Small Adventures in Asheville Real Estate

I decided, although I’m not sure why, to come down to Port City Java this morning. It’s a short ride – about 5 miles from where I live – but with long-range mountain views. Dripoleter is closer, but the guitarist was not there last week. Although not the only reason to go to Dripolater, the music did -hyphen- off a specific and special part of the week - the time to contemplate, to think, to observe other humans and life around me.

I recall the last time I drove here, I was struck by an unblemished blue sky with a bold, brash morning sun. Today, there is no blue to be found among the thick voluminous clouds, traveling with the strength of the wind. The ground looks spotty where some of the fuller clouds have decided to relieve themselves from their wet burdens.

There is a fireplace to my right, a window to outside world on my left. The music is awful, screaming men and guitars. Fortunately it is turned down low, so I can almost ignore it. A few people are beginning to walk in and order coffee to go, but none stay. Other than the barristers, I have the place to myself.

On January 1st, I celebrated my first two years here in Asheville. I remember how much of an adventure it was. I guess my definition of adventure is not knowing what’s coming next. There was little I was certain off – where would I live, where would I work, who would be my friends, what would I learn. So many of those questions are answered now. So, I guess the period I am entering now is a time of consolidating and expanding. The first two years were buying a better car, buying a house, and buying furniture. I have added to my life what I believe will be a rich and endearing friendships. I have a routine now – I plan my social time not in hours but in months.

So now, I plan to financially plan. I’m also looking for the right real estate investment. I am also starting to finish out the second story of my house. It looks like this area is going to continue to grow. I heard from a realtor that housing grew 9% in Asheville this past year. I read in the paper that North Carolina is now the 10th most populous state, edging out New Jersey. I hope that the local governments can guide the growth with sustainable practices. Certainly Asheville seems to be on track with that. There is only one republican on board, the rest being either Green or at least Democrats. I don’t go to the public meetings, but I do read the reports about them in both the Mountain Xpress (great coverage, by the way) and the Asheville Citizen Times. The Buncombe County Commission has decided to go ahead and enact zoning laws without a referendum. I’m all for zoning and control over developers who bulldoze mountaintops and slopes to build upscale homes for wealthy retirees and 2nd homeowners. There are a few celebrities among us, most notably, Andie McDowell.

So, as the mountains get dusted with homes, we are also losing farmland at an astonishing rate each year. My own real estate ambitions remain fluid. I started with finishing out a small apartment for myself upstairs and buy land in the country – as far away as Mars Hill. Then a friend expressed interest in buy 15 acres or more, and splitting off part for a second home and keeping the rest undeveloped. Then I became aware that the .8 acres with a very small, dilapidated house was with a developer, but the deal was not closing. Mary and I made a back up offer. With its gentle south sloping surface, it offers a long-range view toward the Biltmore property. We dreamed of a gazebo and lots of veggies growing on it. A little nervous about the work and the level of my own skills, I called on Bountiful Cities Project. Darcel Eddins, one of the founders, came out and looked at the house, and wandered the land. Her dreams for the space were even more ambitious than mine. She could see the house being restored using green materials and volunteers. She could see a bedroom for an exchange student intern, a canning kitchen and a stall for the 2 goats city regulations allow. But after much stalling and aggravation, it became clear that the developer would eventually get what he wanted.

I begin to look at other land and found one 12 minutes from downtown that I feel in love with it. The heading of the small classified ad said “Gardeners Paradise.” And for the first time in my experience, the realtor wrote an actual accounting of the space. It was a farm-style home built 20 ago on 2 acres bordered on two sides by Lee’s Creek. As a bonus, the land was sitting inside a small cove with a few other homes, with fruit trees and bushes with a few years of growth on them and a greenhouse. The house was slightly roomier than my present living space. It would need some work – like a new heat pump and roof – but it was priced low enough that the repairs would not stop me.

Unfortunately, just as I was ready to make an offer, someone else beat me to it: two men, one who works for one of the local green grocers. Their dream is to grow and sell organic vegetables to the local stores and restaurants. I am still, after a couple of weeks, feeling the disappointment of missing out on this particular house and land.

So, back to the drawing board. Literally. I’ve been drawing the plans for the upstairs. I know that renovations are difficult – workers coming and going, disruptions in my plans and life, and can be expensive. But at this point, it feels like an adventure. The point before I really know what is going to happen next. The place I sometimes think I most like to be.

Follow My Lead

Asheville. Lot’s of cool stuff happening in this little progressive, mountain town.The first signs of spring are all around. The surest is the Organic Growers School held every year at the Blue Mountain Appalachian Community College in Flat Rock. I felt the excitement surging through my bloodstream as I worked my way through the crowds and classes of farmers, gardeners and wanna-bes (like me) yesterday. This is where I strike up conversations with strangers as I sip coffee at breaks or while waiting on my friend Mary, who attended for the second time with me. I met a guy who has 20 acres near Boone and primarily produces berries for sale. I got several good tips from him for my 3 blueberry bushes. A woman told me about how she and her husband bought their farm over 12 years ago while still living in Charlotte. A couple of years ago she had enough of the city life and moved there full time while her husband drives up on weekends from his job. She said her grandchildren beg for turns to come stay weeks at a time. She calls her place the anti-Disney – no TV, gameboys, and cell phones, but rather plenty of live animals and fun chores they love to do. When actually given a choice from an over saturated media/consumer lifestyle, even children instinctively know that something truly important is missing from their lives and reach for it when given the opportunity.I’ve noticed recently that the leadership aspect of myself has been coming to the fore. I’ve never considered myself much of a leader before, usually preferring to follow someone else’s vision when it matched my own.As you know, I moved here from NYC so that I could be closer to the land. I bought my house and small lot and have worked at enriching my soil, growing veggies, fruit trees and shrubs. I had no concerns about living in close proximity to my neighbors in West Asheville because after NYC and apartment living, it seemed quite spacious. But I’ve known from the beginning that it wouldn’t be enough. I want land. And there are many women in Asheville who want the same thing. In fact, Mary and I noted that well over half the attendees at the Organic Growers School were women. One class I took – How to obtain Credit for your farm – all but one of the self-identified “want to farm” people were women.A couple of weeks ago I invited two women I know who are interested in owning and farming land to dinner. They did not know each other. I had a good feeling about them both – or as we might say here is Asheville, they both had good energy for me. They instantly bonded, having Cleveland, Ohio as their connection. Our purpose: to discuss the possibility of creating an intentional community together. We plan, over the summer, to invite another 3 or 4 women who share our vision to join us and then start searching for land within 30 minutes of Asheville. Our goal is to buy it within two years. Over the next several months we plan on getting together for projects and activities so that we become more acquainted and comfortable with each other. We hope to buy about 30+ acres so that we can have about 5 acres each and some shared land – preferably with a stream, creek and/or pond with it. I’m very excited to have partners who share my vision and are willing to work together to make it happen.My first memory about community living came to me as a senior in high school when I wrote a paper about Communal Living (I still have it too – I didn’t make a very good grade). I wish I could remember why I chose the topic. Was it because the teacher gave us a list to choose from or did I pull that out somewhere from the headlines? It was after all 1971 and I would have been influenced by the decade of the 60’s. Perhaps it stems from some deep psychotically need to be associated with counter culture of some type. I have a love/hate relationship with mainstream: I want to “fit” in, but I often at conflict of what mainstream represents – which is usually centered around money, what you have and don’t have. Or perhaps I instinctively knew early in life that I want to live a more connected life with others – in community, with shared vision.Recently, I joined the board of the Bountiful Cities Project. It’s a non profit centered around the idea of creating community spaces on urban land, growing food in abundance and fostering a learning environment for social justice and sustainability. Our website is http://www.bountifulcitiesproject.org and if you want some recent pr about us, I refer you tohttp://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770225012.I wrote the press release and was pleased that A C-T printed verbatim. I’ve written a lot of pr before, some while I was in New York City, and seen my words printed, but this one brought more joy to me than the business writing that I have done over the years. It is the idea of community and urban gardens that I am enthusiastic about. I think this group is poised for some tremendous growth and I’m happy to offer my years of experience in advertising, marketing, and pr to a nonprofit that I can feel passionate about.Another sign of my leadership side taking hold is that I have been trying to organize our neighborhood to deal with the beautiful piece of land in our neighborhood, and at the end of my backyard. Mary and I tried to purchase it late last year but were unsuccessful. I held a meeting at my house and invited the City of Asheville Neighborhood Coordinator to speak to us. We invited the potential buyer of the land to come to, but he declined. The coordinator offered some alternatives of how what we could do, but so far, it seems as if it’s too much work for them. I’m sure if I wanted to do all the work, they would support it. I’m in the process of trying to organize another meeting specifically with the potential buyer. I’m not sure how much I want to proceed if all my neighbors want is for me to do the work.According to Diana Leafe Christian, author of “Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovilages and Intentional Communities,” a leader must certainly have vision – without which nothing will happen. Now that I’ve been in Asheville two years, I am trying to fine-tune the lens on my vision glasses. It is becoming clearer to me and I am taking the steps in the right directions. As with all our hopes, plans, and intentions, I believe we must also be adaptable because life is as fluid as the river and takes unexpected twist and turns. As Heraclites first notes around 500 BCE “You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing in.” And as Darwin REALLY said:“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” One thing I do know about myself – I am responsive to change. I am a Pisces – as mutable and changeable as the water the fish swim in.