From VISTA to Vision to Village

Rick Merrill

As a young student at Cornell University in 1970, Rick Merrill had a life-altering academic experience.  “After three semesters of engineering,” he explains with a smile, “I had no clue what I wanted to do. Spherical Trigonometry and Organic Chemistry helped convinced me that I didn't want to be an engineer.”  Fifty years on from that hard life lesson, Cornell’s loss has turned out to be a significant gain for Flat Rock, NC.

Plan B for Rick Merrill turned out to be VISTA - Volunteers in Service to America.  VISTA was the predecessor to today’s AmeriCorps and provided an opportunity for (mostly) young people looking to make a difference for people on the margins of society during a very troubled and chaotic time in America.  Rick ended up in a VISTA training course in Atlanta in the fall of 1970 with a few dozen other trainees. Included in that group was a young woman from Vermont named JoAnne. 

As training courses go, this one turned out to be pretty special for the young man from Scotch Plains, NJ.  VISTA was to become Rick’s introduction to both the mountains of Western North Carolina and his future life partner. 

At the conclusion of their training, the VISTA volunteers were given options regarding their ultimate postings for service. “They described the various target areas we could consider,” Rick explains. “And they said something about mountains and waterfalls. JoAnne and I both raised our hands.”  VISTA sent a group of eight volunteers to Henderson County. Rick was assigned to the Green River area and JoAnne ended up in Clear Creek. They were tasked with identifying people in need and introducing them to various ways they could get assistance.

JoAnne and another female volunteer ended up in a run-down house with no insulation and no running water. As it turned out, JoAnne’s inconvenience was Rick’s opportunity. “I dug a pit for their outhouse and she bought a barrel for water. And they'd come over to my rented garage apartment to take showers.” Apparently, nothing says love like a latrine, and a burgeoning relationship between Rick and JoAnne blossomed into a full-blown romance. They were married by 1972.

The year spent as VISTA volunteers in Henderson County resulted in a deep appreciation for the charms of this corner of the world. The Flat Rock of the early 1970s, however, was a much different place than what we know today, as Rick recalls. “Peace’s Grocery was the only real store in Flat Rock. There wasn’t anything else to slow down for in downtown Flat Rock. It was quite rural and none of the subdivisions like Teneriffe, Wood Haven, or Beaumont existed yet. There was certainly nothing like Kenmure. There may have been 1500 people who lived in Flat Rock.”

Rick obtained his real estate license in November 1971 and started a new career. It was slow going at first but after a few years, he started to find his stride. “I was enjoying helping people figure out how to move on with their lives, particularly dealing with folks that had larger tracts of land. They needed someone like me to help them maximize their return. And that's what got me into land development.”

A young businessman with an entrepreneurial bent, Rick eventually parlayed his real estate experience into an impressive array of business ventures. “I was doing an incredible number of things simultaneously. I was running a real estate company. I started an excavating business. I had three land development companies and a condominium development company, all running simultaneously.”

The Merrill’s Home

Rick and JoAnne lived off of Green River Road initially and had three children, beginning with the first in 1976. Life was good but busy, and as the family grew and the children got older, Rick found himself commuting into Hendersonville more frequently. He began to explore options for property closer to town and eventually settled on a 10-acre parcel adjacent to the old Argyle Estate off Greenville Highway and now situated behind the King Creek Preserve neighborhood.  They purchased the land in 1980 and by 1987 they had designed and built a striking Victorian house styled after the houses in JoAnne’s hometown of Bellows Falls, Vermont. 

With time, the Merrill’s added an additional 8 acres to their secluded and partially wooded lot. They also developed the property into a horse farm and enjoyed riding horses as a family. “We created a network of trails on neighboring tracts where you could come out of the barn and ride for a couple of miles around the farm. It was a great way for the kids to exercise their horses.”

Rick’s profile in Flat Rock continued to grow and he became very active in the local Real Estate Association and Home Builders Association - eventually serving as president of one and vice president of the other.  His growing experience with land development also led to him traveling around the country teaching for Realtor’s Lands Institute. Still a young man, Rick Merrill was becoming an expert on all things related to land in and around Flat Rock.

This whirlwind of family and business and civic engagements kept Rick on the go constantly and served to deepen his roots in the community.  He also developed a reputation for being a valuable source of knowledge for an area on the cusp of some significant shifts in population and development. 

Then the Savings & Loan crisis hit in the late 1980s and many of Rick’s most valuable clients suddenly were unable to meet their financial obligations to him. “Life can throw you some curveballs and one that really caught me off guard was the S&L crisis of 1987. That forced me to reevaluate what I really wanted to do. What did I enjoy the most and what was the most promising? The answer was full-time listing and selling of real estate.” With that clarity of purpose in hand, Rick joined Beverly-Hanks Realtors in 1992 and has been with the company ever since.

With his career path more narrowly defined, Rick had time to become further engaged in civic activities. Shortly after Flat Rock was incorporated in 1995, Rick was recruited to become chairman for the Village’s first Planning Board. There were many decisions to be made for the new village and Rick and his fellow board members immersed themselves in the process of creating ordinances and zoning districts for Flat Rock.  “We listened hard and we asked a lot of questions. We tried to understand what the community wanted and what was good and what was bad,” he explains. “We tried to reign in the bad and protect the good. It was fun putting all that together even though it was a whole lot of work.”

In the early 2000s, Rick participated in the county-wide Designing our Future visioning project tasked with creating a shared image of the future of Henderson County. He was also part of the Apple Country Greenway Commission which paved the way for the development of the Oklawaha Greenway system. In both cases, Rick spent a lot of time listening to what residents of the county wanted for their community and their future. “We reached out to people and asked them to tell us what they wanted this county to look like 20 to 50 years out. Two things really resonated out of that process. The first one was a desire to preserve the natural beauty of the area. And the second one was maintaining a sense of friendliness and welcome.”

In 2004, Rick connected with Conserving Carolina - known then as Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy - when he and JoAnne placed 8 acres of their land into a conservation easement. He learned about land conservation in the process and has been involved with the organization as a volunteer ever since.  “I learned firsthand how these things work and what they can offer to individuals and how they can save land in perpetuity.  I realized that I had a real passion for conserving land.”

For many decades, Rick has been an active member of Historic Flat Rock, Inc. and during a three-year stint as president, he oversaw the purchase of the historic Mountain Lodge Estate when it was in a state of disrepair and neglect.  HFR then sold the property to Lori and Julien Smyth who have beautifully restored the historic house and preserved one of Flat Rock’s most iconic structures.

Rick is currently Vice President of the Interfaith Assistance Ministry Board of Directors and heads up their Facilities Planning Committee which is overseeing the construction of a new thrift store for IAM. Rick particularly enjoys his work with IAM as another way to give back to the community that has given him so much.  “It's a safety net for people who otherwise would fall through the cracks. It’s a wonderful feeling to be part of an organization that can literally save people's lives, save their dignity, and giving them a second chance where the world's dealt them a bad set of cards.”

All his real estate transactions and volunteer activities notwithstanding, these days life is a little slower for Rick. With more time to reflect on the porch of his Victorian home, he is grateful for the opportunities the area has afforded him and his family. “It's such a good life that JoAnne and I’ve made a pledge that as long as our health holds, we're going to stay right where we are. We live in a special place that we carved out of the wilderness. It fit our lifestyle when we built it and it still fits our lifestyle today.”

If Rick is not Zooming in on another committee meeting, he likes to tinker with cars, build things in his woodshop, and connect with the natural world in his extensive garden. When asked about his legacy in Flat Rock, he hopes that people will remember his successes and forgive the occasional missteps. “I've certainly mellowed with age. I hope people think of me as somebody who wants to do the right thing.  Sometimes I do. And sometimes I've missed the mark. But my intentions were always to make our community a better place for all of us.”

For now, Rick is just happy to live in a place like Flat Rock, with its historic character and slower pace of life. “Flat Rock is truly unique,” he says. “It's just a breath of fresh air. When you come here from being somewhere else, you can come home to the mountains, and you come home to the quiet and the beauty.”

Thanks in many ways to Rick Merrill, Flat Rock today is still that place of quiet beauty in the mountains.