April SouthPark 2022 by SouthParkMag

WELCOME, BEYOND

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FROM THE EDITOR

CATHY MARTIN

year ago, I wrote on this page a most depressing spiel about our ailing family dog, a 14-year-old English springer spaniel who spent his last year with two work-from-home humans catering to his every want and need. I’m pretty sure I knew what was coming and couldn’t find the strength to write about the glory of spring, patio season in Charlotte or travel goals for the year ahead — or any of the typical stuff that’s on my mind this time of year. Sure enough, about a week after I wrote that column, we lost our beloved pup. I won’t revisit the details; I’ll just leave it to say that time heals and we’re blessed with a million great memories of our sweet boy. This week, almost exactly a year later, we welcomed a new puppy into our home. She’s a bundle of energy with a play-hard, sleep-hard mentality. She was instantly curious, inspecting every corner of the house and backyard within the first few hours and days. Leave it to a puppy to remind you about all those overdue household chores like cleaning out the flower beds and fixing the latch on the pantry door. By the time this issue hits stands, spring will be bursting out all over, and when she’s had all her vaccines, we’ll be ready to introduce our new Ella to Charlotte’s best pup-friendly patios, greenways and parks (recs welcome). After two years of Covid, it’s just the jumpstart we needed to break out of our stay-at-home mindset and get back out there. We’ll see you around town!

EDITOR editor@southparkmagazine.com

Gardening humor on display at MapleWalk, the Charlotte garden featured in this month’s cover story (Page 92). Photograph by Dustin Peck.

SOUTHPARK

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April BLVD. 28 | interiors Southern sensibility meets California cool at Maison.

34 | fresh faces Artist and interior designer Brooke Maples

42 | givers BraveWorks celebrates 10 years empowering women.

46 | style Closet Crush: Shawna Freeman

50 | food The Good Kitchen teams with farmers to ensure a healthy impact beyond the plate.

56 | around town What’s new and coming soon in the Queen City

60 | happenings April calendar of events

DEPARTMENTS

65 | creators of N.C. Carrying the weight of William Paul Thomas’ art

68 | art of the state Anne Lemanski’s fanciful patterned creatures

73 | simple life Old westerns are the cure for Yellowstone fever.

77 | bookshelf Notable new releases

144 | swirl Parties and events around Charlotte

152 | gallery The calm of the wild: Brett Blumenthal’s serene wildlife art

ABOUT THE COVER MapleWalk, the south Charlotte garden of Lib Jones and Tom Nunnenkamp. Photograph by Dustin Peck.

SOUTHPARK

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G E N E R A L C O N T R AC TO R

92 | Woodland wonder by Jay Sifford | photographs by Dustin Peck MapleWalk is an unexpected sanctuary in the heart of south Charlotte.

102 | Ranch reimagined by Cathy Martin | photographs by Laura Sumrak After two major renovations, a 1960s Lansdowne home embodies indoor-outdoor living at its best.

110 | Small spaces, big design Charlotte designers create small spaces that pack plenty of punch.

128 | Family foursome by Michael J. Solender | photographs by Richard Israel | styling by Whitley Adkins Canada-born PGA Tour player Mackenzie Hughes balances life on the road with family time in his adopted hometown of Charlotte.

134 | Say cheese by Katherine Snow Smith More than a Southern spread: Pimento cheese isn’t just for picnics anymore.

140 | Eclectic elegance by Vanessa Infanzon An Asheville bed-and-breakfast delights guests with art, culinary events and cycling programs.

92 20

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1230 West Morehead St., Suite 308 Charlotte, NC 28208 704-523-6987 southparkmagazine.com _______________ Ben Kinney Publisher publisher@southparkmagazine.com Cathy Martin Editor editor@southparkmagazine.com Sharon Smith Assistant Editor Andie Rose Art Director

A TRADITION OF KNOWLEDGE AND TRUST

Alyssa Kennedy Graphic Designer Whitley Adkins Style Editor Contributing Editors Jennings Cool, David Mildenberg Contributing Writers Michelle Boudin, Wiley Cash, Jim Dodson, Vanessa Infanzon, Catherine Ruth Kelly, Amanda Lea, Liza Roberts, Jay Sifford, Katherine Snow Smith, Michael J. Solender

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feeling “seen, heard, known, & valued” is fundamental to child and family well-being, and how storytelling can change families and communities.

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Scott Leonard Audience Development Specialist 704-996-6426 scott@southparkmagazine.com Sarah Fligel Marketing Specialist Brad Beard Graphic Designer _______________ Letters to the editorial staff: editor@southparkmagazine.com Instagram: southparkmagazine Facebook: facebook.com/southparkmagazine Twitter: twitter.com/SouthParkMag

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Contributing Photographers Mallory Cash, Daniel Coston, Kelsie Droppa, Chris Edwards, Richard Israel, Amy Kolo, Dustin Peck, Laura Sumrak, Peter Taylor _______________

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people, places, things

SPRING SPIRIT Color is popping out all over, including this cocktail at Little Mama’s. The Lavancello Martini is made with just three ingredients: Empress gin, lavender simple syrup and lemon juice. It’s one of a new slate of citrus-infused seasonal cocktails at the SouthPark Italian-American hot spot. Others include: the Roma Paloma (Corzo reposado tequila, Aperol, grapefruit juice and soda), the Elderflower Spritz (prosecco, St. Germain, mint and lime juice) and the Saint Agatha (Sipsmith gin, tangelo juice, lemon and rosemary simple syrup). SP

southparkmagazine.com | 27

blvd. | interiors

Serenity now SOUTHERN SENSIBILITY MEETS CALIFORNIA COOL AT MAISON, A NEW HOME BOUTIQUE IN SOUTHPARK. by Cathy Martin • photographs by Kelsie Elizabeth Photography

nterior designer Kim Mauney describes her new retail store, Maison, as a “living portfolio,” where customers can actually walk through her work instead of just looking at pictures of it. “When you interview for clients, they ask to see pictures of things you’ve done,” Mauney says. But every client is different, and what might be appropriate for one might not be the right fit for another. “I felt like with a store, we could show them possibilities of mixing traditional furniture with modern artwork and modern furniture, mixing in antiques — just mixing it all,” the designer says. “I feel like it gave me a platform.” The California native — Mauney grew up in the Bay Area — discovered her passion for interior design shortly after graduating from Duke University and moving back home. Armed with a public policy degree and unsure what to do next, her mom suggested she intern with a local interior designer. “It was the first job I’d had in my life where I never looked at my watch,” Mauney says. She went to graduate school to study interior design, then worked in the San Francisco area until

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“I think a little old mixed in brings soul to any room,” Mauney says. At Maison, antiques blend with clean-lined, modern furnishings, with an aesthetic inspired by the designer’s California upbringing.

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2010, when she and her husband, a native Southerner, moved to Charlotte. Over the last decade, Mauney continued running her design business from her home office, but she missed the synergistic atmosphere of a studio. “I went from having a big office and a bunch of designers working for me in California, and I moved here and thought, I want something quieter and less stressful. I tried that for a while, and then I missed it — I missed working in collaboration with a team.” She opened Maison in December at Morrison Shopping Center, where customers can browse custom pillows, table linens, books, coffee and accent tables, and North Carolina-made upholstered furniture, along with a few antiques. Mauney’s design studio is behind the store. As a designer, Mauney often grew frustrated when she wasn’t able to find just the right pillows, vases or lamps when accessorizing her clients’ homes. At Maison, those accessories are right at her fingertips. Being located in close proximity to other design-oriented boutiques — Circa Interiors & Antiques, B.D. Jeffries and Anne Neilson Gallery are in the same retail center — has been advantageous, Mauney says. “I feel

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blvd. | interiors Over the last decade, designer Kim Mauney has noticed growth in the interpretation of “Southern” design, driven in part by an influx of people moving to Charlotte from other places. “There’s a little bit of Southern foundation in all the design here, but it definitely has expanded … People are a little more daring, a little more willing to experiment with different things. Even if they just do it in one chair or one piece of artwork, people are definitely pushing the boundaries a little bit more and trying different things.”

like we’re a little retail design community over here.” Some of the art on display at Maison is from Anne Neilson. Mauney’s clean-lined, California aesthetic (with a little Southern mixed in) creates a soothing vibe that envelops you as soon as you walk in the store, where a palette of blues and whites is punctuated with warm natural wood elements. “I read an article the other day that said that ‘restorative home’ is the new trend, after the stress of Covid and everything,” Mauney says. “And I thought, ‘Oh, that’s perfect, we’re on trend.’” SP Maison is located at 3920 Sharon Rd., Ste. B140. kimmauneyinteriors.com

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blvd. | fresh faces

Inspired design ROOTED BY HER PASSIONS AND MOTIVATED BY A PERSONAL CHALLENGE, LOCAL ARTIST AND INTERIOR DESIGNER BROOKE MAPLES SHARES THE JOURNEY THAT LED TO LAUNCHING HER NEW BUSINESS. by Catherine Ruth Kelly photographs by Chris Edwards produced by Whitley Adkins hair and makeup by Cali Stott set assistant: Charisse Bruin

Artist and designer Brooke Maples at home

southparkmagazine.com | 35

blvd. | fresh faces

“I

nterior design is about elevating your clients’ personal tastes,” explains Brooke Werhane Maples. The artist and designer, who moved to Charlotte from Connecticut with her family in 2018, recently launched Werhane Maples Art and Interiors. Her new business combines her lifelong passions for painting and decorative arts and allows her to tap into her experience working under the tutelage of esteemed interior designers Bunny Williams, John Rosselli and Jeffrey Bilhuber. “Working for such legends in the design industry straight out of college was quite the master’s degree,” Maples says. After graduating from the University of Missouri, she moved to New York City and worked for three years at Treillage, Williams’ and Rosselli’s iconic interiors store. As an assistant to renowned stylist and store manager Howard Christian, Maples helped with buying, styling, floral arranging, event planning and public relations. Following her tenure at Treillage, she accepted a job with Bilhuber & Associates. “Working for Jeffrey took my interiors education to the next level,” Maples says. “I learned about the business of interior design through managing clients, determining budgets, communicating with vendors and workrooms — you have to be extremely detail-oriented.” Maples and her husband eventually left the city for a Connecticut suburb, where she focused on raising her young children. An artist at heart — she’s painted since she was a child and took art classes in college — Maples dedicated her free time to painting and picked up a few of her own

SOUTHPARK

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blvd. | fresh faces

interior design clients. After moving to Charlotte, the slower pace during Covid coupled with a personal health challenge led Maples to regroup, reevaluate and reignite her career. “I was diagnosed with breast cancer on February 1, 2021, after my very first mammogram,” Maples says. “Fortunately, it was extremely early, so a double mastectomy was effective in eliminating the cancerous cells.” Prior to her diagnosis, she had begun painting again, setting up a studio in her home and becoming more intentional and quite prolific with her art during the lockdown days of spring 2020. Her surgery and recovery process ultimately inspired her to take her passions to the next level and forge a new career. “I thought, ‘Why not? Life’s too short’, and it gave me something 38

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to focus on during my recovery,” Maples says. “It felt important to keep a positive attitude for my kids, focusing on the good things that can arise from challenges and recognizing the talents I have to share with others.” In her Foxcroft home, it’s evident that Maples appreciates family heirlooms, travel relics and, of course, art. Through Werhane Maples Art and Interiors, Maples aims to design homes that are tailored to her clients’ tastes and comfort levels, mixing old with new to achieve layered spaces seasoned by her clients’ life experiences. “I remain tunnel-vision true to what I was taught in New York, which is designing beautiful rooms that reflect the personality and style of the people who live there,” Maples says. SP

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blvd. | givers

From pain to purpose THE NEWLY REBRANDED BRAVEWORKS CELEBRATES 10 YEARS EMPOWERING WOMEN IN CHARLOTTE AND AROUND THE WORLD.

t’s been known as Fashion & Compassion for the last decade, but the Charlotte nonprofit that supports women both locally and across the world is marking its 10th anniversary with an updated mission and a name change to match. “[Fashion & Compassion] was the perfect name when we launched — it served us beautifully,” says Executive Director Beth Bell. “But we’re moving to a name that talks more about what the women do and how they emerge. The new name is more closely tied to their outcome.” Bell says the new name, BraveWorks, reinforces the organization’s “why”: empowering women and transforming pain to purpose. The group works with Charlotte women that have survived human trafficking, homelessness, addiction, abusive relationships and more. They come to BraveWorks for a three- to six-month program, where they learn to make jewelry, accessories, clothing and other items that are sold at BraveWorks’ Dilworth boutique at 1717 Cleveland Ave. In the process, the women gain work skills, social connections 42

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and supplemental income from product sales. A second part of the nonprofit works with women in Africa and South and Central America. Each year, the organization serves 120 women locally and more than 400 women and families globally. “It’s amazing when we see the impact of the program on these women, the support and encouragement they feel,” Bell says. “We see them moving from deeply rooted trauma to having hope for the future, and that’s thanks to the entire community of Charlotte.” Co-founder Michele Dudley got the idea for Fashion & Compassion during a 2008 mission trip to Africa. She brought back jewelry made by some of the village women and sold it to friends in Charlotte, then she sent the money back overseas. She realized by giving them a distribution channel, she was helping the women improve their own lives and the welfare of their villages. In 2014 while back home in Charlotte, Dudley met a human trafficking survivor and realized she wanted to expand the program to help women in her hometown. “She realized these women didn’t have any purpose in their lives,

PHOTOGRAPH BY LEANDRA CREATIVE

by Michelle Boudin

and it left them feeling alone and hopeless and they didn’t know their worth — and that’s true locally and globally, whether it’s from poverty or trauma,” Bell explains. “She wanted to help women find their purpose.” The program works with local agencies to identify and help atrisk women in Charlotte by giving them tools to become self-sufficient, operating on the premise that if you teach women a skill or craft, it can transform their lives. A recent graduate of the program says BraveWorks gave her courage she didn’t have before. “When someone or something says I can’t, I know I can,” she says. “Creating beautiful jewelry and works helps me to pass on to others the same encouragement,” adds another artisan who graduated from the program. Bell, who has been with the nonprofit since 2019, says the group worked with graduates, donors and board members to determine the new name that better encapsulates what they do. “We’re creating a sisterhood of brave women,” Bell says. “It’s incredible to see the transformation and the confidence that they gain. [They] emerge ready to face the world and equipped to face life’s ups and downs.” SP

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PHOTOGRAPH BY LEANDRA CREATIVE

blvd. | givers

blvd. | style

CLOSET CRUSH:

Shawna Freeman by Whitley Adkins • photographs by Amy Kolo

fter living in a cramped New York City apartment for more than a decade, Shawna Freeman was so excited after buying her current home in Charlotte, she recalls twirling around in the empty closet. “I lived in a space the size of the bathroom and this closet for 12 years,” says Freeman, 42, a Virginia Beach native who works in corporate leadership development. “I used to travel to Charlotte for work — I thought the city was really charming. I met some really good people here.” So seven years ago, Freeman moved to the Queen City. The self-described “Glamohemian” chronicles the ever-changing design of her home on Instagram @bellybaila. Comments have been edited for length and clarity. HOW DID YOU GET INTO DECORATING?

I had a lot of space, and I was on a budget, and this led me to become very resourceful and fall in love with the hunt and the process. I love combining unexpected elements. I love art. I don’t know anything about it — I just like it. I SEE A VINTAGE-MODERN MIX IN YOUR WARDROBE. TALK TO ME ABOUT THAT.

I’ve been a fan of vintage and thrift since I was 15 and had my driver’s permit. I love mixing it up. I love eclectic. From an interior design perspective, I call myself a Glamohemian. I do like glam, a little bit of flash, but still elegant. I like colors, I like neutrals, I like it all! DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONAL STYLE.

Edgy with elegance. DO YOU HAVE ANY STYLE ICONS?

Tracee Ellis Ross and Issa Rae. HOW OR WHY DOES SOMEONE INSPIRE YOU?

Having fun with clothes without being tragic. I don’t like trying too hard, but I do like a little irreverence, a little play. Something unexpected. Uniqueness without being forced. They wear who they are.

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HOW DOES YOUR INTEREST IN DESIGN CONNECT WITH YOUR FASHION SENSE?

I bought my first house, this one, six years ago. I had lived in apartments my whole adult life. I moved here from New York, so this was a lot of space. If I could have gone to Restoration Hardware or Crate & Barrel and bought everything, I probably would have, but I couldn’t afford that, so it forced me to be creative and resourceful. I hit up the yard-sale circuit, the thrift-store circuit, the second-hand circuit, the Facebook Marketplace circuit, and it became fun. And then I realized, just like with clothes, you could get more unique things, more high quality things, things that could rival a high-end designer when you thrift.

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE ACCESSORY?

I’ve been feeling my tennis sneakers lately, but my Paul Andrew black-andwhite gingham shoes with the bows are comfy and cute. I got them in New York at Barney’s before they closed. ANY OTHER SHOES IN HERE YOU LOVE?

Lately I’ve been feeling flats and anything with comfort. I have a pair of pink velvet Gucci loafers that were worn by Brooklyn Decker in her show Grace and Frankie. They were a gift from a friend. For Christmas, I got myself a couple of pairs of sneakers — a pair from the Nike x Sacai collab and a pair of Nike Air Max. TELL ME ABOUT THIS CLOSET.

The closet was a selling point of the house. After living in an apartment in New York, I was so excited about having a closet where I had space and I could see everything. I twirled around and had a friend take a picture of me in the empty closet with a dress on when I first closed on the house. HOW DID YOU APPROACH THE DESIGN OF THE CLOSET?

The shelves and cubbies were already built when I got in. I wanted to keep it simple, so that I could see my clothes. I changed the light fixture — I got a second-hand crystal chandelier from SouthEnd Exchange. I purposely got something white that would recede. I picked white paint for the same reason. I’m colorful in southparkmagazine.com | 47

blvd. | style my home, but I wanted my stuff to show, the clothes to pop out. I found the mirror on Facebook Marketplace. The vintage chest I got from Dressing Room Interiors. I ordered the rug originally for another room, but I thought it could be sexy in my closet.

from Target. Up until the pandemic, I traveled to Brooklyn every Memorial Day weekend for an African festival. I do a lot of my shopping there — most of my jewelry and a lot of Ankara prints are from there.

WHERE DO YOU LIKE TO SHOP?

WHAT’S YOUR DAYTIME OUTFIT?

I love East 8th Vintage in Elizabeth. When I was in Brooklyn, I shopped at the Brooklyn Flea. My favorite vintage shop is in Hampton, Va., called Olivia Beale. It is size-inclusive and is a Blackowned shop. I have started shopping online during the pandemic. I love Zara for staples. Also, the Real Real, Nordstrom. I have stuff

I like funky, flowy or flirty. I’m almost always wearing a vintage jacket. SP Visit southparkmagazine.com for more photos of Shawna’s closet.

THIS OR THAT Skirt or dress: Dress Neutral or color: Color Pattern or solid: Clothes solid; home decor, pattern. Heel or sneaker: My heart or my head, who’s answering the question? Dress for day or night: Night Supermarket attire or work attire: Neither. I’ve never gotten into athleisure. So, a night-at-a-nice-restaurant or brunch-withthe-girls attire. Handbag or shoe: Both, but handbag. Handbags don’t hurt.

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blvd. | food

How it’s grown THE GOOD KITCHEN TEAMS WITH FARMERS PRACTICING REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE TO ENSURE A HEALTHY IMPACT BEYOND THE PLATE.

by Michael J. Solender

mber Lewis followed a simple idea when she began creating prepared meals for sale out of her Charlotte kitchen in 2011. Lewis knew others shared her values surrounding healthy, tasty and nutritious food featuring sustainably sourced ingredients and saw a business opportunity. A large opportunity, it turned out. Over 10 years, local sales of 50 paleo meals a week mushroomed into as many as 10,000 meals a week, sold nationally. “Our business addresses a lifestyle need,” says Lewis, founder and CEO of The Good Kitchen (formerly modPALEO). “If you want to have food transparency, know where your food comes from, a short ingredient list, then you're our customer.” Eating healthy has long been an American mantra. But how people define that for themselves and the planet is evolving into a nuanced and complicated discussion at every point along the supply chain. Recognizing the power of the purse, a growing legion of con-

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sumers are choosing ecologically sustainable goods and products. Marketers call this new demographic category Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability, or LOHAS. “It's a big market,” says Lewis, who oversees production kitchens in Morganton for TGK’s nationwide distribution. “Covid drove that quite a bit, not only for home delivery, but also from the health and wellness aspect. We have a set of customers that are heavily female, in the 24 to 40 [age] range. We also have a subset of customers that are empty nesters, and they just don't want to cook. And our third subset of customers are experiencing a diagnosis with an autoimmune disease or health issue and are looking to help manage this with their diet.” TGK offers up to 40 fully cooked meal choices through a rotating online menu. Meals are also distributed through Amazon and Walmart online. Categories include clean eating, paleo, ketogenic,

southparkmagazine.com | 51

blvd. | food

The Good Kitchen founder Amber Lewis

autoimmune protocol and Whole30-approved meals for a la carte, weekly, biweekly or monthly delivery. Recent offerings included Beef Mole Pot Roast with Cauliflower Brown Rice, Vegan Paella with Catalan Roasted Vegetables, Chicken Tinga with Spaghetti Squash, and Roasted Salmon with Brussel Sprouts, Sweet Potato and Spinach Pecan Pesto. Meals are gluten-free, beef is grass-fed, and organic ingredients are used as much as possible. Pesticides are avoided when sourcing ingredients, and proteins like chicken are antibiotic-free. Lewis and her team at TGK — which includes local chef Tim Groody, who is director of R&D and production — are part of a movement in the food industry focused on a broader definition of overall health. “Everything we eat has an impact on our environment — our air, water and land,” Lewis says. “Overall health and wellness go into how the product you’re creating was treated, how it was raised and how it came to the plate. What’s happening to the environment is happening to our bodies through our consumption of food.” TGK’s primary differentiator is its sourcing and the transparent nature of where and how its food is grown, Lewis says. “We’re in a flooded market of people that say one thing and do another. We are not doing that.” In pursuit of sources who practice regenerative agriculture, TGK recently partnered with Land to Market, a Boulder, Colo.based nonprofit working with ranchers and farmers to analyze and support holistic management of grasslands. Regenerative agriculture includes techniques such as crop rotation, water usage and grazing 52

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practices, which vary by location. One such supplier for TGK is Hickory Nut Gap Farm in Fairview, near Asheville, which produces grass-fed and pasture-raised meats. “Beef produced employing regenerative practices is making the land better because of how it was raised and how the products inside of this were grown,” says Chris Kerston, chief commercial officer for Land to Market. “How we manage land can solve many problems,” he says. “How society engages with land is predominantly for food and fiber. We're recognizing this notion that we can solve some of the world's biggest problems through better stewardship. These leader brands like TGK are driving that, but it takes these first adopters to lead the way to make it the new normal.” Producers like TGK whose values align with sustainable practices serve as both educators and suppliers to the public. “Food produced using these practices is nutritionally different,” says Kris Reid, vice president of culinary innovation for TGK. “The protein is nutritionally different. The vegetables are nutritionally different. Working with Land to Market, we’re trying to create impact on [the existing] model and putting pressure on it so it becomes more affordable for people to farm that way.” Reid is also executive director of the Piedmont Culinary Guild, a local organization committed to development of local food systems. “Businesses have an incredible responsibility to the planet,” Reid says. “The impact we’re creating isn't just about human health. It’s about environmental health. And we are committed to doing this right.” SP

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blvd. | around town

Justin Loo is the new executive chef at Farenheit. The Hawaii native previously spent six years at Nobu Las Vegas, where he worked his way up to chef de cuisine. “Chef Loo’s new vegetarian options, Asian-inspired small plates, and his fresh take on our existing new American and seafood classics will delight our guests,” says Director of Operations Chef Dave Feimster. Farenheit is located atop the Skye Condos in uptown. 222 S. Caldwell St., farenheit.com

Coming soon to Elizabeth

The team behind The Crunkleton and Cheat’s Cheesesteak Parlor will open Rosemont Market and Wine Bar at Elizabeth on Seventh, a new mixed-use development by Crescent Communities on the site of the former Jackalope Jack’s and Philosopher’s Stone. Rosemont will be open all day, offering breakfast, lunch and dinner. Coffee, wine, beer and grab-and-go meals will also be available, along with a market.

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New brews

One of Germany’s oldest breweries has landed in the Queen City: 476-year-old Gilde opened its first U.S. brewery and restaurant in lower South End. The 9,500-square-foot space was designed incorporating authentic German millwork and architectural details, crafted by local artisans Tenon & Tailored. Under the direction of brewmaster Willi Wallstab, Gilde adheres to the German Purity Law enacted in 1516, using only the ingredients of barley, hops and water in its beers. Guests can sample one of Gilde’s six staples — Pilsener (lager), Red Rooster (amber lager), Radler (shandy), Urbock (lager), Hefeweizen (wheat) or Black Beer (a dark beer) — or try one of their new craft beers unique to Charlotte. Executive Chef Dominik Kuehne relocated from Germany to lead the kitchen. The menu includes Schnitzel (breaded veal cutlet with lingonberry, potato salad and lemon), Weisswurst (herb-poached Bavarian sausage served with a warm pretzel) and Obazda & Brezel (a German cream cheese made with beer and served with a salted pretzel). Gilde is open 3-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3-10 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday-Thursday. 3530 Dewitt Ln., gilde1546.com FARENHEIT PHOTOS BY PETER TAYLOR RENDERING COURTESY CRESCENT COMMUNITIES

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food + drink

u The Jimmy is now open for lunch, with a menu featuring pizzas, pastas, paninis and salads. 2839 Selwyn Ave., thejimmyclt.com u Harry’s Grille & Tavern opened a second location at Quail Corners Shopping Center. The original Harry’s opened in 2012 at Ayrsley Town Center. The menu features hand-cut steaks, salads and sandwiches, and serves brunch on Saturday and Sunday. 8426 Park Rd., Ste. 9, harrysgrilleandtavern.com u LuLu’s on Central, an extension of the original LuLu’s Maryland-Style Chicken and Seafood on Tuckaseegee Road, opened last month. On the menu: crab cakes, crab fries, seafood nachos, cream of crab soup, a crab cake BLT and salmon du jour. 2308 Central Ave., luluscharlotte.com u Ever Andalo opened in the former Crepe Cellar location in NoDa, serving Italian fare including homemade burrata, pastas, chicken piccata, branzino and more. 3116 N. Davidson St., everandalo.com

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blvd. | calendar

April HAPPENINGS Queen’s Cup Steeplechase

Events + activities Charlotte SHOUT! April 1-17 This multiweek celebration of all things innovative returns to the Queen City. Art, music, food and ideas are carefully curated to highlight Charlotte’s creativity, diversity and resilience. Most events and installations are free and accessible to all. charlotteshout.com Paws in the Park at Pineville Lake Park April 2 | 10 a.m.-3 p.m. The whole family will enjoy the food trucks, dog contests, music and more at this annual event hosted by Charlotte Black Dogs. Dog rescue groups and animal shelters will also be onsite with pups ready for adoption. Free to attend. charlotteblackdogs.com/events Charlotte Symphony Orchestra Presents Music + Healing at Sarah Belk Gambrell Center at Queens University April 3 | 3 p.m. Experience the shared mental and emotional connection that music can bring. This performance will offer a range of musical selections written about challenging topics, with the hope for collective healing. Tickets start at $10. charlottesymphony.org Opera Carolina Presents Aida at Belk Theater April 7-9 In Verdi’s iconic love story, an enslaved Ethiopian princess, Aida, is secretly in love with Radames, an Egyptian general who’s leading the war against Aida’s homeland. But there’s a twist: The Egyptian princess whom Aida serves is also in love with Radames. Tickets start at $22. operacarolina.org Bon Jovi at Spectrum Center April 8 | 8 p.m. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band returns to Charlotte with new music from their latest album, 2020, plus their classic hits. Tickets start at $39.50. ticketmaster.com Spring Artisan Market at Anne Springs Close Greenway April 9 | 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Shop for local 60

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arts, crafts, treats and treasures at this openair market, and grab coffee or lunch from the Gateway Canteen. Parking is $5 per car. Admission is free for members. Tickets for nonmembers are $6 for adults and $4 for kids ages 5-12. Children 4 and under are free. ascgreenway.org Annual Victorian Lawn Party at Matthews Heritage Museum April 9 | noon-4 p.m. Pay a visit to the Reid House in downtown Matthews for games and crafts circa-1915. Dance around the maypole, view antique vehicles, and watch quilling and blacksmithing demonstrations. A food truck will be onsite to help you refuel after the festivities. Free to attend. matthewsheritagemuseum.org John Mayer Sob Rock Tour 2022 April 11 | 7:30 p.m. The guitarist and singer-songwriter comes to Spectrum Center with a tour named after his latest album and his blend of pop, rock, blues and soul. Tickets start at $44. ticketmaster.com Charlotte Knights home opener at Truist Field April 12 Homer and the team are back in business: Charlotte’s beloved minor league baseball team will host the Memphis Redbirds on the first night of a six-game set at Truist Field. It’s the first time Memphis will face the Knights at the uptown Charlotte ballpark. Stay for the fireworks on opening night. Ticket costs and availability may vary. milb.com/charlotte-knights

Pretty Woman: The Musical at Belk Theater April 12-17 The classic rom-com comes alive on stage with zesty choreography and an original score that delivers big fun. Tickets start at $25. blumenthalarts.org Charlotte StrEATs Festival at Gateway Village April 15-16 An extension of Charlotte SHOUT!, this culinary jubilee celebrates the chefs and neighborhoods that contribute to the city’s vibrant food scene. Friday is

Family Night, with demos from local culinary students, food trucks and more from 5-8:30 p.m. On Saturday from noon-6 p.m., expect more cooking demos, live music, vendors and food trucks, plus a Neighborhood Cookoff. Free to attend. Limited tickets (starting at $85) will be sold for a Restaurant Tasting from noon-3 Saturday. cltstreatsfestival.com

Waitress at Booth Playhouse April 19-May 22 Jenna, a waitress and small-town pie-maker, reclaims her life with a little help from her friends (and a baking contest). Featuring music and lyrics by Grammy Award-winner Sara Bareilles. Tickets start at $34.50. blumenthalarts.org Billy Joel at Bank of America Stadium April 23 I 8 p.m. The “Piano Man” will perform his catalog of hits and classics from the past 50 years. Tickets prices vary. ticketmaster.com Charlotte Earth Day Celebration at First Ward Park April 23 | 10 a.m.-3 p.m. This imaginative take on an annual celebration of our planet is an educationally interactive experience. It features a self-guided “Around the World – Learn the Earth” tour for kids 5-15, performances by Chapel Hill’s PaperHand Puppets and a dance party. Various exhibits and food trucks will also be onsite. Free to attend; bring your own water bottle. charlotteearthday.com

Hamilton at Belk Theater April 26-May 15 Lin-Manuel Miranda's award-winning musical returns to Charlotte. Based on Ron Chernow’s biography, the show’s musical score blends hip-hop, jazz, R&B and Broadway while telling the story of American founding father Alexander Hamilton. Tickets start at $49; only single seats remained at press time. blumenthal.org Indigo Girls April 28 I 8 p.m. The Indigo Girls return to The Fillmore at AvidExchange Music Factory, with Danielle Howle. General admission tickets are $45, plus fees. livenation.com

blvd. | calendar Tuck Fest at the Whitewater Center April 29-May 1 Run, paddle and climb at this annual tribute to the great outdoors. Activities include the “short-bike world championships,” yoga sessions and a dog jog through the trails. Bring chairs or a blanket and enjoy the demos and live music. Free to attend. Parking is $6 per car. Race registration costs vary by competition. whitewater.org Charlotte Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty: A Fairy-Tailored Classic at Knight Theater April 29-May 8 Choreographer Matthew Hart takes the audience on a journey with this reduced version of the Marius Petipa classic. Hart stays true to the beloved choreography set to Tchaikovsky’s score, with tutus and tiaras illuminating the tale of Princess Aurora and her court. Tickets start at $25. charlotteballet.org Queen’s Cup Steeplechase Silver Jubilee April 30 Tailgate time: Don your seersucker, break out your best hat and sip mint juleps at one of Charlotte’s most highly anticipated social events of the year. The annual steeplechase returns after a pandemic-related hiatus. A portion of proceeds benefits Alzheimer’s Association of Western

North Carolina. General admission tickets start at $60. Children 12 and under are free. queenscup.org Regional Festival of India @ Matthews April 30 | noon-6 p.m. The beloved Festival of India is set to return to uptown Charlotte this fall, but you can get a taste of the festivities this spring at Stumptown Park in Matthews. Enjoy traditional instrumental and dance performances, peruse wares from Indian vendors, taste a variety of food and experience cultural exhibits. Free to attend. indiafestival.iacofcarolinas.org

Museums + galleries Peter Callas: Life on Fire at Elder Gallery Through April 23 The internationally renowned Callas specializes in Anagama kiln-fired ceramics, which uses firewood as fuel. 1520 S Tryon St., eldergalleryclt.com Still Standing: 100 Years and Counting at Brooklyn Collective Through May 20 This group exhibition celebrates the 100-year anniversary and legacy of the Mecklenburg Investment Company (“M.I.C.”) building and the historic Brooklyn neighborhood. Fifty percent of art sales sup-

port the nonprofit Brooklyn Collective. 229 S Brevard St.; brooklyncollectiveclt.org

IN CONVERSATION: Ashlynn Browning + Katy Mixon at Hodges Taylor Gallery April 1-June 10 This exhibit offers the viewer a peek into the exchange between Raleigh-based painter Browning and Charleston, S.C.-based mixed-media artist Mixon, illuminating “the parallels they recognize in their work and beyond.” 1414 S Tryon St., Suite 130, hodgestaylor.com At the Root at SOZO Gallery April 13-May 28 This group exhibition is described as a “visual investigation into spirituality and intimacy.” At the Root features the work of contemporary artists Jill Hotchkiss, Ana Maria Mariani, Michela Martello and Kristen van Diggelen Sloan. 904 Pecan Ave., Suite 101, sozogallery.net SP — compiled by Amanda Lea

Scan the QR code on your mobile device to view our online events calendar — updated weekly — at southparkmagazine.com

DONALD SULTAN Iconic Florals April 23 - June 11, 2022

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Jerald Melberg Gallery is pleased to welcome Donald Sultan, a titan of American art, to Charlotte. His iconic paintings, conte crayon drawings and screenprints will be presented in the artist’s inaugural solo exhibition with the gallery.

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The burden and beauty of home CARRYING THE WEIGHT OF WILLIAM PAUL THOMAS’ ART by Wiley Cash • photographs by Mallory Cash

’ve met William Paul Thomas twice, both times inside an art gallery. He wasn’t present for our first meeting, but his work was. In October, I encountered his portrait of Alexander Manly, editor of The Daily Record, which was North Carolina’s only daily Black newspaper, as part of the Initiative 1897 exhibit at a gallery show in downtown Wilmington. The exhibit featured prominent Black civic leaders in the years preceding the 1898 race massacre, a violent coup d’état that saw Wilmington go from being one of America’s most successful Black cities to a place where racial terror and murder were used to take over Black-owned businesses and homes. The second time I met William was in late February inside the Nasher Museum of Art on the campus of Duke University, where his portrait series “Cyanosis” was part of an exhibit titled Reckoning and Resilience: North Carolina Art Now. The subjects in the nine paintings in “Cyanosis” are not as historically prominent as Alexander Manly, but they’re nonetheless important to William’s life. Each person is either someone he knows or someone he’s met during the course of a day, perhaps someone with whom he shared a passing conversation or a quiet moment that changed the trajectory of an afternoon. The name of the series is taken from the medical term that refers to the blue pallor skin takes on when it is not sufficiently oxygenated. The idea first took root in a portrait William painted of his young nephew Michael. He painted half of Michael’s

face blue to emphasize the color of his skin. Soon, the use of blue grew to represent the presence of deep emotions — perhaps trauma, fear or uncertainty — that lie beneath the surface of people’s lives while they present a calm face to the world. In an online interview with Artsuite, William shared the unifying theme of the series: “My question through those paintings is: What would it look like if that trauma or adversity was shown on the skin? Would it invite people to be kinder to each other?” On the day I finally met William in person inside the Nasher Museum, Mallory, our daughters and I arrived half an hour early. While Mallory unpacked her camera gear and set off to scout the museum for places to set up, our daughters and I wandered through the exhibits with scores of other masked patrons. When we found the exhibit featuring William’s paintings, we paused and stood in front of them. The nine paintings are all closely cropped portraits of Black men in rows of three, with a self-portrait of William sitting at the center. Each of the men is looking in a different direction, some of them seeming to stare right into the viewer’s eyes. Strips of blue color their faces in various places: across the eyes like a blindfold, over the nose like a mask, or covering the mouth like a gag. William arrived, and we all introduced ourselves to one another. I’d been following his Instagram for several months — which I will later describe to him as being “delightfully weird” — and I didn’t know what to expect from an artist who is wildly experimental and southparkmagazine.com | 65

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playful while still remaining earnest and sincere. The dichotomy a viewer might find in William’s work also seems present in his personality: He is formal but warm, thoughtful but quick to smile. He told us he had just returned home from Chicago after spending the weekend at a family wedding with his fiancée and their newborn daughter. We joked that he looked rested and photogenic for a man who’d spent the morning lugging bags, baby and a car seat through airport terminals. His face softened for a moment at the mention of his being a new father, and then he and Mallory got to work. Meanwhile, our 7- and 5-year-old daughters were feeling inspired after seeing the art in the museum. I tore pages loose from my notebook and fished pencils from my bag, and we found seats in the café and ordered snacks. I must have been feeling inspired myself because, like them, I began doodling on a blank page. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the faces of the men I’d just seen in William’s paintings, that strip of blue still hovering on the edges of my vision. When I thought of deoxygenated skin, I thought of the videos I’d seen of Eric Garner and George Floyd, recalled their panicked voices saying, “I can’t breathe.” I looked down at my hands, one holding a pencil and the other resting on the table, the blue veins rolling atop the backs of my palms, not because my skin was deoxygenated or because I was experiencing latent trauma, but because my skin is pale and the blue veins were visible because the blood inside them was moving freely. After we left the museum, we followed William across the campus to the studio where he teaches a painting class to undergraduates, which is just one of the courses he teaches at several nearby universities. Inside the classroom, one of his students was behind an easel, working on a project from his class. He greeted her warmly by name, and then I watched him return to his work on a portrait of a man named Larry Reni Thomas, a Wilmington native known as Dr. Jazz because of his extensive knowledge of the music’s history. The two men met when William was working on Initiative 1897. I asked William what interests him about painting people he meets. He lifted his brush from the canvas and considered my question, his eyes settling just above the top of his easel. “For a long time, my art had been contained within an academic context,” he said, a reference to his Masters of Fine Arts degree from UNC Chapel Hill and his teaching in the undergraduate classroom. “In the portrait work, it’s important that the people that I invite [to be painted] don’t always belong to that same environment, so I’m having conversations with people who don’t necessarily have the same ties to UNC or Duke. I meet someone at the bus station and we strike up a conversation, and that’s a person I’m making a painting of. I feel like I start learning more about this area, or where I’m at, via those conversations. That’s how I’ve chosen to break away from a strictly academic environment.” I ask him if he specifically looks for subjects outside academic settings, and he admitted that he does, but that he’s also interested in introducing people to art who do not always think of themselves as being individuals who appreciate it. “Sometimes I make visits to places with people because of the location. The Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill is right on Columbia and Franklin, and buses run all around that area. So if I was talking to somebody and having a conversation about art, there

|creators of n.c. have been times — if they have the time — I’ll say, ‘Let’s take this conversation to the museum,’” he says. “Since I’ve identified museums and galleries as places I love to be as an artist and as a consumer of art, a lover of art, I don’t necessarily expect people to share that same interest, but if you tell me that you are not interested in art but you have not been inside a gallery, I question that and I challenge it and say, ‘Then let’s go check it out.’ I have relatives, friends, people I’ve met who feel like they don’t have a direct connection to art, and I disagree right away because I’m thinking, if you dress yourself in the morning or if you like a certain model of car or if you like a certain movie, these are visual experiences where you are making choices about the visual world that suggests that you have some interest in aesthetics even if you don’t identify as an artist or a person who likes art.” When William considers how hesitant many people are to engage with art, he views his casual discussions with strangers as an opportunity that might lead them to a museum visit or to their portrait being painted. “It’s really of interest to me to engage in conversations where I try to demystify or deconstruct wherever that idea comes from.” William is also interested in deconstructing the role art played in his own life, especially during his childhood. There could be no better representation of this than the bright pink concrete block resting on the floor nearby. I’d already seen the block on his website, and I knew it had been painted to match a wall William’s mother had painted in the apartment where he’d grown up with his sisters in the Altgeld Garden housing project on Chicago’s South Top row: Regine's Brother, 2021; Lindsay’s Friend, 2018; Donna’s Son From Side. He bent down and picked up the block at his feet. Chicago, 2017. Second row: Le frère de Nathaly, 2019; Leticia's Dear Friend, 2021; Kenna’s Dad, 2019. Third row: Tamara’s Father, 2019; Lydia's Only Caregiver, “I extracted a single cinderblock as a way to represent 2017; Stephanie Woods’ Fiance As An Icon of Piety, 2017. that memory,” he said. “It became a way to carry that experience forward as a part of my narrative. How much of her decision to paint that wall influenced my decision to become an artist? This domestic alteration, how did it have an impact on the way I see the world?” lap as if it were a newborn. I asked him about the differences between being affected by the “I hope she recognizes art as a normal, central fixture of her life, burden of memory and affected by the physical burden of lugging whether she is personally creating things or paying attention to the around a 40-pound block of cement. world around her. I hope she recognizes that it’s something valuable “I did that unconsciously,” he says, referring to the burden of and precious. memory, “and now I’m doing it consciously. I’m choosing to carry “I hope she has an interest in exploring and discovery. I hope this weight with me.” He smiles. “There’s never any good reason to she gets to know Durham and North Carolina in a way that’s really carry a cinderblock around with you, but there might also not be a intimate. I want her to carry with her how rich the world can be very good reason to take any traumatic or negative moments that wherever she is, as long as she’s paying attention.” I experienced as a child to have that affect me in the present, but If William’s daughter follows the example of her father — an nevertheless, for better or worse, the things we experience through artist who is constantly paying attention to his surroundings with our lives are carried with us. I’m definitely carrying home with me.” an idea toward capturing the richness of a place and the people who I thought of his newborn daughter, a baby born in North inhabit it — I’ll bet she’ll learn to do just that. SP Carolina, far from William’s Midwestern roots. What role would her Wiley Cash is the Alumni Author-in-Residence at UNC Asheville. father’s art play in her own conception of art’s role in her life? How His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, is available wherever would she carry her childhood with her? books are sold. He smiled at the questions, and then he rested the block in his southparkmagazine.com | 67

|art of the state

Wild & whimsical ANNE LEMANSKI’S FANCIFUL PATTERNED CREATURES by Liza Roberts

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PHOTOGRAPH BY LISSA GOTWALS

f you’ve seen any of Anne Lemanski’s cosmic, colorful animal sculptures in person, you know they look as if they might twitch, or pounce, or slink on by. The skins that cover them — psychedelic prints and unexpected patterns — somehow add to this unlikely effect. Perhaps her multicolored tiger, or her ocelot, or her amazing rabbit, has emerged through a looking-glass portal from some magical realm and wound up in our own? You’re not far off. Lemanski’s Spruce Pine studio is in fact an otherworldly laboratory of creation where she doesn’t just make an animal, she learns it inside out. She studies its physicality and psychology, figures out how its haunches tense when it sits back, how they loosen in a run, how its brow might scowl at distant prey. Then she replicates all of that with copper rods she bends, cuts and welds into a three-dimensional sculpture, an armature. In an upstairs made of shipping containers, another act of creation happens, guided not by realism but by intuition. Here, she will create a skin for that armature, make it out of digital photographs or prints or collage or all three, and print it on paper. She will draw and cut a pattern as if she were making a dress or a suit, and sew it all on, piece by piece, with artificial sinew. Her tools — wire cutters and an X-ACTO knife — are the same, simple ones she has used for 30 years. She has no assistants. On a warm and wet spring weekend, Lemanski is learning

mink. Her giant mastiff, Dill, sits nearby. Photographs of mink in every position and resolution surround her, filling a wall and every tab on her computer. She’s learning about what mink eat, how they’re bred for coats, about the recent killing of 17 million Covid-infected mink in Denmark. “Millions! I’m not exaggerating. I was horrified,” she says, shivering. The armatures for a few mink in different positions are underway; one is complete. She holds it in her hands. “Once the armature is done, that’s the most important part of capturing the animal,” she says. “I ripped this one apart like three times. And finally, one day, it just clicked.” With the armature complete, Lemanski moves on to the mink’s skin, leaning into the collages that form a significant counterpart to her sculpture. Comprised of illustrated images from the pages of pre-1970s textbooks, comic books, picture books and children’s encyclopedias, Lemanski uses her X-ACTO knife to combine, say, giant squid with convertible cars, pigeons with mermaids, skeletons with alphabet blocks, chewing gum with polar bears. There are butcher’s maps for cuts of meat and colored-dot tests for colorblindness, and constellations and cockatoos — a century’s worth of illustrations shaken and stirred into a cocktail of nature and man, science and myth, technology, geometry and things that are cool. A series made during Covid, Metaphysical Mineral, explores the properties of a series of eight different minerals. Quartz includes a high diver in a ’50s-era swimsuit, a white stallion and a swarm of bees. Sulphur gets a winding snake, a stick of dynamite and a cigarette. These individual component images are one of a kind and cannot be replicated; to do so would be to lose the unmistakable texture and character of the Ben-Day dots used in printing from the 1950s to the 1970s (made particularly recognizable by the pop artist Roy Lichtenstein). “I’ve tried [copying them], and it just doesn’t work,” she says. So when she uses these images in a southparkmagazine.com | 69

|art of the state

collage, Lemanski tacks them down lightly with a little loop of tape so she can take them off and use them again. This technique also adds to the three-dimensional look of the collages once they’re printed. She credits a residency at Charlotte’s McColl Center with launching this kind of work. Inspired by the possibilities of the center’s large-format digital printer, she made 12 small collages and printed them in huge dimensions. These prints ended up forming the basis of a solo exhibition at the center that also included sculpture, in this instance a “three-dimensional collage” that incorporated some of the printed collage animals themselves. A 4-inch image of an impala in one print, for instance, became a life-sized impala sculpture in the center of the room that she “skinned,” in a meta twist, in digital prints of the tiny image’s own fur. “That was a challenging piece to make,” she says. So was the Tigris T-1, a freestanding, life-size sculpture of a tiger balancing on a ball, that was acquired by noted collector Fleur Bresler for donation to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., a career-catapulting moment Lemanski is still pinching herself about. Her work is also in the permanent collections of The Mint Museum, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Asheville Art Museum and in many private collections. It’s even found its way into wallpaper as part of a fanciful line of sly, butterfly-and-bird-bedecked prints made in Schumacher’s Peg Norriss collection, a collaboration between SOCO Gallery’s Chandra Johnson and interior designer Barrie Benson. What’s next is what excites Lemanski most. Lately, she’s been working on an animal that’s captured her imagination for a while: a horse — a life-sized Appaloosa. “Who doesn’t love a horse?” she asks, as she works out the intricacies. “The hooves and ankles of a horse are extremely complex; they’re bulbous, they’re angular, and that’s where all the business happens.” Also in the hopper: her first piece of public, outdoor art — another large animal — to be cast in aluminum. It could mark the beginning of a whole new oeuvre. “I really am looking forward to the work I’m going to make in the future,” Lemanski says. “I think it’s going to be on a large scale, and I just want to keep pushing the work forward … It’s the unknown of the future that keeps me going.” SP This is an excerpt from the forthcoming book Art of the State: Celebrating the Art of North Carolina, to be published by UNC Press this fall. 70

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The cowboy in me

|simple life

OLD WESTERNS ARE THE CURE FOR YELLOWSTONE FEVER by Jim Dodson

ILLUSTRATION BY GERRY O'NEILL

o, there we sat, three old ranch hands around a blazing fire as a lonesome doggie let loose a howl at the moon. “Sounds like that dadgum dachshund down the street got loose again,” grunted Harry, the quick-draw artist sipping Buffalo Trace. “He’s pretty bad,” agreed Timmy the Kid, the tile-slinging merchant. “But that dang goldendoodle across the street ain’t much better. Got a howl on him like a stuck prairie dog.” Counting women folk (cowboy-speak for “wives”) there actually were six of us gathered round the elegant Tuscan terrace fire pit in Tim and Sally’s beautiful backyard where the women were drinking excellent white wine and chatting about whatever suburban wives talk about when their husbands are talking like dimwitted ranch hands who have watched too many episodes of Yellowstone, the hottest show on cable TV. In case you’ve been livin’ under a flat rock in the woods, Yellowstone, is the TV saga of rancher John Dutton and his proud but mentally unstable family, owners of the largest cattle ranch in Montana. They are in a perpetual war with an Indian reservation, the national park system and godless resort developers eager to turn their ranch into Club Med West. Think Dynasty with pump shotguns, F-bombs and luxury pickup trucks. Whether you find Yellowstone, appalling or hopelessly addictive, Yellowstone Fever has spread like a case of terminal kudzu across the lower 48, turning ordinary dudes like Harry, Tim and briefly, me, into mini John Dutton wannabes. There’s even an official online Yellowstone Shop peddling everything from home goods to coffee mugs for riding the urban range in your luxury pickup truck. Back at Christmas, just for fun, I bought the little missus — aka

my wife — an official Yellowstone ballcap and matching sweatshirt that reads, “Don’t Make Me Go Beth Dutton on You,” thinking she might ditch her daily green tea and morning yoga meditation in favor of going a little bit “Beth Dutton.” Every marriage needs a bit of spice. In case you been watchin’ way too much CNN and worryin’ about stuff like the future of democracy and the free world, Beth Dutton is the smokin’ hot, potty-mouthed, always drunk, oversexed, mean-as-a-rattlesnake daughter of John Dutton, the stoical, monosyllabic, unnaturally stone-faced daddy-rancher with obvious deep inner conflicts, who every now and then shoots some dumb sumbitch who wants his land or wanders uninvited onto it. Unfortunately, while I was over at Tractor Supply one Saturday mornin’ trying to decide how many head of cattle I might be able to raise on a quarter-acre suburban lot, the little lady dropped off her sexy new Beth Dutton duds to Goodwill — her way of saying the drunk and nasty lifestyle of the modern TV cowgirl just wasn’t her cup of green tea, with or without the Tito’s chaser. For those of us who grew up in the 1960s idolizing cowboys like Gene Autry, Matt Dillon and Roy Rogers, not to mention the boys from Bonanza and the gals from The Big Valley, these Yellowstone folks aren’t exactly your polite, old-fashioned TV cowboy types who wear white hats, never seem to get dirty and always marry the pretty school mistress in the end. I must admit, after binging three full seasons of Yellowstone, I suddenly began to miss those kinder and gentler Hollywood cowboys I grew up with and had every intention of someday becoming. Sitting on a shelf in our library are a pair of small, well-worn cowboy boots, the only things on my feet for the first four years of my southparkmagazine.com | 73

|simple life

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life. We lived in the rolling country north of Dallas, a neighborhood that shared a great big pasture full of horses and a burro named Oscar. Oscar belonged to me — well, my folks. But I fed and talked to Oscar every morning and sometimes got to ride him in the afternoon. I always figured Oscar and I would someday ride off into the sunset together, meet the right gal and finally settle down. Instead, we moved to the city, where I rode a bicycle instead of a burro and gave up my boots for a pair of Keds. The old-style cowboy in me never died, though. He even still shows up from time to time, like when, in search of The Golf Channel or an update on Ukraine, I stumble across old episodes of The Virginian or Maverick and watch the entire episode, remembering exactly what happens. Give me a classic John Wayne western or John Ford epic on TCM and I’m also good for the count. Several years ago, my wife surprised me with tickets to see Glen Campbell at an outdoor arena in Raleigh. Reportedly suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, Campbell was making his farewell musical tour. Unfortunately, a thunderstorm broke right at showtime, and Campbell only managed to sing one song before the show was canceled. He passed on not long afterward. I guess even rhinestone cowboys never die, though, as long as you have their complete hits on Spotify or Pandora radio. When folks drive like the Wild West in my town, I just sing along with Glen. Twenty-five years ago, I took my daughter, Maggie, then a precocious 7, on an unforgettable, two-month road trip to fish and camp the great trout rivers of the West. We tented beneath glittering stars by the Shoshone River and attended the Friday night rodeo in Cody, Wyo. We took a rocking McKenzie boat down the Snake and camped for two days in Yellowstone, saw buffalo and a gray wolf, hiked for miles and drank our body weight in root beer. We rode horses in the Colorado high country around Durango and camped atop a star-strewn mesa in New Mexico. On the way home, we even bumped into the great-granddaughter of outlaw Jesse James near the Red River. She was a nice old lady with a killer smile. Though I didn’t tell my daughter this for many years, the cowboy in me was actually scouting out places where I could start a new life following a divorce — somewhere in the wide-open, Western spaces where I could stake a new claim, hear the doggies sing and never look back. It didn’t quite work out that way, but the trip sure healed something in both of us and bonded us like saddle pals on the old Chisholm Trail. The little memoir I wrote about our journey of the heart is still in print all these years later — and even got made into a film. Maggie herself now lives in the Golden West. I guess that’s why I was initially drawn to the saga of the Duttons of Yellowstone Ranch, hoping to find some comforting trace of the western spirit — the inner cowboy — that lives in all of us. But after three full seasons of Yellowstone, I simply had enough. I went back to old TV westerns and John Ford movies that never fail to deliver. My little missus — better known as my wife, Wendy — knew just the thing to perk me up. She brought me a nice big glass of milk and some Oreos as we settled in to watch a couple of my favorite episodes of The Big Valley. SP Jim Dodson is a New York Times-bestselling author in Greensboro.

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|bookshelf

April books NOTABLE NEW RELEASES compiled by Sally Brewster

Unlikely Animals, by Annie Hartnett Natural-born healer Emma Starling once had big plans for her life, but she’s lost her way. A medical school dropout, she’s come back to small-town Everton, N.H., to care for her father, who is dying from a mysterious brain disease. Emma arrives home knowing she must face her dad’s illness, her mom’s judgment, and her younger brother’s recent stint in rehab, but she’s unprepared to find that her former best friend from high school is missing, with no one bothering to look for her. The police say they don’t spend much time looking for drug addicts. Emma’s dad is the only one convinced the young woman might still be alive, and Emma is hopeful he could be right. Emma isn’t really trying to be a hero, but she and her father bring about just the kind of miracle the town needs. Set against the backdrop of a small town in the throes of a very real opioid crisis, Unlikely Animals is a tragicomic novel about familial expectations, imperfect friendships and the possibility of resurrecting that which had been thought irrevocably lost. The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan The Candy House opens with the staggeringly brilliant Bix Bouton, whose company, Mandala, is so successful that he is “one of those tech demi-gods with whom we’re all on a first name basis.” Bix is 40, with four kids, restless, desperate for a new idea, when he stumbles into a conversation group, mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory. It’s 2010. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, “Own Your Unconscious” — which allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others — has seduced multitudes. But not everyone. Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious

through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Intellectually dazzling, The Candy House is also extraordinarily moving, a testament to the tenacity and transcendence of human longing for real connection, love, family, privacy and redemption. Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel Edwin St. Andrew is 18 years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal — an experience that shocks him to his core. Two centuries later, a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s bestselling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: A man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him. When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the blackskied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe. Marrying the Ketchups, by Jennifer Close Here are the three things the Sullivan family knows to be true: The Chicago Cubs will always be the underdogs; historical southparkmagazine.com | 77

|bookshelf progress is inevitable; and their grandfather, Bud, founder of JP Sullivan’s, will always make the best burgers in Oak Park. But when, over the course of three strange months, the Cubs win the World Series, Trump is elected president, and Bud drops dead, suddenly everyone in the family finds themselves doubting all they hold dear. Take Gretchen for example, lead singer for a ’90s cover band who has been flirting with fame for a decade but is beginning to wonder if she’s too old to be chasing a childish dream. Or Jane, Gretchen’s older sister, who is starting to suspect that her fitness-obsessed husband who hides the screen of his phone isn’t always “working late.” And then there’s Teddy, their steadfast, unfailingly good cousin, nursing heartbreak and confusion because the guy who dumped him keeps showing up for lunch at JP Sullivan’s, where Teddy is the manager. How can any of them be expected to make the right decisions when the world feels sideways — and the bartender at JP Sullivan’s makes such strong cocktails?

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Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s, and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans, the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize-nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with — of all things — her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable. A few years later, Elizabeth finds herself not only a single mother but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show, Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo. SP Sally Brewster is the proprietor of Park Road Books. 4139 Park Rd., parkroadbooks.com

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Compass is a licensed real estate broker under the name “Compass South Carolina, LLC" in South Carolina and under the name “Compass” in North Carolina and abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. All material presented herein intended for informational purposes only. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in price, condition, sale, or withdrawal without notice. No statement is made as to accuracy of any description. All measurements and square footages are approximate. This is not intended to solicit property already listed. Nothing herein shall be construed as legal, accounting or other professional advice outside the realm of real estate brokerage.

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Amanda Kupchella M. 828.329.0996 amanda@indigohomeclt.com

“

The entire experience flowed so well from feeling like I was checking out houses with my best friend to discussing tough negotiations with my most trusted advisor. They superbly balanced giving me advice and taking my lead and the result was an incredibly successful execution on both the sale of my old home and purchase of my new one. I couldn’t be happier. I’m extremely grateful for their outstanding work. I highly recommend them to my family, friends and anyone looking for a successful real estate transaction.

The Cook Pizzo Team Constant Support. All hands on deck. We have you covered. Now that’s a client-focused, luxury real estate experience! The Cook Pizzo team is ready to provide you access to all of our knowledge of the greater Charlotte market. Whether you are buying your first home or your forever home, we are here every step of the way! Now more than ever it is critical who you trust with your greatest investment. Reach out to start working together to achieve your real estate goals today!

Tracey Cook & Ashley Pizzo T. 704.236.11135 | A. 704.756.8654 tracey.cook@compass.com ashley.pizzo@compass.com

Abby Fitch & Stacie Fulton A. 704.975.7465 | S. 704.907.7845 abby.fitch@compass.com stacie.fulton@compass.com

Connecting the dots in real estate.

We practice our company motto daily to ensure all aspects in the journey of buying and selling a home are handled professionally and with the utmost communication. Our team of Agent Specialists, along with a full-time Administrative staff, is ready to serve you all the while providing an unparalleled level of client care.

139 S Bruns Avenue | SOLD

8336 Cliffside Drive | SOLD

10329 Kilmory Terrace | SOLD

2 B D | 2 . 5 BA | 1 , 665 S F

4 BD | 2 BA | 2 , 37 7 SF

4 B D | 3.5 BA | 3, 607 S F

Jennifer Vick M. 704.284.7674 info@jennifervickco.com Compass is a licensed real estate broker under the name “Compass South Carolina, LLC" in South Carolina and under the name “Compass” in North Carolina and abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. All material presented herein intended for informational purposes only. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in price, condition, sale, or withdrawal without notice. No statement is made as to accuracy of any description. All measurements and square footages are approximate. This is not intended to solicit property already listed. Nothing herein shall be construed as legal, accounting or other professional advice outside the realm of real estate brokerage.

CHALLIS FARM | $ 2 ,69 5,000 5408 Challisford Lane, Charlotte, NC 28226

U NDER CO NT R ACT

PI PER GLEN | $1 ,3 65,000 5449 Callander Court, Charlotte, NC 28277

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HEYD ON HALL | $1,115,500 9408 Heydon Hall Circle, Charlotte, NC 28210

Carrie Brighton Your trusted Realtor since 2005, advising buyers and sellers across all price points. As a Top Producing agent with over $60M in sales since 2017, I am committed to a clientfocused approach that garners proven results. Contact me today to help you navigate 2022’s real estate market.

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Carrie Brighton M. 704.241.4418 carrie.brighton@compass.com Compass is a licensed real estate broker under the name “Compass South Carolina, LLC" in South Carolina and under the name “Compass” in North Carolina and abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. All material presented herein intended for informational purposes only. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in price, condition, sale, or withdrawal without notice. No statement is made as to accuracy of any description. All measurements and square footages are approximate. This is not intended to solicit property already listed. Nothing herein shall be construed as legal, accounting or other professional advice outside the realm of real estate brokerage.

Lisa Emory Lisa’s real estate career as a Top Producer has spanned two decades. A native North Carolinian, UNC-Chapel Hill alum, marathoner and Godiva lover, Lisa offers a real estate experience that’s much more than just a transaction. Broker/Realtor NC/SC M. 704.724.3504 lisa.emory@compass.com

5008 Oxfordshire Road, Waxhaw, NC | $1,850,000

Luxury abounds in this 8,800+ square foot, 2-story + basement, 4-car garage home in gated Stratford on Providence. Circular staircases, 10’20’ ceilings, 5 fireplaces, fine flex spaces, and an elevator for easy navigation throughout!

2178 Sandlapper Drive, York, SC 29745 | $2,700,000 | 5,979 SF Featured on the cover of Southern Home Magazine, this Hamptons-inspired South Carolina lake house is truly one of a kind! The personal home to one of the area’s most sought-after interior designers, every detail was designed with intention and each room boasts stunning lake views. Featuring 10” wide plank European White Oak hardwood flooring, 11’ ceilings with vaulted living and sitting rooms, a true chef’s kitchen with 60” Wolf range, 36” SubZero refrigerator and 36” Sub-Zero freezer, and honed Black Absolute granite countertops, three wood burning fireplaces, and a spectacular sunroom; this home is nothing less than a showpiece. Outdoors, the property features 378’ feet of waterfront wrapping around two sides of the home, a small beach with shallow water for swimming, a dock with three separate lifts in deep water, sprawling lawns and a wrap-around stone patio to enjoy the remarkable lake views. Only 45 minutes from Uptown Charlotte, this home is the perfect private retreat while still accessible to everything Charlotte has to offer!

Meghan Reynolds M. 413.262.8813 meghan@bovenderteam.com bovenderteam.com

The Andy Bovender Team In the early 2000’s, Andy Bovender and Debbie Hooker found that they shared similar work ethic, priorities, and goals – to serve their clients’ needs at the highest level! They decided to work together to grow their businesses while focusing on each other’s skill sets. Andy and Debbie agreed that forming a team was the best approach to help their clients receive unparalleled support. This philosophy has led them to where they are today. Currently, the Andy Bovender Team has eclipsed $1.3 billion in career sales! In May 2021, the team made the decision to join Compass Real Estate as one of the Founding Teams in the Carolinas. With a network of over 25,000 agents nationwide, industry leading tools and resources, and an unwavering passion to serve their clients, the partnership was a perfect fit. Today, the Andy Bovender Team at Compass now serves clients in both North and South Carolina.

Andy Bovender M. 704.287.8317 andy@bovenderteam.com bovenderteam.com

$1.3B+ TOTAL SALES VO LUM E

4,000+ FAMILIES SERVED

20+ YEARS O F REAL ESTAT E EXPER I EN C E

21 EXCEPTIO N AL REAL ESTATE PRO F ESSI O N ALS

MYERS PARK | $2 ,2 2 5,000 2029 Hopedale Ave, Charlotte, NC 28207

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CHEVAL | $1 ,250,0 00 6609 Joli Cheval Lane, Mint Hill, NC 28227

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Tommy Williams Tommy brings over 20 years of experience representing Buyers & Sellers in Charlotte & surrounding markets! Specializing in Relocation, Estate, and Investment, Tommy has successfully closed over 350 transactions & has been the recipient of numerous Top Level Awards! Providing personal & individual attention to each & every client, let Tommy bring his experience & expertise to help you with your next home purchase & sale!

COTSWOLD | $8 85 ,000 4518 Water Oak Road, Charlotte, NC 28211

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Tommy Williams M. 704.458.2309 tommy.williams@compass.com Compass is a licensed real estate broker under the name “Compass South Carolina, LLC" in South Carolina and under the name “Compass” in North Carolina and abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. All material presented herein intended for informational purposes only. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in price, condition, sale, or withdrawal without notice. No statement is made as to accuracy of any description. All measurements and square footages are approximate. This is not intended to solicit property already listed. Nothing herein shall be construed as legal, accounting or other professional advice outside the realm of real estate brokerage.

“

We recently had the pleasure of working with Meghan & Cat on the purchase of our new home. They are a powerhouse team that worked around the clock to help us navigate this challenging market. They were incredibly encouraging and extremely professional. Whether it was a last minute showing or an urgent call, they always made time for us. The entire process was seamless. We would not be in our forever home without their guidance. Thank you Cat & Meghan!

Why choose Hampton+Long? We are a client-focused team experienced in luxury real estate. Looking to buy or sell? We would be honored to represent you! We offer staging and design services, cosmetic renovations with ZERO upfront cost, and have a Private Exclusive network of 25,000+ agents throughout the country.

Cat Long M. 704.608.2605 cat.long@compass.com

Meghan Hampton M. 704.607.7778 meghan.hampton@compass.com

“

Mike Stearns

Mike was just great. The house he sold for me had been on the market for months and he suggested staging the house which I think made a big difference. He was supportive and even met a couple of repairmen for me. He went the extra mile so when I decided to purchase another home (for rental purposes) I emailed Mike and he told me about a home across the street from where I live. He got me in first and I made an offer that day which was accepted; we will be closing on that one January 9th. He could not have been better to work with and I would highly recommend him to anyone. - Toni

Mike has been selling real estate in Charlotte and the surrounding areas for over 16 years. He’s known for his no-nonsense, client-centric approach to listing and buying property with his loyal clients. Mike is constantly learning to help keep his clients informed of current trends in the market. Why would you trust one of your largest financial transactions to just anyone? You need a seasoned professional to coach you to make the best decision possible for you today, and in the future.

Mike Stearns M. 704.441.2478 mike.stearns@compass.com Compass is a licensed real estate broker under the name “Compass South Carolina, LLC" in South Carolina and under the name “Compass” in North Carolina and abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. All material presented herein intended for informational purposes only. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in price, condition, sale, or withdrawal without notice. No statement is made as to accuracy of any description. All measurements and square footages are approximate. This is not intended to solicit property already listed. Nothing herein shall be construed as legal, accounting or other professional advice outside the realm of real estate brokerage.

Henderson Ventures Founders, Gerald and Nilou Henderson, created Henderson Ventures on the principles of diversity, unparalleled levels of service, and integrity. Gerald is a retired 8-year NBA veteran who manages both business development and real estate development for the firm. As Broker-in-Charge, Nilou has unmatched experience with sports and entertainment clientele over a 10-year span and is dually licensed in North Carolina and South Carolina. It is only fitting that Compass has brought Henderson Ventures in to its exclusive sports and entertainment network as partners in the state of North Carolina. Endless ties to the Carolinas and an extensive business network allow for constant access to new developments and off-market listings. With an elite group of 20 agents, the Henderson Ventures team is prepared to provide a luxury service in every transaction.

“

Henderson Ventures, a luxury real estate firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina, has joined forces with the world renowned high-tech real estate brokerage, Compass.

Henderson Ventures Inc. O. 980.333.3485 admin@hendersonventuresinc.com Compass is a licensed real estate broker under the name “Compass South Carolina, LLC" in South Carolina and under the name “Compass” in North Carolina and abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. All material presented herein intended for informational purposes only. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in price, condition, sale, or withdrawal without notice. No statement is made as to accuracy of any description. All measurements and square footages are approximate. This is not intended to solicit property already listed. Nothing herein shall be construed as legal, accounting or other professional advice outside the realm of real estate brokerage.

Woodland

wonder BUILT OVER THREE DECADES, MAPLEWALK IS AN UNEXPECTED SANCTUARY IN THE HEART OF SOUTH CHARLOTTE AND A BACKYARD GARDENER’S DREAM. by Jay Sifford • photographs by Dustin Peck

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great garden, I believe, has four elements: story, magic, art and horticulture. MapleWalk, the south Charlotte garden of Tom Nunnenkamp and Lib Jones, is one such garden. Sitting on three wooded city lots, MapleWalk is home to more than 90 types of Japanese maples and 100 types of camellias, offering four-season interest and spectacular vistas that are quite unexpected in its suburban neighborhood of brick houses and manicured lawns. The story of MapleWalk began in 1990 with a search for a new home. According to Lib, she and Tom were amateur backyard gardeners who “bought a yard with potential that happened to have a house on it.” Their first priority was to hire landscape designer Ann Watkins to plan the front yard. One of the first plants installed was a Japanese maple, a wedding gift. Years later, the tree was damaged in a storm but lives on as a testimony to the unfolding story of Tom and Lib’s love for each other and for their garden. Several years after buying their home, the couple purchased a second lot behind it as a defense against water runoff, and eventually, a third lot with a house that was recently demolished to expand the garden. Much of the back garden, with an almost 30-foot grade change, was covered in poison ivy, Chinese wisteria and English ivy that Tom and Lib painstakingly removed by hand. More than 100 tree saplings were removed, allowing the remaining larger and healthier trees to have their canopies raised. Removing the lower branches created a ceiling for the garden that feels almost cathedral-like. The high canopy of dappled shade allowed Tom to plant a tapestry of understory trees, including dogwoods, redbuds, shade-tolerant conifers and, of course, his beloved Japanese maples. Forty-five of tons of boulders were installed, both to secure the slope and to artistically craft the contours of the land. Friend and UNC Charlotte horticultural legend Larry Mellichamp offered his advice on layout and plant selection. The result is a well-planned, stylized horticultural treasure that has the appearance of being totally natural.

Lib Jones and Tom Nunnenkamp, left, started MapleWalk in 1990. The garden is home to more than 100 types of camellias, right, and more than 90 types of Japanese maples.

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The garden also offers a sense of healing. Lib tells the story of being in California at a good friend’s bedside, saying a final goodbye, and returning home to check the bluebird nest to find four little bald heads greeting her. This, she says, is a reminder of the everpresent cycle of life.

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aths mulched with recycled wood chips traverse the back garden, allowing visitors to explore the many grade changes, hidden vignettes and rare specimen trees that are a signature of MapleWalk. Faux bois railings made of resin reinforced with steel mimic the look of tree branches and provide safe and steady access to the garden for visitors to explore the many perennials that weave a second tapestry at ground level. It is here, in the perennial beds, where Lib’s passion lies. While Tom specializes in the trees and shrubs, she has created an impressive collection of ferns, trilliums, hostas, irises, lenten roses, coral bells, peonies, carexes and others that will rival anything seen at a major botanical garden. Many are sited in the area of the demolished house, which has become the new entrance to the garden. Here, paths of Tifgrand bermuda and gravel lead to a large turf area that provides negative space to juxtapose the exuberant planting beds and beautiful stone terrace featuring a massive stone slab bench. This is also a garden of remembrance, with several plaques and a bench to commemorate deceased friends and family. A recent addition is a meticulously crafted stone archway that leads visitors into the older, shadier part of the garden. The arch had been a dream of Lib’s for many years. Beyond the arch, much of the remaining lower lawn was recently removed as it suffered from increasing shade provided by the growing trees. In addition to Lib’s moss garden, more than 4,000 pots of dwarf mondo (ophiopogon japonicus ‘Nana’) were installed to create a textural evergreen “lawn” that is both low maintenance and more drought tolerant than a typical turf lawn. The plants are well-suited, Tom says, because the climate of North Carolina’s Piedmont is similar to that of many parts of Asia. Most Southern gardens are filled with these plants, he says, along with Asian maples, camellias and evergreen azaleas.

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Additionally, many Asian plants seem to be very happy growing alongside the natives. In this way, MapleWalk is truly a classic Southern garden.

“I need the garden more than the garden needs me.” — Tom Nunnenkamp

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uring the major first wave of Covid, garden chores took on even more meaning for Tom and Lib as their plant-filled labor of love became their refuge and, largely, their therapy. “I need the garden more than the garden needs me,” Tom says. For Lib, the garden has a prevailing sense of home, where she experiences personal fulfillment, peace and a real sense of the essential meaning of life. She revels in the cycle of life that is evident in the flora and fauna. The garden is, in a real way, a bird sanctuary. Fifteen feeders and multiple water sources draw dozens of species of birds. Lib smiles when admitting that Tom doesn’t know how much she spends on birdseed. “That’s a good thing!” she says. She has trained bluebirds to fly to her for mealworms when she whistles and rings a bell. The garden also offers a sense of healing. Lib tells the story of being in California at a good friend’s bedside, saying a final goodbye, and returning home to check the bluebird nest to find four little bald heads greeting her. This, she says, is a reminder of the ever-present cycle of life. Visitors to the garden increased during the pandemic. People discovered a need to reconnect with nature for their emotional health and well-being, according to Tom and Lib. Neighborhood children came to see the rescue rabbits that live in a large enclosure in the woodland garden, which Tom refers to as the “Taj MaHutch.” On their journey to the rabbit hutch, Lib says the children begin to develop an appreciation for the plants, as well. Even Harold, the couple’s robotic lawn mower, has become a source of entertain-

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ment for the children as well as their fathers as he makes his daily rounds. One of Lib’s favorite perennials to share with children is lycoris, also known as “Naked Ladies.” She will ask the children if they’d like to see the naked ladies in the garden, and their eyes will grow large before giggles ensue. Another favorite to share with young visitors is Platycodon grandiflorus, the balloon flower: Picking a bulging bud, squeezing it like a tube of toothpaste, and seeing the bud pop like a balloon delights them. All great gardens have a distinct personality. Tom describes MapleWalk as eclectic, inspirational, nurturing and spiritual. “Getting my hands dirty is a spiritual exercise for me,” he says. To Lib, the garden is playful and tranquil. On any given day, visitors can be spotted in the garden reading, writing, meditating and praying. It is as though each person finds his or her own value in the tranquility that is MapleWalk. Tom and Lib rarely vacation because, in a sense, this garden, forged by love, passion and years of hard work, provides that sense of respite. And that is enough. SP Tom and Lib invite visitors to MapleWalk, located on Kingswood Road in south Charlotte. They prefer for a first visit to be part of a tour, such as the upcoming Charlotte Garden Club’s Art in the Garden tour on May 14 and 15. They ask that visitors be respectful of the neighbors and not park on lawns.

Jay Sifford is a Charlotte-based landscape designer who specializes in contemporary, Asian and transitional gardens. His work has been featured in Southern Living, Country Gardens and Fine Gardening, as well as Houzz and several books.

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The previous homeowners had turned the former carport into an open porch. After Abby Klanecky purchased the home, she had the porch screened in and added a wood-burning fireplace. “I use this room nine months a year,” she says. “It’s become like another extension of the house.”

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by Cathy Martin • photographs by Laura Sumrak • styling by Kendra Surface

Ranch reimagined

AFTER TWO MAJOR RENOVATIONS, A 1960S LANSDOWNE HOME EMBODIES INDOOR-OUTDOOR LIVING AT ITS BEST.

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The new building behind the main house includes a home office, a two-car garage, a prep kitchen for entertaining, an upstairs lounge and deck, and two bedrooms. Klanecky chose the railings based on photos of specific balconies she had seen in Switzerland. She fell in love with the idea of porch swings while living in Baton Rouge. 104

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The existing outdoor shower — the only outdoor structure that didn’t get demolished in the renovation — inspired the U-shaped design of the courtyard.

ouses, over time, become a collection of heirlooms, mementos and furnishings accumulated through the years. Abby Klanecky’s Lansdowne home is more like a collection of ideas. “This was my 10th move,” says Klanecky. The figure doesn’t include the five times she moved as a child. When she purchased the 1961-built brick ranch in 2019, Klanecky already had a wish list of ideas swirling in her head from places she’d lived across the world, from Baton Rouge to Geneva to Shanghai. “My entire 20s was spent overseas,” says Klanecky, a Maryland native who came to Charlotte in 2015. “Every time we moved, there would be something that I didn’t love about whatever we bought,” she says about her homes in various regions of the U.S. and abroad. “I tried to combine all of my travels and living in all these places. I took ideas from different experiences that I’d had and things that I knew I liked, and put them together into one.” In 2019, Klanecky was living less than a mile away in Mammoth Oaks, going through a divorce and looking for a new home. Wanting to remain in the area and close to her two daughters’ school, the neighborhood was a no-brainer. “I knew it was going to be Lansdowne. I love the trees. I love the feel,” she says. But like many established Charlotte neighborhoods, modest single-family homes built in the 1960s are being gutted and renovated or, in some cases, torn down to make way for much larger ones, changing the aesthetic of the leafy neighborhood with rolling hills. “I became very passionate about preserving the feel of the neighborhood,” Klanecky says. To that end, she wanted a home with a lot that was large enough to expand while still preserving the existing footprint. Klanecky had passed the home plenty of times while on neighborhood walks. When the previous owners listed it for sale, it immediately went under contract. southparkmagazine.com | 105

Outdoor living was key in the renovation. A prep kitchen adjacent to the grill and pizza oven makes entertaining easy.

Shortly after, as she walked by, the owners were sitting on the front porch and she decided to approach them. “I just said, ‘I love your house … I’ve seen the pictures online, and what you’ve done with the inside is exactly what I’m looking for. I want to work from that.’” And she gave them her number in case the contract fell through. “I just somehow knew it was meant to be my house,” Klanecky says, and sure enough, the sale did fall through. Two weeks later, she got a phone call from their real-estate agent, and soon after, the house was hers.

“W

e never had built anything,” Klanecky says. “When I was going out on my own this time, I thought, I don’t know if I’m ready to build a house from scratch, but I really want to take

on a major project.” About five years earlier, the previous homeowners had worked with general contractor Diamond Rio Inc. on an extensive renovation, which included a new kitchen and opening up the living areas. They also added skylights and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the pool. “It was a typical Charlotte ranch with the dated look, and we were able to transform it,” says Ed Sniadecki, owner and president of Diamond Rio. Pleased with the design and craftsmanship of the previous renovation, Klanecky called on Diamond Rio again to tackle a few additional projects, including remodeling the owner’s suite and a guest bathroom and adding a kitchen island and beverage center. Next, she was ready to begin the expansion, with a goal of creating outdoor living spaces that would blend seamlessly with the existing home. “What I loved about Baton 106

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With the help of a farmer friend in Waxhaw, Klanecky made a sketch of the rabbit hutch she wanted for the family’s two bunnies. Then general contractor Diamond Rio scaled the design and built it to fit the space.

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Rouge and Shanghai, in both of those cities we had a house that had some sort of courtyard living — it was semi-private, but very outdoor-oriented. I loved the feeling of that.” For the overall aesthetic, Klanecky drew much of her inspiration from Zurich, where she had lived for six years. “I found that the Swiss aesthetic is actually very similar to midcentury modern. There’s a simplicity to it — it’s really clean lines, but a little bit more warmth than sometimes you find in midcentury.”

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Adding a home office was essential. Klanecky’s role as a partner in a consulting firm requires extensive international travel. “We don’t have an office in Charlotte. I needed a home office, and I wanted it separate from the house.” Frequent trips to England gave her the idea of a modern version of a carriage house. The new structure out back houses her office and garage on the ground floor, with a lounge, guest bedroom and bedroom for Klanecky’s live-in nanny upstairs. She also wanted the space to be designed with entertaining in mind, both for adults and for her two teenage daughters. Behind the garage, a prep kitchen adjacent to the outdoor grill and pizza oven makes hosting a breeze. An existing pool was taken out and replaced with a new one, and new decking was added. Guests can also enjoy the newly installed putting green and ping pong table. “A key problem with a lot of these houses today, is that people can’t imagine what they can be. I’d just been thinking about it for so long, over the course of 20 years, that I had a very clear vision of exactly what I wanted,” Klanecky says. “We did all this during Covid,” Diamond Rio’s Sniadecki adds. “That was a huge challenge, not just for us as a company, but for her as a client. Because none of us knew, really, what things were going to be available, or if we would have the people to do the work, or if the job was going to get shut down.” Since the first phase of the renovation was started in fall 2019, ahead of the pandemic-fueled home remodeling boom, the entire project was completed in about a year. As an added benefit, a new friendship was forged during the renovation: The home’s previous owners moved just across the street. One of them, designer Mark McKnight, became a sounding board for Klanecky’s design ideas as the project evolved. “A friendship blossomed between us ever since then,” Klanecky says. “It almost didn’t feel like [we were] buyer and seller of a house — it almost felt like they were passing along the house to me to continue on.” SP

A friendship developed between Klanecky and the previous homeowners. The dining room mural was painted by designer Mark McKnight, who became a sounding board for ideas as the renovation progressed.

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small space

BIG DESIGN

CHARLOTTE DESIGNERS CREATE SMALL SPACES THAT PACK PLENTY OF PUNCH.

ven the tiniest rooms can have an outsized impact. If you’re not ready to commit to that bold wallpaper or splashy paint color in the living room, why not take a chance in a bathroom, small dining nook or butler’s pantry? “Small spaces are opportunities to take bolder design risks that you wouldn’t otherwise do in a larger, more public space,” says interior designer Brooke Cole. “So take the opportunity to flex your design muscles — or use the expensive wallpaper that you fell in love with but was too pricey for your whole dining room but considerably less investment for a powder room,” Cole adds. “You definitely need to create harmony with a color palette and patterns” when designing small spaces, says interior designer Natalie Papier of Home Ec. “Keep accessorizing to a minimum — think decorative but functional! You can save money by using affordable tile in an interesting pattern for a fun focal point. But don’t forget to play with interesting art and décor.” These bright and bold spaces dreamed up by local designers will make you rethink beige and boring.

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Raising the bar Barrie Benson | photo by Brie Williams

During a renovation, this home was stripped down to the studs — interior designer Barrie Benson conceived the idea for the bar after noticing a small cavity in the architectural plans. The design was inspired by a secret bar concealed behind a living-room wall at Houston’s Menil House, the Philip Johnson-designed Modernist home of legendary arts patrons Dominique and John de Menil. southparkmagazine.com | 111

Going global House of Nomad | photo by Laura Sumrak

“We see a small space as an opportunity for a big impact,” says the design duo of Kelley Lentini and Berkeley Minkhorst of House of Nomad. “Go bold with statement-making wallpaper or a moody paint, don’t fill small spaces with bulky furniture, and choose pieces with clean lines or organic shapes that allow the room to breathe.” This powder room is accented with HON’s own Bali fan mirror crafted with handwoven seagrass, sold through their retail store on East Boulevard or online at shophouseofnomad.com. 112

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Glam it up Charlotte Lucas Interior Design | photo by Chris Edwards

Despite being the mother of four boys, Charlotte Lucas’ client had decidedly feminine taste. The metallic de Gournay wallpaper and vintage sconces reflect the client’s love for both French antiques and Hollywood Regency style. “Creating a fluid design with these juxtaposing styles presented an exciting challenge, and what we wound up with is nothing short of magic,” the designer says. Lucas teamed with builder Stanwick Dunham and Ruard Veltman Architect + Interiors on the project. The powder room sits behind concealed doors covered in Gucci pink heron print wallpaper.

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Classic attic Brooke Cole Interiors | photos by Laura Sumrak

In this Foxcroft home renovation, designer Brooke Cole converted an unused attic into a home office that’s also a cozy retreat for the homeowner to relax and unwind. “I wrapped the sloped ceilings and all of the walls in wallpaper to make the room feel larger and more like a cocoon, if you will,” Cole says. “If your space has weird angles or odd sloped ceilings like this space did — I would envelop the room, both walls and ceiling, in the same paint color or wallpaper. This will visually enlarge the space and let your eye focus on more of the pretty elements versus visual linear distractions. Eliminating crown molding or painting the crown the same color as your walls will also help your ceilings feel visually taller.”

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In the swim Home Ec. | photos by Megan Easterday

Designer Natalie Papier of Home Ec. drew inspiration for her daughter’s bathroom from vintage swim art. Maddie, 10, is an avid swimmer. “The yellow and white cabana stripes in a photo ended up being the tile layout inspiration,” Papier says. “I knew because it was a small space that a continuous pattern would give harmony to design.” Working with contractor Sean Carlin Designs, Papier flipped the layout of the room, moving the vanity and expanding the shower-bath area into one big wet room. The wallpaper on the ceiling is from a collaboration with Hygge & West and Schoolhouse Electric. “I liked the vintage vibes of the pattern but also the pop that green gave the yellow-and-white tile mix.” The strawberry stool, which she found at HomeGoods, became a viral sensation after Papier posted photos on social media. southparkmagazine.com | 117

Sunny spot Matters of Style Designs photo by Erin Comerford Miller

In the cheery breakfast nook of this 1938 Myers Park home, designer Sarah Fisher of Matters of Style Designs maximized space by having a custom banquette built around an original casement window. Since the family had three young boys, Fisher had the cushions upholstered in an easyto-clean blue faux leather fabric. “We wallpapered the walls in a fresh, linear floral pattern and added white linen shades with green velvet trim to the windows,” Fisher says. “Rattan dining chairs, both comfortable and easy to clean, add texture to the space.”

In bloom Muse Noir Interiors photo by Laura Sumrak

Designer Ashley Ross of Muse Noir Interiors created this floral wall in a home office nook for her client who had recently moved from a single-family home with a large office to a townhome. “Choosing this nook for her office was a part of shifting her mindset on not having work, or her role at work, define who she is,” Ross says. “We installed the fresh flower wall using test tubes as a gratitude wall for her growth. Every time it is time for her to tend to a vessel, she is to stop and think of something she’s grateful for.” SP 118

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Welcome Home

Corcoran HM Properties is an award-winning, full-service residential real estate company serving the Carolinas. We have 120 exceptional brokers and an in-house relocation department that manages individual and corporate moves throughout the U.S. and abroad. Founded in 2006, as an independent boutique real estate agency, Corcoran HM Properties quickly grew to be a market leader in the Charlotte metro area. Our firm is locally owned and operated but affiliated with The Corcoran Group in 2021 to gain access to their resources, networking and innovative marketing. The name recognition among consumers and agents within the industry has elevated our customer experience, increased our sales and provided opportunities which greatly benefit our clients. Our goal is to understand the markets from a local and global perspective to help our clients make informed decisions.

When you are ready to make a move, it would be our honor to represent you.

Valerie Mitchener Owner | Broker Licensed in NC & SC valerie@hmproperties | 704.577.8200 hmproperties.com ©2022 Corcoran Group LLC. All rights reserved. Corcoran® and the Corcoran Logo are registered service marks owned by Corcoran Group LLC. Corcoran Group LLC fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each franchise is independently owned and operated.

2021 Sales Agent of the Year

For Sale $1,895,000 | Stonecroft

7409 Stonecroft Park Drive 7 BR | 6.2 BA | 7,898 SQ. FT

SuS an May Broker | Realtor® & Top Producer Licensed in NC & SC susanmay@hmproperties | 704.650.7432 hmproperties.com

Great Room

Swimming Pool

If you are interested in more information or a private tour, please reach out to me!

Celebrating 39 Years in Residential Real Estate

Sold $3,200,000 | Myers Park 2027 Princeton Avenue Charlotte, NC 28207

For Sale

Sold

$2,609,000 3503 Antioch Church Road Weddington, NC 28104

Patty Hendrix Broker | Realtor® & Top Producer Charlotte, North Carolina Licensed in NC & SC patty@hmproperties | 704.577.2066 hmproperties.com

$2,199,500 | Wendover Hills 158 McAlway Road Charlotte, NC 28211

Sold $1,225,000 | Morrocroft Estates 7216 Country View Court Charlotte, NC 28211

Sold

$785,000 | Myers Park 2234 Sharon Road Charlotte, NC 28207

$ 511,500 | Madison Park 4219 Castlewood Road Charlotte, NC 28209

Please reach out anytime if you are considering a move in the Carolinas! It would be my honor to represent you.

be home.

Michael Baker Broker / Realtor® & Top Producer | michael@hmproperties.com | 704.526.9510 | hmproperties.com

The Realtor ® sign that will get you results ©2022 Corcoran Group LLC. All rights reserved. Corcoran® and the Corcoran Logo are registered service marks owned by Corcoran Group LLC. Corcoran Group LLC fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each franchise is independently owned and operated.

Laurel Creek

For Sale 938 Laurel Creek Lane| | $1,550,000 5 BR | 4.1BA | 4,612 SQ.FT. RENDERING

For Sale 942 Laurel Creek Lane| | $1,650,000 4BR | 4.2BA | 4,973 SQ.FT. RENDERING

For Sale

New gated 14-home community just minutes from SouthPark! Built by Goodwin Custom Homes, these stunning homes feature open concept floor plans with soaring ceilings and incredible attention to detail. The primary suites offer luxury baths and secondary bedrooms have en-suite baths and walk-in closets. Laundry rooms are conveniently located on the second level of each plan. Each of the well-designed chef’s kitchens have high-end appliances, beautiful custom cabinetry, walk-in pantry, and an oversized island with additional seating space. A spacious great room with fireplace opens to the kitchen and dining area. There is also a covered back porch with outdoor fireplace option. Additional features include vaulted ceilings, built-ins, hardwood and tile flooring, attached two-car garages, covered porches, On-Demand water heaters, and in-ground irrigation system. Some plans offer an upstairs loft or bonus room, third floor bonus room with many possibilities, screened porch, or finished walk-out basement.

915 Laurel Creek Lane| | $1,495,000 4 BR | 3.1BA | 4,372 SQ.FT. RENDERING

These three homes will be completed in Spring 2022. Eight lots are currently available for you to select your favorite house plan. Some lots offer a view of a wooded creek buffer.

Prices begin at $1,295,000.

If you are interested in more information or a private tour, please reach out anytime!

Patty Rainey

Broker | Realtor® Licensed in NC & SC 704.534.0096 pattyrainey@hmproperties hmproperties.com

live who you are

THE NOLEN TOWNES Welcome to The Nolen Townes, Charlotte’s newest luxury English-cottage-inspired townhomes surrounded by a lush tree canopy in the heart of Myers Park! Constructed by 2021 Builder of the Year, Hopper Communities, these swoon worthy residences define sophistication. Prices begin at $939,000. • • • • • • •

3 or 4 story units with three bedrooms Open concept floor plans 10’ ceilings on the main level 5” hardwood floors in living areas (7” upgrade) High-end finishes Gas fireplace in Living Room (optional) Primary bedroom with spa-like bath

• • • • •

Chef’s kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances Three plans have top-level flex space for a second living area, office, or amazing storage Attached two-car garage with an electric car outlet Outdoor living areas with paver patios and decks; some plans have a rooftop terrace Elevator (optional)

If you are interested in a private tour or more information, please reach out anytime! Maren Brisson - Kuester

Maren Brisson-Kuester Team Maren Brisson-Kuester | Ray Lyles | Jordan Smith | Mike Brisson Licenced in NC & SC 704.287.7072 maren@hmproperties.com hmproperties.com

Under Contract

$619,900 | South Hill 4840 South Hill View Drive 3 BR | 2.1BA | 2,032 SQ.FT.

Please reach out anytime you are ready to make a move in the Carolinas. It would be our honor to represent you.

Peggy Peterson Team - 2021 Team of the Year Peggy Peterson | Kim Antolini Licensed in NC & SC 704.904.6279 | peggypeterson@hmproperties.com 704.608.3831 | kimantolini@hmproperties hmproperties.com ©2022 Corcoran Group LLC. All rights reserved. Corcoran® and the Corcoran Logo are registered service marks owned by Corcoran Group LLC. Corcoran Group LLC fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each franchise is independently owned and operated.

2021 Real Estate Sales Sold

Sold

English Gardens 3612 English Garden Drive 6BR | 7.1BA | $3,105,000 | Listing Agent

Sold

Pharr Acres 2428 Vernon Drive 5BR | 5.1BA | $2,895,000 | Listing Agent

Sold

Seven Eagles 9119 Winged Bourne Rd 6BR | 6.2BA | $2,100,000 | Buyer Agent

Sold

Foxcroft 2050 Stedwick Place 4BR | 3.1BA | $1,235,000 | Listing Agent

Sold

Foxcroft 2317 Sharon Lane 1.3 Acre | $850,000 | Buyer Agent

Eastover

1500 Twiford Place 6BR | 6.1BA | $2,500,000 | Listing Agent

Myers Park 1329 Maryland Avenue 3BR | 4.1BA | $1,050,000 | Buyer Agent

Sold

Myers Park 2048 Brandon Circle 4BR | 3BA | $795,000 | Buyer Agent

Hickory Ridge 6500 Touchwood Drive 3BR | 2BA | $210,000 | Listing Agent

As a native Charlottean, I have a vested interest in our community’s growth and success in the real estate market. Please reach out if you are considering a move!

Sandra Singer Broker/Realtor® & Top Producer Licensed in NC & SC 704.231.8575 sandra@hmproperties.com hmproperties.com ©2022 Corcoran Group LLC. All rights reserved. Corcoran® and the Corcoran Logo are registered service marks owned by Corcoran Group LLC. Corcoran Group LLC fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each franchise is independently owned and operated.

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Family foursome

CANADA-BORN PGA TOUR PLAYER MACKENZIE HUGHES AND HIS WIFE JENNA BALANCE LIFE ON THE ROAD WITH FAMILY TIME IN THEIR ADOPTED HOMETOWN OF CHARLOTTE. by Michael J. Solender photographs by Richard Israel • styling by Whitley Adkins hair and makeup by Josiah Reed • styling assistant Charlotte Stewart

Jenna: Acler Wolcott dress, Showroom; shoes Jenna’s own Mackenzie: Officine Generale seersucker check shirt and Double RL slim selvedge jean, both from Tabor

rofessional golfer Mackenzie Hughes is used to being in the minority. Hughes, 31, is one of a handful of PGA Tour players living in Charlotte and one of less than a dozen Canadians playing on professional golf’s grandest stage. Hughes’ career is on a steady upward trajectory. He has the distinction of being the only golfer with wins on the Canadian Mackenzie Tour (2013 Cape Breton Celtic Classic), the Korn Ferry Tour (2016 Price Cutter Charity Championship) and the PGA Tour, where he won the RSM Classic in 2016. As of this writing, he has 35 Top 25 finishes in 148 PGA Tour events, including a sixth-place finish at last year’s British Open, one of professional golf’s four major tournaments. Hughes represented Canada at the 2020 Olympic games in Tokyo and at press time was ranked 27th in the FedEx Cup 2022 standings, the PGA’s official player ranking system. Should Hughes maintain his ranking, he’ll be a lock for a position with the International team facing the Americans at the 2022 Presidents Cup, a biennial global competition between the United States and a team representing the rest of the world, excluding Europe. Hughes has extra motivation to make the team, as the host for the September event is Charlotte’s Quail Hollow Club, where he would play in his own backyard. The Hamilton, Ontario, native and Ballantyne resident often brings his family — wife Jenna, 32, and sons Kenton, 4, and Cohen, 1 — along with him on tour. SouthPark spoke with Hughes about the joys and pressures of life on tour with the family, connecting with other players, and what he loves about living south of the Canadian border. Comments have been lightly edited.

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PLAYING THROUGH While Mackenzie and Jenna Hughes enjoy life on tour, they always love returning home to the Queen City. DINING OUT “Without the kids? Our favorite place currently is Steak 48. You walk out of there feeling like you’ve eaten way too much, but totally satisfied and you’ve justified it because it’s just so darn good,” Mackenzie says. The couple also loves getting sushi at Jade in Ballantyne or New Zealand Cafe. Other favorites: Supperland, Baku and Barrington’s. KID STUFF “We like to take [the kids out to eat at] CO, Greco Fresh Grille and 131 Main,” Jenna says. “We like Freedom Park, William R. Davie Park and we like the playground at Marvin Park. We like to go to Ballantyne across from the hotel to the small pond and feed the ducks.” Other favorites: Boating at Lake Wylie and Lake Norman and playing golf as a family. SHOPPING “I like to wander at SouthPark Mall,” Jenna says. “For the kids, I like Janie and Jack. I like to shop at Vestique, Sloan, KK Bloom and Nordstrom. I enjoy shopping at Blakeney and Waverly. For the house, I like Ballard Designs.”

How did a Canadian golfer end up in Charlotte? We moved to Charlotte in the fall of 2012. My wife and I met at Kent State University. Jenna (originally from upstate New York) had just gotten a job here. I was pursuing my golf career and needed somewhere that was going to be warm enough in the winter for me to train and practice. This ended up being where we landed — and we have loved every minute of it. It’s hard to imagine us being anywhere else. Charlotte is an attractive city in the sense that it’s a growing city with a lot of families that seem quite like us in that they’re young and blossoming. That was something we noticed right away. As northerners, we appreciate the change in seasons and having that balance of days where we throw on jeans and a thick sweater or jacket with warmer weather in the summer. As we became more and more entrenched in Charlotte, we’ve found the people here have been amazing. It’s a great city, and a great place to raise a family. And we see ourselves here for a very long time. There are very few Canadians currently on the PGA Tour and only a few pros that live in Charlotte. Who do you hang out with? I grew up with a handful of [the Canadian players], and I’ve known many for a long time. There’s a lot of history there. I’ve known Corey Conners since I was 13 years old — we’ve played a lot of golf together and went to university together. We were in each other’s weddings. I’ve known Nick Taylor for a long time. I went to school with Taylor Pendrith. As I go down the list of Canadian players, I consider all of them friends of mine. Here in Charlotte, Harold [Varner III] is a friend of mine, and we play golf when our schedules line up. Webb [ Simpson] is a great guy; I enjoy playing with him as well. Johnson Wagner is another guy who’s fun to be around and I consider a friend. Most every time we play, there’s some side [betting] action. When we’re playing here in Charlotte, we want to have something on the line that makes us have some pride and want to beat the other guy. I’ve been playing a lot of golf at Longview Country Club in Waxhaw. That’s where I play and practice right now, but I would like to get out more at Quail Hollow Club. Do you allow yourself to think about what it might mean to play on the International team at the Presidents Cup here in September? I’m very much embracing the fact that it’s a possibility for me, and it’s something I really want. With this type of goal, my focus is on the day-to-day things I need to do to be my best. If I take care of those things, I like my chances of achieving those bigger things. When I get on the golf course, I don’t think about the Presidents Cup. You’re so occupied with the task at hand that you don’t really allow yourself to do

Jenna: Koch Libby top and Halston Sloan velvet skirt, both from Sloan; belt, stylist’s own; shoes, Jenna’s own Mackenzie: Linen and cotton double-zip vest by Waterville, cobalt blue popcorn stitch crewneck by Ermenegildo Zegna, PT soft-wash stretch jeans, navy woven leather sneakers by Santoni, all from Taylor Richards & Conger 130

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Jenna: Cleobella Rainey mini dress and Flower earrings, both from Sloan Mackenzie: Paul Simon Private Label white linen dress shirt and Brax “Marathon” five pocket pants, both from Paul Simon

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that. But how could it be any better? The Presidents Cup in your adopted hometown and [with] a bunch of friends out there. To be that close to home would be special. Coming off a great year last year and another good year this year, I feel like [my game] is building up quite nicely, but I’m still looking for more. I’m also not content to just be where I’m at. I’d like to keep striving for more. What’s it like behind the ropes for your family, to have Jenna and the boys on the road with you? In the fall of 2016, I got my [PGA] Tour card, and Jenna put in her notice at her job. We’d decided she was going to travel full time with me. And a week later, I won my first tournament on the PGA Tour. It very much validated that decision. Now, they’re with me on tour for most tournaments. As my oldest gets further along with school, we’ll slow down the travel. It’s nice since I get to see them every day, which I know eventually will not be the case. There are many families out there that also travel and have kids similar ages that we’ll hang out with and do fun things with. We also have a day care on the road for our kids. These teachers travel with the Tour and help kids learn and discover things, even from a young age. The environment for families is great. I don’t feel like we are limiting our children … They have friends at home, they have friends on tour. It is a neat dynamic. SP

CONGRATUL ATIONS T O T H E NC MEDIA & JOURNALISM HALL OF FAME CL ASS OF 2022

JACQUELINE CHARLES

JOHN DRESCHER

SUSAN ELLIS

Emmy Award winner, Pulitzer Prize finalist and correspondent at the Miami Herald

Contributing editor for The Assembly and former editor for The Washington Post

Brand director for SAS and the co-founder of Footpath Pictures

SUSAN KING

DRAGGAN MIHAILOVICH

ERNEST H. PITT

Distinguished professor and dean emeritus of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media

Renowned producer for CBS’s 60 Minutes and winner of 11 Emmy Awards

Founder and publisher of The Winston-Salem Chronicle

The annual Hall of Fame celebration supports the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and its work to develop future leaders. Visit nchof.mj.unc.edu to learn more about the Hall of Fame.

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Say cheese

MORE THAN A SOUTHERN SPREAD: PIMENTO CHEESE ISN’T JUST FOR PICNICS ANYMORE. by Katherine Snow Smith

A pimento-cheese trio from Queen Charlotte’s Pimento Cheese Royale

PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER TAYLOR

ven Mick Jagger had to try it. “I sucked down some pimento cheese,” he told thousands of fans at Bank of America Stadium when the Rolling Stones played in Charlotte late last year. The 78-year-old must have tasted the delicacy sometime before or after his much-publicized visit to the Thirsty Beaver Saloon on Central Avenue. Why wouldn’t Jagger order up some pimento cheese? He’s a rock star, not living under a rock. Pimento cheese has appeared on more menus and supermarket shelves in recent years. It’s not just for picnic sandwiches and bridge games anymore, nor is it just a Southern dip. There are countless variations, of course, on the basic ingredients of cheese, mayonnaise and pimento peppers, and North Carolina entrepreneurs are creating distinct varieties that are becoming a staple in refrigerators from coast to coast. “Pimento cheese has been thought of as a regional peculiarity for so long, but it’s something that has taken hold all over,” says John Morgan, CEO of Queen Charlotte’s Pimento Cheese Royale. Morgan’s products are mostly sold in the South, but he has also seen success in Massachusetts, Ohio and nearly two dozen other states. Morgan and four employees make 7,000 10-ounce containers of pimento cheese each week at a 6,000-square-foot warehouse in Charlotte. His lineup includes original, jalapeno, blue cheese and bacon varieties. “It’s like mass psychosis,” he says. “Anybody who tries it — it doesn’t matter where they are from — they realize it’s good.” southparkmagazine.com | 135

Greensboro-based MyThreeSons Gourmet pimento cheese, which comes in original, spicy white cheddar and jalapeno flavors, is sold in small shops and large supermarkets in 20 states, including local Harris Teeters and Whole Foods Market stores. “It’s in Whole Foods in Hawaii, believe it or not,” says CEO Dr. Cheryl Barnett, who is a mother of three sons. “My son was skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho, and it was for sale there. It’s also made it to Big Sky, Montana.”

HOME IS WHERE THE PIMENTO IS Long before pimento cheese gained national popularity, it was a regular on the crustless sandwich circuit and comfort food in grandma’s Formica kitchen. The simple concoction was also a staple in commissaries and lunch pails at Carolinas factories for generations. A pimento cheese pioneer has been Charlotte-based Ruth’s Salads, which has been making its widely distributed spread since 1953. Pimento cheese has come a long way since then. There are pimento cheese quesadillas, pimento cheese on a biscuit or bagel, grilled pimento cheese, pimento cheese on deviled eggs, pimento mac-n-cheese, fried chicken stuffed with pimento cheese and pimento-cheese poppers. Martini drinkers will taste a touch of it in the “Backhanded Compliment” cocktail at Lenoir, the Charleston, S.C., restaurant that Kinston chef Vivian Howard opened last spring. “The head bartender has a terrible allergy to blue cheese, so we stuff our olives with pimento cheese,” says Howard, best known for her PBS series, A Chef’s Life. She credits acclaimed Raleigh chef Ashley Christensen with much of the newfound respect for pimento, along with other Southern favorites. “[She] showed how to put your own spin on it,” Howard says. “Southern food really began being seen nationwide as something worth talking about and exploring more with her.” Howard ships cookbooks and Southern foods nationally through her online store. Many of her customers have Southern roots. “There are Southern expats all over the country,” she says. “Pimento cheese tastes like home. I mean, who doesn’t like a good cheese spread?”

The “Backhanded Compliment” cocktail at Charleston restaurant Lenoir is served with pimento cheesestuffed olives.

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Queen Charlotte’s Morgan has always loved cooking, but he didn’t enjoy pimento cheese as a youth. Things changed when he tinkered with his own recipe while in college. Later, as an art teacher in Union County, he started making big batches of pimento cheese for friends, holidays and Super Bowl parties. “I took some of the things I didn’t like about it, when it was too mayonnaise-y, and when it got completely pulverized into a homogeneous spread, and I turned them on their head.” For kicks, he landed a spot on the Jeopardy! TV show in 2014. He was leading a five-day defending champion heading into the last question, which was in the category of museums. “I teach art. I looked at my friends in the audience like, ‘I’ve got this.’” Had he known Belfast was the home to a Titanic museum, he might not have ended up in the pimento cheese business. But the Final Jeopardy clue was vague. Another player had visited the Irish venue and won. “I ended up winning a couple thousand bucks. If I’d won any

PHOTOGRAPH BY BAXTER MILLER

JUMPSTART FROM JEOPARDY

more than that, I probably wouldn’t have been so smart with it,” Morgan says. “I got enough money to buy a 30-quart mixer, and I was off to the races.” A year later, he quit his job to focus on Queen Charlotte’s. His major breaks were getting rights to supply 140 Food Lion stores in 2017, followed the next year by a deal with Harris Teeter. “We started in a few stores in March 2018, and by the end of 2018 we were in the full Charlotte market.” By 2020, 200 Harris Teeter stores were offering the product. Attending hundreds of holiday shows, women’s shows and food trade shows paid off. “I’m not afraid to make a cold call,” Morgan attests. “We sent samples to every buyer, to every distributor. If they haven’t heard of us, it’s because they haven’t opened their email in a while.” The pandemic slowed growth, but it also made Queen Charlotte’s smarter and leaner. Last year’s final quarter was the company’s best ever. The product is now rolling out in hundreds of Kroger stores as far west as Texas. “We definitely have this (Great) Depression mentality,” Morgan says. “We’ve learned to survive without a lot. We started out not knowing anything about this business, then we had a once-in-a-century pandemic that’s still not over. We are penny pinchers, and we run a tight ship.”

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MY THREE SONS

FARMER’S MARKET DREAM MyThreeSons started with a sample handed to a Fresh Market buyer in Greensboro and encouragement from Barnett’s youngest son, Michael. Back injuries forced her to retire as an orthodontist in 2009 after 14 years. Michael, then 9, reminded his mom that she had always thought that local grocers should carry a homemade pimento cheese brand. She started with plans to rent half a table at the Greensboro Farmers Market for about $15. “It was going to be a little entrepreneurship lesson for him, and he was so excited,” she says. But by the time she passed the required inspection and packaging was ready, no tables were available at the farmers market. So Barnett called The Fresh Market. “I knew they had a reputation for supporting local products,” she says. By October 2010, MyThreeSons pimento cheese was for sale in a limited number of Fresh Market stores in the Triad. Barnett hired demonstrators to hand out samples for a few hours at a time in other stores. The taste tests usually sold out within an hour or two. She landed contracts with Whole Foods, Lowes Foods and Harris Teeter in 2011, and has since moved production from her guest house to a local business incubator. Publix locations started carrying Barnett’s pimento cheese in 2019. One of her sons is the company’s production manager. “Everything that’s happened — every single door that’s opened — is still shocking to me.”

DOOR-TO-DOOR DETERMINATION Loretta Adams has been in the food business since she started waiting tables at a Kernersville seafood restaurant at age 15, but she’s amazed at the progress of her company, Southern Taste Food Products. The UNC Greensboro graduate worked as a caterer until the recession hit. southparkmagazine.com | 137

“It’s like mass psychosis,” says John Morgan, founder of Queen Charlotte’s Pimento Cheese Royale. “Anybody who tries it — it doesn’t matter where they are from — they realize it’s good.” 138

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PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER TAYLOR

John Morgan started Queen Charlotte’s Pimento Cheese Royale after winning “a couple thousand bucks” on Jeopardy!

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MY THREE SONS

“In 2008 when the economy went bust, I lost over half my accounts,” she says. “So I took my grandmother’s chicken salad recipe, put it in a tub and started knocking on doors.” After selling to friends and neighbors, she gave a sample to a local Lowes Foods store manager. The Winston-Salem-based chain put her products in two stores. “Then I started trying different variations of pimento cheese. I went through 10 different recipes and had friends and family trying it,” she says. “I came up with my Carolina Pimento cheese and haven’t changed it.” Adams uses sharp American cheese, mayonnaise and roasted red peppers in her pimento cheese. She added coleslaw, smoked barbecue slaw and potato salad to her offerings. She hired tasters to share the products with customers, who in turn begged store managers to carry Southern Taste brands. Business doubled during the pandemic. “Grocery store shelves went bare. I think people who were used to buying something else had to try us and then they stuck with us,” Adams says. “That’s when we started busting it. I went in at 3 a.m. (to make food), and at 8 p.m. the day ended.” Southern Taste’s products are now sold at most of the 81 Lowes Foods stores, more than a dozen Harris Teeters, a handful of Food Lions and several independent stores. “The main problem we’re having right now is running out of stock.” SP

Honored by the National Association of REALTORS® with the status of REALTOR® Emeritus

COMING SOON

301 KINDLING WOOD LANE MLS# 3833262 | $925,000

A great find for this beautiful all brick 3 story home in popular Marvin Creek. Large two-story foyer leads to private office and formal areas. Gourmet kitchen with granite counter tops, abundance of cabinetry, and new ss appliance package opens to two-story great room overlooking private professionally landscaped flat fenced yard with custom deck. The second level features spacious primary suite with separate sitting area and luxury bath with new quartz twin vanities. The outstanding third floor is a bonus, media, or 5TH br with private bath. Freshly painted and gleaming refinished hardwood flooring in this 4,737 sqft Home situated on 2/3 acre.

CHRIS T. BLACK

REALTOR® / Broker & Top Producer Licensed in N.C. & S.C. Mobile: 704.578.7818 cblack@cottinghamchalk.com COTTINGHAMCHALK.COM/CHRIS-BLACK

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travel | weekend away

Eclectic elegance AN ASHEVILLE BED-AND-BREAKFAST DELIGHTS GUESTS WITH ART, CULINARY EVENTS AND CYCLING PROGRAMS. by Vanessa Infanzon

eorge Rodrigue’s “Lunch at the Club,” a limited edition silkscreen from the Louisiana-born artist’s Blue Dog series, welcomes guests into The Applewood Manor’s parlor. The piece is one of several from the owners’ personal collection adorning the walls of the six-room bedand-breakfast near downtown Asheville, where a mixture of art, antiques and furnishings (such as Italian Sferra linens on luxury Duxiana mattresses) set the stage for contemporary comfort and luxury. Robin and Stephen Collins moved from Austin, Texas, to Asheville in 2018 as part of their retirement plan. Their three daughters were heading to college, and the Collins wanted to find a project they could do together. Opening a bed-and-breakfast fit the couple’s personal and professional interests. “We selected Asheville for the long term,” says Stephen, 56. “We wanted to make an investment into the community.” The Applewood Manor is a short walk from downtown in the Montford Area Historic District, a residential neighborhood of homes built mostly from the 1890s to the 1920s. The Collins integrate cycling, food, wine and corporate leadership — their life’s pursuits — into The Applewood Manor. Guests are treated to a breakfast of homemade breads, fruit and a soufflé served in southparkmagazine.com | 141

the dining room. Homemade chocolate chip and toffee cookies, a family recipe Robin refined to yield the perfect amount of chewiness and crunch, are placed in each guest room. “From the very beginning, we thought about how we wanted to differentiate Applewood Manor,” Stephen says. “We want to have a platform to share our passions with existing friends and new friends.” The Applewood Manor was built in 1912. Historic photographs of the home hang on the walls. It’s been a bed-and-breakfast since the 1980s, one of the longest running in the neighborhood. Over the years, previous owners imprinted their own style, often adding to whatever was already there. The Collins invested $1.5 million in a chef’s kitchen, porch renovations and structural improvements. They replaced much of the furniture to reflect their own vision — antiques and furniture from vintage home-goods retailer 1stDibs decorate the rooms and common areas. “The structure is remarkably intact and faithful to the original vision of the first owner,” Stephen says. “It’s got some great history and some great bones. We try to bring the history of the house into the guest experience.” Stephen is a software executive with 30 years of experience, serving on boards and investing in technology companies. He offers leadership workshops and executive coaching sessions, available to guests who book the services in advance. He’s also an avid cyclist, having raced at the amateur level for 10 years, and even hosts an annual cycling camp in Provence, France. His love of the sport is reflected by the full range of cycling experiences available to guests, 142

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from renting bikes for a self-guided tour to group events, such as a curated ride with a professional cyclist. Guests can try out the folding bikes made by London-based Brompton for an Asheville excursion or, for a fee, rent a 3T racing bike. “I wanted to incorporate cycling because it’s something I do every day,” Stephen says. Robin worked as an interior designer for NYC-based furniture dealer EvensonBest in the late 1990s. Her style is evident in the meticulous details of the rooms, each named for apple varieties including The Macintosh and The Granny Smith. Colorful vintage food and cocktail menus decorate the walls in The Northern Spy, where the theme is French restaurants. “When people walk in, the art is definitely something that pops,” says Robin, 55. “People walk in and they want to know about the house — they want to know about the history. They ask tons of questions. This makes me so happy. Every single thing you look at is personal to us.” Over the last year, the Collins have expanded their culinary offerings by hosting guest chefs, including Mads Refslund, the cofounder of three-Michelin star Noma in Denmark. Refslund cooked using items foraged with Alan Muskat, founder of Asheville-based foraging-education company No Taste Like Home. “The guests were able to work in the kitchen with Mads,” Stephen says. “It was extremely interactive and engaging. Guests and chefs collaborated and learned together.” Robin also offers cooking classes, sharing how to make her signature cookies, breads and dinners with guests. “We did pasta-making with two couples in December,” Robin explains. “They’d never had homemade pasta. Two weeks later, I got an email from one of the couples: They’d bought a pasta machine and were teaching their kids how to make it. I’ve never been more excited and proud in my life.” SP

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swirl

Opera Guild’s Holiday Party Private home Dec. 10, 2021

Opera Guild of Charlotte members held a festive holiday party with plenty of food, drink and music to go around while they drummed up excitement for the new year.

A monthly guide to Charlotte’s parties and galas

Tatyana Thulien and Ethan Uslan

Ynes Olshausen and Charles Rumbough

Natascha Bechtler and Barbara Holt

Gwen Reichbach, Rosalie Spaniel, Chaya Chetty and Karen Oldham

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Bob Gaines and Toni Burke

Pat Farmer and Gary Goodson

Luis Machicao and Christina Melissaris

Peg Povinelli and Karen Oldham

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANIEL COSTON

Pauline Chinnis and Penny Hewett

swirl

A gathering to support Dove’s Nest

A monthly guide to Charlotte’s parties and galas

Private home Dec. 11, 2021

Nelia and Michael Verano and Emily and Bill Oliver welcomed friends to raise awareness for Dove’s Nest, Charlotte Rescue Mission’s addiction recovery facility for women.

Dr. Kim Blanding-Putney and Natalie Frazier Allen

Anne and Dillard Williams

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANIEL COSTON

Nelia Verano, Emily Oliver, Alane Paraison and Esezele Payne

Chad and Amanda Swaringen

Carter and Raj Natarajan

Ken and Holly Schoolmeester

Leandro and Cecilia Manzo

Von Cooper and Keith Cradle

Michelle Neun and Keri Clavin

Marcel and Vironica Dawson

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swirl

A monthly guide to Charlotte’s parties and galas

Burns Night Rural Hill Jan. 29, 2022

Guests toasted all things Scottish during Burns Night, which is celebrated around the world as a tribute to 18th century Scottish poet Robert Burns. During the evening, attendees also celebrated Rural Hill’s own Scottish ancestry with lots of good cheer.

Campbell Coxe, Forest Weir and Andrew Daley

Eric Ferguson

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John Calder and Maurice McIntosh

Sarah Fleenor and Tonia Gregory

Thomas Hotchkiss, Anita Shew, Monique Spittel and Steve Strah

Earleen and Jack Mobley

Desiree Brewer and Bo McIntosh

Niki Holdren and Jessica Bustamante

Jamie and Jack Pressley

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANIEL COSTON

Erin Gilson, Peter Nicholson and Karen Nicholson

Phillips Place offers a variety of upscale and casual outdoor dining options to our patrons. Come enjoy the warm weather and find your place here. THE PALM · PF CHANG’S · RH GALLERY · SOUTHERN PECAN 800 DEGREES/BAR ONE · BONTERRA (coming soon) · LIMANI (coming soon) phillipsplacecharlotte.com

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swirl

A monthly guide to Charlotte’s parties and galas

Dream Gala benefiting Dream On 3 Founder’s Hall Jan. 29, 2022

Dream On 3 returned to Founder’s Hall with a gala that raised more than a million dollars to make sports dreams come true for kids living with life-altering medical conditions.

Trey Ellis, Destiny Everett and Robert Kirk

Dream Kid Jabron

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Jon and Ruby DuBay, Kevin and Allyson Oswandel

Diane Lindsey, Stephanie Keen, Emma Lindsey, Victoria Lindsey

Melanie and Brad Huneycutt

Dan and JaimiAnn Hogan

Hilary and Shaun Wheeler

Sandy Starnes and Carmen Albu

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANIEL COSTON

Sarah Riddle, Madison Harkey, Olivia Eudy. Cassidy Flowe and Jessica Ribelin

Pick up a copy at these fine stores: Diamonds Direct, Elizabeth Bruns, Fink’s Jewelers, Windsor Jewelers, B.D. Jeffries, Paul Simon, Chez Marie, John Dabbs, Alexia’s Bridal Boutique, SouthPark Mall and more.

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@weddings_by_southpark AB-AD-SPARK_April22

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swirl

A monthly guide to Charlotte’s parties and galas

Heart of Greater Charlotte Heart Ball benefiting the American Heart Association NASCAR Hall of Fame Crown Ballroom Feb. 12, 2022

One of Charlotte’s longest-running galas, the Heart Ball returned for its 64th fundraiser in grand style. The ball raised more than $1.8 million to support programs that improve cardiovascular health.

Sadie Chahulski

Gary Michel, Ebonee Bailey and Erin Link

Emerson Moseley and Jennifer Hunt

Peter Levison and Lisa Dale

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Julie and Dan Soto

Susan and Mark Barbaro

Dr. Tom and Ginnie Barringer, Dr. John and Jane Pasquini

Caitlin Flanagan and Kyle Cohoon

Kassi Rose and Scott Werner

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANIEL COSTON

Robby and Brittney Bauman, Ashley Daley and Charles Fitzpatrick

spring

D R E S S

S O P H I S T I C AT E D

C O D E

E L E G A N C E

6822-F PHILLIPS PLACE CT | PHILLIPS PLACE | CHARLOTTE NC 28210 | 980.819.6100 | BELLEZZA-BOUTIQUE.COM CALL TODAY TO SCHEDULE A COMPLIMENTARY WARDROBE CONSULTATION WITH A STYLIST TO COORDINATE YOUR WARDROBE WITH A NEW AMAZING BELLEZZA LOOK!

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| gallery

THE CALM OF THE WILD

SOUTHPARK

the pages of I Wish For You, a children’s book written by her husband, David Wax. The book marries Blumenthal’s serene wildlife art and landscapes to Wax’s uplifting message about being strong, confident and happy. Blumenthal creates with mission in mind, too: She donates 10% of profits from Tiny Toes Design to wildlife conservation groups. And when a national publisher recently picked up I Wish For You, the couple worked with local nonprofits like Promising Pages to give away thousands of books they self-published to Charlotte children. SP I Wish For You is set for release wherever books are sold on April 5, including online at tinytoesdesign.com

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF BRETT BLUMENTHAL

by Sharon Smith

t’s busy season for all the wild moms out there. With the greening of spring, the mothers of nature get to work preparing their young to thrive in this new-to-them world. This tender space is where Charlotte artist Brett Blumenthal draws inspiration for her wildlife series on moms and babies. The birth of her own son nine years ago planted the seed. “My art career began because of him,” says Blumenthal, who owns Tiny Toes Design, an online collection of art, gifts and decor for all ages. When she couldn’t find nursery decor that she thought would appeal to both babies and adults, she created her own. “To see him enjoy it to this day means the world to me. His bedroom has become a rotating gallery of my art!” Her works can also be seen throughout

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Glacier National Park Landscape 2

Please join us for our Trunk Show Thursday, April 28th 10:00am - 5:00pm The perfect time to shop for a keepsake for mom or for your graduate.

Ready to Relax?

Escape to the Lake

Lake Norman’s Premier Yacht Club is closer than you think.

Cornelius, North Carolina www.PeninsulaYacht.com | 704-892-9858

April SouthPark 2022

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