary workshop.

I’d first heard about Asheville in the fall of 2004 from Stephen. At the time, we were both in the throes of plotting our escapes from big city life. For several nights, we’d sat on the phone with one another after my kids had fallen asleep, staring at want ads. I was looking for a small house with a garden in Seattle or San Francisco and Stephen was looking for a boat he could live aboard and ditch apartment life. It quickly became clear, however, that I could not afford to live in either of my west coast choices.

“What about Asheville?” Stephen finally suggested.

“What’s Asheville?” I asked, having never heard of it.

“It’s a small town – artsy and progressive, and in the mountains,” he responded simply. “North Carolina.”

It was a life-changing suggestion. He knew all my hot buttons. Each of the four words had an instant, visceral appeal. It was as if something inside me recognized this was the right answer and I never second guess that instinct when it hits me.

I took immediate action. The next morning, I rang my mother and suggested a long weekend in the mountains around October 28^th. It had been five-and-a-half years since Karen had died but we still celebrated her birthday each year with a special adventure in her memory. Always up for a road trip, my mother immediately agreed and a few weeks later, the two of us headed southwest six hundred miles to the Southern Highlands of Appalachia, overnighting along the way with family friends in Charlotte.

The next day, we were in the car about an hour from Asheville when Mom commented, “You know, your sister wanted to move to Asheville.”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t know that. Why didn’t you tell me?”

She just shrugged and turned her head to look at North Carolina passing by.

My mother’s comment turned out to be just the first of a few odd and surprisingly serendipitous happenings awaiting us in Asheville that weekend – almost as if someone had planned them.

When checking out prospective colleges with Zoë a few months earlier, we’d visited the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, on the coastal side of North Carolina. Hearing I had a trip planned to Asheville, on the other side of the state, our B&B owner there suggested I stay at the 1900 Inn on Montford.

And so that’s where I booked a room for our trip to Asheville.

Designed in 1900 by Richard Sharp Smith, an English-born American who’d been the supervising architect for the Biltmore House, the Inn’s rooms and décor had a decidedly English feel to them.

The Inn was named after Montford, the architecturally historic neighborhood it was in. It’s a neighborhood filled with old homes built with the vision of the prolific Smith whose signature designs were an interesting blend of Arts and Crafts, Queen Anne, and Neoclassical styles. Both of us liked it immediately.

When we checked in, the owners told us their weekly “Saturday Social” would be starting shortly, with wine and live music by a guitarist friend of theirs on the front porch. That sounded delightful. After freshening up, we went out on the wrap around porch and took seats in comfortable old wicker chairs. Mom sat at one end, next to the owners, Lynn and Ron Carlson and I found a chair at the other end of the porch. I was speaking with someone when I heard her yelp. I looked up in time to see my mother throw both of her hands up in the air.

What on earth?

I got up and walked over to her end of the porch.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“You will not believe this!” she exclaimed. “Lynn and Ron lived in London around the same time we did. Ron was also in computers and knows Brian and Ed!”

She was referring to two of my father’s closest work colleagues, Brian O’Heron, and Ed Mack, both of whom I’d known since I was ten years old. It turned out Ron had been a computer developer and project manager at Unisys Corporation, the global technology solutions company my father had worked for.

First an Asheville connection to my sister, and now one to my father…

Ron and Lynn invited us to carry on our conversation over dinner that evening at a small but charming eatery co-owned by Peggy Seeger, Pete Seeger’s sister, also a folk musician and songwriter. Pyper’s Place was located in a converted old laundromat she and her partner had turned into what they described as a homey café-cum-restaurant. There was a nine-foot couch upholstered in leopard fabric in front of a 1960s orange wood stove.

The four of us had a delightful dinner chatting about our shared London memories. Unfortunately, that was to be its last night as Peggy and Irene had recently decided to close down the restaurant. We got here just in time, I thought.

The following morning, Mom and I walked into town to explore Asheville. Within minutes, I looked at her and announced, “This is it, I’m moving here!”

“Now, honey…” came her typically cautious reply.

But I was head over heels smitten with it. Stephen had been right to suggest it. Asheville just felt right to me; this was where I needed to be. It was as if I recognized it in some way.

The following spring, after Dad’s memorial, I contacted a realtor who sent me several real estate newspapers. I gave Zoë and Leif highlighters and suggested they circle the ones they liked, each in their own color, and I did the same. The ones with at least two or three colors around them became our wish list. We made plans for a May visit to see how the kids liked it.

Our first morning there, Allen the realtor met us and we began the search for our new home in the mountains. Zoë and Leif kept track of the ones they liked best and after each stop would recite the litany of their favorites by the sequence number in which we’d seen it.

“5, 7, 3, 4” – one would say.

Then the other would give their priority order: “No – 6, 5, 4, then 7.”

It changed after each house we looked at.

At the end of the second day, having seen everything on our lists, Allen suggested a 13^th house he thought might be right for us.

“We’re too tired,” I said. “I feel like Goldilocks – each one is not quite right. No more, please.”

“Just this one,” he said. And just to be polite, I said okay.

The kids ran ahead of me and through the front door. I dragged my feet, looking at the unassuming little brick house, built snugly into the mountainside, overlooking a large lake. At the foot of the property was a bird sanctuary. Another mountain stretched up on the other side of the lake. It was a lovely setting, but the house itself didn’t do much for me.

Moments later, Zoë ran back outside.

“Mom, you have to see this one!” she said breathlessly. “Wait til you see the bathroom in your room!”

I followed her inside and room by room, I walked through the house then out onto the decks overlooking the lake and mountains.

Back in the car, we went through the numbers again. I liked another one we’d seen better, but #13 now topped of both kids’ lists. Alan the realtor smiled, kind of smugly, I thought. It was, of course the one I bought.

The kids and I returned to Alexandria to put our house on the market. It sold in a whirlwind three days.

Three months after Dad’s memorial, and a few days after Zoë’s high school graduation, the kids and I piled into our Subaru wagon with suitcases and our two dogs, and drove eight hours southwest through Virginia and down to the mountains of Western North Carolina, ready for a new life.

Keen to share in the adventure, Stephen followed us down a few days later, filling up his own Subaru with all my house plants, some breakables and a few other treasures. A trip to the mountains, he said, was the perfect getaway for him from the stresses of the DC area. He was also about to literally set sail on a new adventure himself, the exact opposite of what I was doing. We’d looked at a few sailboats before I left, and he’d bought one of them.

Before leaving Alexandria, I had a phone call with Dr. Braddock, the lovely man who, along with his wife, had sponsored American Byzantine. We’d kept in touch over the years, and I wanted him to know I was leaving the area.

I thanked him for the opportunities he’d given me and Martin to create a documentary about a work of art so important to him, as well as the many social evenings he and his wife had included me in.

“Kristin,” he said at the end of the call. “You have a remarkable combination of personality and moral fiber.”

I was astounded by the compliment. I wrote it down and have kept it ever since in a little notebook of emails, comments, and letters to re-read when times are tough, and I need encouragement.

My sole concern about moving to Asheville had been whether or not filmmakers and producers would still hire me as a freelancer if I was no longer located in the nation’s capital, just a train ride away from New York City.

But there was no need to worry; film projects would follow me down to the mountains like a flock of iridescent starlings.

Kristin Fellows is a published writer, world traveler, and a well-seasoned documentary film consultant. When not writing, Kristin can often be found listening to someone’s story or behind the lens of one of her cameras.

More about Kristin @ kristinfellowswriter.com