Sapphire, North Carolina, a well-reputed and highly inviting plateau in the Blue Ridge Mountains, has always been a garden spot for visitors and residents alike with a bent for recreation and temperate days and nights that help bring about bountiful outdoor fulfillment.
The pastime here is having a good time, which is also standard for nearby Highlands and the Mountaintop Golf Club, which have old and new histories and cool living that everybody covets. If you fail to enjoy yourself, it’s your own fault. The region has been described as a “temperate rainforest.”
There are permanent residents, of course, but this is a second-home enclave for the most part. Sapphire has the distinction of having both a fine golf course and a ski slope. People flock here for golf, and skiing when conditions are right. It would not turn Mr. Ripley’s head, but this is where I learned to ski.
In 1954, the original owner, Gene Howard, Sr., who had settled in Augusta, bought 8,500 acres of land in Sapphire Valley, which included the Fairfield Inn and a lake. Subsequently, he hired George Cobb, a University of Georgia landscape architect graduate, to redesign the existing golf course. It became the Sapphire Valley Inn and Country Club.
Of course, if golf is not a priority, there are many other options, from fly fishing to whitewater rafting to hiking in the mountains older than the Alps, Andes, or Rockies.
Recently, we were guests of our neighbors, Carolyn and Charlie Callihan. Upon retirement, they bought property in Sapphire and now can’t get enough of mountain living. Spring, summer, and fall have unmatched outdoor appeal, but they enjoy it here in winter when the expansive fireplace in their den becomes the centerpiece of their lives.
With a defining touch of rustic influence, you are smitten by exposed cross beams, rafters, and spacious windows that frame seductive and stirring views.
The Callihans own 14 acres, which gives them space to absorb nature's masterpieces, with views of mountains, flora, and fauna alike. However, Carolyn doesn’t get excited about the last. There are dozens of black bears in the area, all of which she could do without. Their Bernie doodles, Sophie and Augie, are outfitted with necklace bells to signal the bears that “we will leave you alone if you will leave us alone.”
Across a spring-fed pond, Charlie has a fenced-in plot where he constantly matches wits with abundant deer. He grows a horn-to-plenty year-round, including squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, carrots, and radishes.
Also a mushroom aficionado, Charlie spotted a clump of the black trumpet variety on the side of the road on the way to dinner one night, and suddenly, it was harvest time! We had them for breakfast the next morning, along with tomatoes and cucumbers.
Dinner came at the Cedar Creek Club, which has a menu that turns heads in a most attractive setting, highlighted by a porch with a view that makes fine wine even finer.
Carolyn, with a master’s degree in microbiology from UGA and a career with the Environmental Protection Agency, confirms she is brilliant by staying out of the kitchen. Charlie not only cooks; he cleans up.
Charlie grew up in West Virginia until age 16 in West Virginia, hunting, fishing, and cooking. His dad took a marketing job at Blue Bird Manufacturing in Ft. Valley.
Charlie later found his way to UGA, where his kitchen expertise came in handy. His dad told him that if he joined a fraternity, he would be cut adrift financially, so when Charlie joined the Chi Psi fraternity on Lumpkin Street, he was on his own. Undaunted, he became the cook for his brothers and now is as comfortable and versatile in the kitchen as Paula Deen.
He also built the fraternity a porch, which covered his room and board. Charlie also became the night auditor at the Georgia Center Hotel, leaving him little time to finish pharmacy school, but he found a way.
A man of clever enterprise, Charlie is into shrubbery, flowers, hanging baskets, and an outdoor sofa under a tin roof. He has also been carving all his life and is into woodworking.
When the Callihans choose to “do nothing,” they repair to rocking chairs on the tarmac in front of a recirculating waterfall, enjoying the sights and sounds of nature. Finding a couple more compatible with their environment – and retirement would be hard.
There is a substantial underpinning to this story. It is best not to embrace a sedentary lifestyle when you reach retirement age. Remain active and dynamic, read books, eat healthy, and watch out for the black bears.