17 minute read
The first & the finest
THE FIRST AND THE FINEST
RESIDENTS REMEMBER THE ALLURE OF KEOWEE KEY
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story by Brett McLaughlin
Since its inception, Keowee Key has been a place for families to gather. In August 1998 some 45 members of Jeanette “Parky” and Jay Dodge’s family gathered for the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary. Pictured in the top photo taken in The Club foyer are Jay and Parky with their eight children: front, left to right, Susie Cassidy, Becky Mollet, Mary Pat Heintzman and Laura Havran, and back row, Mike Dodge, Chel Miller, Jay and Parky, Cindy Smith and Jim Dodge. In the bottom photo are: back row, left to right, grandchildren Margaret Havran, Rebecca Heintzman, Jay and Parky, Jon Heintzman and Lisa Havran, and front row, Patrick Dodge, Joe Heintzman, Bill Dodge, Tony Dodge and Andrew Havran.
A note from the editor: As Keowee Key concludes a year-long celebration of its 50th anniversary, much has been said and written about the history, development and even the future of Lake Keowee’s inaugural planned community. Upstate Lake Living could not let this occasion pass without also acknowledging its significance. However, rather than repeating what so many have already shared, we have chosen to let several of the community’s own — some of them second generation Keowee Key residents — share their recollections and anecdotes. We hope you enjoy their comments. A special thanks goes to Christine de Vlaming, director of marketing for Keowee Key, for both background materials and for arranging interviews with residents. Thanks also to Laura Havran for use of many of the photos that accompany this article. O ne-third of the people living in Keowee Key have moved to the community in the past three years. Most of them would probably agree with longtime resident Dr. Wayne Hobin’s assessment that Keowee Key “represents the most diverse lakefront community anywhere in the U.S. … has physically grown to meet the needs of (its) expanding membership (and) still offers good value for the money.”
Few of these newcomers, however, can bring the historical perspective to that assessment that these folks possess …
JERRY & MYRA ESKEW
Before Jerry married Myra in 1969, he was playing baseball at Clemson University. He grew curious about all the logging trucks on the highway with red mud on their tires. That curiosity eventually got the best of him, and he followed that red mud to the river valley south of Salem where he found a massive piece of land being cleared. Friends would tell him, “Someone’s going to build a nuclear plant.”
Having fun has always been a priceless Keowee Key amenity. In the mid-1990s Ron and Marilyn Pilon (left) and Parky and Jay Dodge posed in The Club circle before a ’50s party.
— JERRY ESKEW
In 1971, Jerrry’s aunt, who worked for Piedmont Gas Co., was contacted about her interest in buying a lot in a new lakefront development. She was not. However, her recently married nephew was, so she shared her purchaser’s lottery ticket with Jerry. The next spring, he was standing alongside Realtec Inc. CEO Dick Ford in a boat eyeballing lots that were for sale.
“I must have said 200 times, ‘I want to buy that lot.’ And he kept saying it was sold,” Jerry recalled, noting that he told Ford he was supposed to be buyer number 104. “So, he says to me that some folks were buying several lots. Well, I was young, and the lots were selling for $15,900. Guess what? I bought one.”
Jerry and his new bride loved to water ski.
“I built a dock in my driveway in Greenville and brought it over to High Falls Park,” he said. “I brought along a case of beer, and a bunch of guys playing softball helped me get it in the water. We dragged it about a mile to the lot.”
Jerry and Myra would ski off that dock, and he and his brother would fish from it.
“I lived on that dock for years,” he laughed. “There were a lot of Christmas trees and chicken bones under it.”
The Eskews would build a home in 1977 only to have it burn the following year. They would not rebuild for 20 years. Today, their daughter lives in that second home, and they took up full-time residence nearby in December 2020.
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Before it was a retirement community, Keowee Key was billed as a vacation resort. Realtec CEO Dick Ford changed that for good in July 1980 when he ran his first ads, like the one pictured above, for a South Carolina retirement community in the Wall Street Journal.
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BILL & GRACE HOLZHAUER
Like Jerry, Bill Holzhauer knew about Lake Keowee long before he and his wife became property owners and residents.
In the mid-70s, one of Bill’s friends went on a preliminary site survey for a small chemical plant in the Carolinas. On his return, he described seeing several new lakes built by Duke, with little or no development around them.
“He walked into my office, shut the door and said, ‘Get every dollar we can find. No one has found these lakes.’ I was in the middle of my career, had four teenagers who were going to want to go to college. That was the end of that discussion,” Bill recalled.
Over the next 20 years, the Holzhauers would consider dozens of lake communities. Eventually, an ad Ford ran in the Wall Street o: (864) 990-4355 c: (770) 856-0111 sguthman@banksouth.com www.sueannguthman.com
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105A Ram Cat Alley 105A Ram Cat Alley, Seneca, SC 29678 Seneca, SC 29678 NMLS: 200802MLO NMLS: 200802
— BILL HOLZHAUER
The South Marina Pool was a favorite of many early Keowee Key members. Pictured at a 1991 Jay and Parky Dodge family reunion are Havran, Heintzman and Dodge grandchildren. Journal got their attention. On August 1, 1986, they were standing on a deck looking out at Pinnacle, Sassafras and three more distant mountain ranges. They made their retirement investment that day.
It didn’t take long for the couple who grew up about 30 miles west of Manhattan to realize that life in the South was going to be a little different.
“I remember a discussion with our building contractor as he described why his work crew would not be available the following Monday morning,” Bill said, rattling off a list. “‘Dave is in a bluegrass band, and they have their first gig north of the Mason-Dixon line. They want to spend an extra day at the Jersey shore. ‘Sam wants to get some practice in for the next fishing competition.’ ‘It’s the last day of bow hunting season, so Joe is taking it off.’ And, finally, ‘Robert wants to go to the start of his sister’s murder trial’.”
LAURA & DICK HAVRAN
Laura Havran’s dad, Jay Dodge, was a grain broker in Peoria, IL. As he traveled the country for work, he was always on the lookout for the perfect place for his wife, Jeanette (Parky), and him to retire. Together, they had discovered and fallen in love with the Raleigh/Chapel Hill area of North Carolina.
Jay retired in 1987 but there was no buyer for their home. After a brief sojourn in Spain, they returned to the States. When they spotted a Wall Street Journal ad for a three-day, two-night discovery package at a retirement community in South Carolina — with a half-day boat rental included — they said, ‘Why not?’
“It was kind of a lark; just a three-day getaway,” said Laura, who was already grown and living away from home at the time.
What they saw, however, turned their eyes away from North Carolina.
“They fell in love with the lake and the community,” she said. “They came home, sold the big old house they had raised eight children in and bought a 1,500-square foot, twobedroom house in Keowee Key. Mom said she was done cleaning, and no one was boomeranging home.”
The next spring Laura and a sister came down on business. When they saw the beauty of the lake and mountains and learned of the amenities Keowee Key offered, they understood their parents’ decision.
For the next many years Laura would come for a week or two every summer. Many of those trips involved Dick and the couple’s children.
“My parents didn’t golf or play tennis, but they loved to walk on the leisure trail by the lake and go to the pool,” she said, recalling she too enjoyed using the original pool at the South Marina where the first club and restaurant were located.
Every two to three years the entire Dodge family — eight children and 14 grandchildren — would gather at the lake. One such gathering included the last July Fourth fireworks put on by Keowee Key.
“There were dozens of pontoon boats filled with people watching the fireworks from the water, and the lawn was full of people with tons of games for the kids and adults,” she reminisced. “We sat on the deck at the conference center on the point. That was the last time they had the big fish boil.”
Typically, 30 or more members of the family would attend reunions, but in 2008 some 45 people, including cousins, came to mark Jay and Parky’s 60th wedding anniversary. Laura’s son was also married that weekend at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Seneca.
“We wanted to have a party at the club for the folks, but Mom said no,” Laura recalled. “She said the wedding reception could be the big party. I think she may have invited about 15 (additional) couples who were their friends.”
In 2014, the year after her mother died and the year of her father’s death, Laura and Dick bought their own home in Keowee Key.
“All of our children love to remember the events and enjoy the views when they come to visit. It’s still such a beautiful place,” she said, noting that a fourth generation of the Dodge family is now visiting.
A sister lives less than a mile down the road.
“We call it paradise,” Laura said.
MAGGIE GRIFFEN-KAVRAN
One of Maggie (Kavran) and Bill Griffen’s first encounters at Keowee Key didn’t go all that well, but it turned out to be an anomaly.
“Bill (now deceased) and I purchased our lot in Keowee Key on Easter weekend in 1987.
— LAURA HAVRAN
To Our Lake Keowee Neighbors
In March 2023, Duke Energy will be conducting lake structure inspections along Lake Keowee’s shoreline as part of our commitment to help ensure proper maintenance of these facilities.
Lakefront neighbors will receive additional information about the permitting process in the coming months. In the meantime, you can learn more and read the latest edition of Keowee Currents at duke-energy.com/KeoweeNeighbor.
We were on a house-hunting trip and his boss had purchased the house we wanted in Clemson, so since we were staying in Tall Ships, we decided to see what Keowee Key had to offer — and the rest is history,” Maggie said.
“We were young, in our 30s,” she added, “and I was actually told, ‘You don’t belong here. I hope you don’t have kids’.”
That proved to be a one-time negative encounter, and Maggie would eventually respond by becoming president of the Newcomers’ Club.
Bill rented a Captain’s Walk condo in June 1987. She joined him in January 1988 as they built their first home on Smooth Sail. They quickly made friends and settled into what proved to be a welcoming community.
“So many doors were opened, and we met so many nice people” she said. “We loved the entertainment at the club.”
“If you’re bored here, it’s your own fault” noted the current president of the Seneca Woman’s Club.
CHARLIE AND SUSAN ROBISON
So much of what Susan Robison loved about visiting Keowee Key after her parents — Richard and Jean Humphreys — moved from West Virginia in 1987 continues to impress her today.
“We were all avid water skiers, and it was ideal for the sport,” she said, noting that her parents’ home in Tall Ships is her home today.
“I have memories of the original club house on the point with the grand piano in the dining room and a pianist providing nightly entertainment,” she told organizers of Keowee’s 50th celebration. “Celebrating the Fourth of July fireworks on our boat off the marina and realizing we were getting too close to the launch site when hot embers started hitting the water around us. The miles of green shoreline; seeing hundreds of turkey buzzards in the trees on an island on the lake one fall … and hours of slalom skiing on water like glass.
The South marina was a focal point of activity during the early years of Keowee Key. While many, such as these members of the Dodge family, enjoyed pontoon boats, water skiing was also very popular given the “few” numbers of boats on the lake at the time.
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“We watched the Bad Creek project grow. We got to tour the turbines and entire underground operation before the lake became operational. The trucks looked like my brother’s Matchbox toys. Life was much simpler back then,” she said, recalling ducks eating toads on the pea gravel streets.
Even though she was young, she remembers being accepted in the community.
“We talked to everyone. We knew all the neighbors. Everyone was so good, so kind.”
WAYNE HOBIN, MD
It was 1982, when Wayne Hobin’s parents retired and headed back to South Carolina, buying at 21 Mainsail and staying until 2002.
Writing to the 50th anniversary committee, he recalled “If you went to the 123 Bypass in those days, there was nothing there except for the Executive Inn near … and that small strip mall across from the current Wendy’s. Seneca ‘downtown’ was where you went to the IGA for groceries. If you wanted booze, residents would carpool down to Greenville to Green’s Liquors ... There was a lot of carpooling.
“There was a real sense of community among the pioneers. Everyone waved and smiled at each other … the ‘reservation,’ as Keowee Key was known by the locals, was a very happy place.
“Mom and Dad were big into the dance club scene. They hosted a huge St. Patrick’s Day feast at their home. (Dad was the Irishman my mother’s Calvinistic family tolerated.) It was a traveling party most every night somewhere in the community.”
Hobin himself purchased a lot in 1995. Building a home, he learned was different down South.
“I had built many homes in my past, so I knew what was good and what to avoid,” he said. “… I saw a lot of strange things around here such as no flashing, electrical boxes overloaded with wiring, unshielded transformers placed in electrical boxes, some wiring not grounded, weird plumbing and so forth. It was almost comical.
“On the day I was moving into my house, my new site inspector came over and told me to cease and desist as my house, she had somehow discerned, was four feet too high. My original site inspector had to come over and explain that was not the case,” he said. “That was fortunate since I couldn’t see taking a chainsaw and giving my house a four-foot haircut. Shortly after that a man from the county showed up with a clipboard. He said he was there to do an inspection. I told him it was too late, but he could look around all he wanted. He acted very official but there really wasn’t too much to visualize at that point. He signed the Certificate of Occupancy and left me with the warning not to sue him if the house burned down!” n
The first Keowee Key lots were sold in 1972, but the development industry was crippled two years later by an OPEC-induced oil crisis. In 1974 Dick Ford was hired and appointed CEO of Realtec. By 1975 positive changes were underway at Keowee Key and, by summer 1980, Ford was running ads for property in his “retirement community” in the Wall Street Journal.
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