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View fullsize In 1858, Flat Rock resident Marti Vazquez Hutson’s great-grandfather sailed into Cuba’s Havana Harbor. Greeting him was the sight of Morro Castle at the entrance to the harbor. Almost exactly one century later in 1959, as Marti and her fa
View fullsize A new friend left me a voice message on my phone today. When he finished his message, he closed with one word … “blessings.” I was struck by how that one word felt like a prayer to me ... and for me. An all-encompassing invocati
View fullsize I recently enjoyed a spring walk through the woods with adult children who, fortuitously, are accomplished naturalists. The manifest wonders of the forest, often unseen by the casual hiker, are carefully observed by their trained eyes revealing the
View fullsize Spring has arrived and my favorite place to celebrate the season is The Park at Flat Rock. The Park’s beautiful Daffodil Project garden is in full bloom, the bluebirds are busy making their nests, and the trees are starting to pull on their gre
View fullsize As the new dam that would create Lake Summit neared completion in 1919, the wonderful new power source proved to be the beginning of many beloved family retreats on Lake Summit. Removed from the confusion of nearby towns and cities and accessible onl
View fullsize When Caroline Long Tindall’s son Liam was born in 2000, it was the culmination of many difficult years of trying to start a family. Holding her newborn son, she imagined her life ahead as a prototypical mother and wife with the challenges, rewa
View fullsize I heard a song this week called “Japanese Bowl.” It was inspired by Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery. Through this process, pieces of broken pottery are joined back together with a lacquer that is mixed with gold, s
View fullsize Flat Rock Together recently had the opportunity to sit down for an interview with one of Flat Rock’s best-known residents, Squirt the Cat. Squirt has been a fixture along Rainbow Row in Flat Rock for several years and has accumulated legions o
View fullsize I was jogging the first time I saw the sign on North Lake Summit Road. Grateful for any excuse to stop, I stared at the words and smiled to myself. The sign read: Slow Down Dogs Children Old Ladies I wondered about the person that made the sign a
View fullsize “My music and reflections are my soul's way of making sense of the beauty, vulnerability and endless richness of this human life,” explains the soft-spoken Scotsman, Simon de Voil. And, despite a calm and placid demeanor, Simon has travel
View fullsize I spent an inordinate amount of time as a child daydreaming. Mostly, I daydreamed about the time when I would be an adult and Mom and Dad would no longer be able to order me to my room, tell me what time I had to return home or make me eat lima bea
View fullsize Spend just a few moments with Jody and Jeff Rutter and you will know why they are so well suited to their chosen career in the hospitality industry. The owners of At Your Service, an Event Planning and Management company in Henderson County, are enga
View fullsize This week, I contemplated a painting by local artist Carol Beth Icard which she titled, “Trundling Along.” The abstract painting captivated my imagination with its colorful simplicity and the evocative imagery of an odd-looking wheeled ve
View fullsize The Sandburgs moved to Connemara, their mountain farm in Flat Rock, North Carolina, in the fall of 1945: Carl and his wife Paula, their three adult children (Margaret, Janet, and Helga), and Helga’s young children John Carl and Karlen Paula. He
View fullsize In the 3 a.m. hush of a February night, I awake to find myself in the depths of winter. Through frost-covered windowpanes, I regard the nighttime shadows that wrap my home in their cold and foreboding grip. The phrase “heart of winter” re
View fullsize The story of Lake Summit and its early origins may be traced back more than a century ago in Spartanburg County’s textile industry. Power was one of the early problems for the Spartanburg mills, and John Adger Law came up with a plan to bring s
View fullsize Beneath a crystalline winter sky, I stroll, wrapped in a blanket of impenetrable darkness. Far from city lights and with only a sliver of the crescent moon hugging the horizon, the full grandeur of the cosmos is on brilliant display. The Milky Way s
View fullsize In March 2010, Anna Wesley Huneycutt died from a drug overdose. It was the culmination of a tumultuous struggle with addiction that upended her young life and the life of the family that loved her fiercely. Anna’s death at age 20, however, was
View fullsize I lie in bed late at night and listen nervously as the winter wind roars through the bare limbs of the trees that surround our house. Just outside my window, large sonorous wind chimes sing out a frenetic melody. A windy aria sung in tribute to the
View fullsize Robert Cuthbert’s anthology of early private correspondence from Flat Rock, Flat Rock of the Old Time, provides a fascinating glimpse into the lives of early 19th-century men and women who sought to escape the oppressive heat and disease that m