WOMEN OF PINBALL
FUN GLAMPING SPOTS NEARBY +
It is with great anticipation and the utmost delight that we invite you to join us for the Parade of Homes, a most splendid occasion, celebrating the art of fine living and exquisite home design, where elegance and grandeur will grace every room.
In the spirit of Bridgerton, prepare to be enchanted by an array of stunning residences, each one more captivating than the last. We eagerly await your presence as we unveil our Diamond of the Season, built by the renowned Legacy Custom Homes in the much-esteemed neighborhood of Budleigh East.
September 28-29, October 4-6 and 11-13 Noon to 5:00 p.m. The Tudor Manor 2646 Marchmont Street Raleigh, North Carolina 27608
Kindly mark your calendars and prepare to be swept away in an affair of impeccable taste and timeless allure.
Leave Inspired. Come to Look.
“
— Mike Cavanaugh, Shop Manager
SAT, NOV 23, 2024 | 8PM
MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL, RALEIGH
Experience the legend live in concert with your North Carolina Symphony performing all her hits, including “Midnight Train to Georgia,” “If I Were Your Woman,” “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” and so many more.
Concert Sponsors: The Forest at Duke | WRAL-TV5
Thanksgiving Weekend
WED, NOV 27, 2024 | 4PM
FRI, NOV 29, 2024 | 3 & 7:30PM
SAT, NOV 30, 2024 | 3 & 7:30PM
MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL, RALEIGH
A must-see family holiday concert to usher in the magic of the season with spellbinding grace and daredevil feats, contortionists, and acrobats performing on stage—and 40 feet above it.
Sitting on my friend Kelli’s porch, left. We will miss our summer interns this fall! We hope they learned a lot about journalism — and foosball.
One of my favorite things about where we live is the porch culture. From the first days we moved here, we’d be out front — in the mornings with coffees while the kids chalked hopscotch down the sidewalk, or in the evenings having our weekly Pizza Night dinner. It was the perfect way to get to know our neighbors, gathering snippets of conversation as they walked by with their dogs or their families.
Our porch is lovely, but it’s pretty narrow, which might explain why I’m more likely to find myself on a friend’s porch than on my own. One neighbor has a lovely wraparound porch with ferns shading the seating in the corner, so we spend a lot of time there. The couple on one corner of our block is often on their side porch with their martinis, and it’s easy to find oneself lingering there for a nightcap just when we intended to relieve the babysitter. On the other corner, we often pop by to pet our two favorite dogs and wind up hanging out for hours, even after the puppies have gotten bored of us.
Part of the reason the porch is the perfect place to hang out is that you don’t have to stress about cleaning up or worry what your friends may think of the chaos inside. In this season of life, when our kitchen table is often covered in arts and crafts projects and the front hallway
is filled with backpacks and shoes, the porch is a space that’s blessedly free of “to do” lists. (I know most of my friends don’t care if my home is tidy, but I was raised in a family where “company’s coming!” meant a cleaning blitz around the house.)
The porch also carries very little expectation that you’ll be “entertaining.” Whatever’s cold is what you’re drinking; if someone’s just harvested tomatoes or figs, they’re on the table. If you get the timing right, you might end up with a taste of what’s for dinner. Now that the kids are older, they can pop inside to hang with their contemporaries while the grown-ups chat — but just as often as not, they’ll plop down, too, and tune in to the adult conversation.
I’m always happy come September, when folks are back home from their summer travels and the evenings cool down just enough to want to relish them. It’s the perfect season to throw something icy in a glass and head outside to catch back up with the neighborhood.
Ayn-Monique Klahre Editor
SEPTEMBER 2024
Editor
AYN-MONIQUE KLAHRE ayn-monique@waltermagazine.com
Creative Director LAURA PETRIDES WALL laura@waltermagazine.com
Associate Editor ADDIE LADNER addie@waltermagazine.com
Contributing Writers
Catherine Currin, Jim Dodson, Mike Dunn, Ilina Ewen, Cassandra May Howell, David Menconi, Liza Roberts, Rachel Simon, Katherine Snow Smith
Contributing Poetry Editor Jaki Shelton Green
Contributing Copy Editor Finn Cohen
Contributing Photographers
Justin Kase Conder, Liz Condo, Bryan Regan, Trey Thomas
Contributing Illustrators
Justin Leitner, Gerry O’Neill, Lyudmila Tomova
Publisher DAVID WORONOFF
Advertising Sales Manager JULIE NICKENS julie@waltermagazine.com
Senior Account Executive & Operations CRISTINA HURLEY cristina@waltermagazine.com
Finance STEVE ANDERSON 910-693-2497
Distribution JAMES KAY
Inquiries WALTER OFFICE 984-286-0928 info@waltermagazine.com
Address all correspondence to: WALTER magazine, 421 Fayetteville Street, Suite 104 Raleigh, N.C. 27601
Interns
Sydney Brainard, Margaret Devitt, Elaine McManus, Henry Thomas
WALTER is available by paid subscriptions for $36 a year in the United States, as well as select rack and advertiser locations throughout the Triangle. Subscribe online at waltermagazine.com/subscribe
For customer service inquiries, please email us at customerservice@waltermagazine.com or call 984-286-0928.
WALTER does not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
Please contact Ayn-Monique Klahre at ayn-monique@waltermagazine.com for freelance guidelines.
Owners
JACK ANDREWS, FRANK DANIELS III, DAVID WORONOFF In memoriam FRANK DANIELS JR.
© WALTER magazine. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the copyright owner. Published 12 times a year by The Pilot LLC.
“Thank you for capturing the essence of our home and design! It is an honor to be featured in the August issue.’”
— Lilian Gomide
“Good article on some of Andy’s personal and athletic accomplishments. Congratulations to an all-time Wolfpack great!”
— J. W. Isenhour
“Great article about a great competitor by a great writer!”
— Caroline Vinson Carr
This month, kick off the fall performing arts season, enjoy musical festivals and get a peek at the area’s most unique and trend-forward homes.
GEAR UP! Raleigh’s Capital Area Greenway System offers more than 100 miles of paths for running, walking and biking. If you don’t have a bike of your own — or yours needs a tune-up — swing by the Walnut Creek Trail at North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus to visit our area’s first Bike Library. It’s owned and operated by Cameron Zamot, who sold his car when he moved here in 2022 and relies solely on his bike as transportation. “Using our easy and beautiful trails to get around has had such a positive impact on my life,” he says. In December 2023, Zamot retrofitted a shipping container to serve as a bike rental shop and full-service bike repair program. He set up at Lake Raleigh in May with plans to be open year-round. “I’ve done everything from fixing flats to hydraulic brake bleeds,” Zamot says. “The more people I can help get on their bikes, the more people benefit.” Open Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.; visit thebikelibrary.com for more info. — Addie Ladner
WALTER’s list of things to see, do and experience this month.
by ADDIE LADNER
Sept. 10 - 22 | Various times
Fans of the movie Bull Durham will love this adaptation of the 1980s baseball classic by Theatre Raleigh. Written by Ron Shelton, who also wrote the original film’s script, Bull Durham, A New Musical will “check all the boxes — the famous lines, scenarios and, of course, the love triangle — but with a musical theater vernacular,” says theater founder Lauren Kennedy. Expect an all-star cast, featuring Tony nominee Carmen Cusack, Broadway stars Nik Walker and John Behlmann, and Raleigh’s own Ira David Wood III. “We try to create a magical mix of local veterans and Broadway professionals,” says Kennedy. The show will be at Duke University’s Reynolds Theatre, which she hopes will reach a wide audience but feel intimate and unique. “We’re showing people what it would look like on a Broadway stage,” she says. From $48; 125 Science Drive, Durham; theatreraleigh.com
Sept. 1 - 15 | Various times
Set in the late 1500s, this comedy starts with Nick and Nigel Bottom, brothers on an ambitious journey to write a knockout play and reach Shakespeare-level fame. When a fortune teller predicts that the future of theater will include song and dance, the duo challenge themselves to write the first-ever musical. The result is a bawdy, cringey play-within-a-play full of references to the Bard and absurd moments. From $26; 301 Pogue Street; raleighlittletheatre.org
Sept. 5 - 7 | Various times
Hopscotch is our city’s homegrown indie music festival, with dozens of
acts over two main stages and indoor venues over the course of three days. This year’s headliners are singer and guitarist St. Vincent, Atlanta songwriter Faye Webster and Alabama indie act Waxahatchee. The festival also includes up-and-coming North Carolina musicians like Blue Cactus, Fancy Gap, Lonnie Walker and Indigo
de Souza. In addition to the ticketed music festival, keep an eye out for the often-free day parties at area bars and restaurants featuring local talent to fill the whole weekend with new-to-you tunes. From $159; downtown Raleigh; hopscotchmusicfest.com
Sept. 6 & 20 | 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Starting this month through December, North Carolina State University’s Gregg Museum of Art + Design is hosting a series for people to express themselves in a safe space through hands-on art projects. Leading the series is Melinda Abrams, a teacher, artist and founder of NC State’s My Intent Project, which fosters health
All information is accurate as of press time, but please check waltermagazine.com and the event websites for the latest updates.
Sept. 14 | 8:30 a.m.
“Our greenways are a signature amenity that differentiates Raleigh from other places,” says Beverley Clark, chair of the city’s parks recreation and greenway advisory board and founder of the Friends of Raleigh Greenways (FRoG). On Sept. 14, FRoG is celebrating the completion of the final extension of the Crabtree Creek Trail, which closes the gap between Umstead Park and the Neuse River. “It has spectacular elevated switchbacks and a beautiful suspension bridge,” says Clark. Join FRoG for a 5K race or 10-mile bike ride, or watch the little ones parade across the new bridge. Meteorologist Elizabeth Gardner will host the event, which also includes a DJ and food trucks. Proceeds will go toward public art installations along the greenway. “We are eager for more citizens to understand the importance of our greenways,” says Clark. “They’re essentially Raleigh’s largest park, connecting people and places from one end of the city to the other.”
$20 to race; free to attend festival; parking lot of Grubb Ventures, 5171 Glenwood Avenue; friendsoftheraleighgreenway.org
Sept. 12 - 29 | Various times Carolina Ballet is kicking off its 20242025 season by debuting two works at Fletcher Opera Theater. Enjoy George Balanchine’s Scotch Symphony, a dance inspired by the verdant lure of Scotland’s highlands. “Between the music, sets and choreography, it’s hard not to get all wrapped up in a world of utter romanticism,” says Carolina Ballet artistic director Zalman Raffael. It’s paired with Ludwig van Beethoven’s THe Creatures of Prometheus, a composition first performed in the early 1800s that is believed to be Beethoven’s only work created specifically for ballet. From $28; 2 E. South Street; carolinaballet.com
Sept. 13 | 4 - 8:30 p.m.
and wellness through creativity. In this month’s first session, themed Community Building, participants will create a work of art together and discuss each others’ contributions. The second session, Resilience and Resolution, will see participants working together to create a wood-block mural. Free but registration required; 1903 Hillsborough Street; arts.ncsu.edu
Select Thursdays | 6 - 8 p.m.
As summer fades to fall, spread out on a blanket at this free concert series in Moore Square. On the last three Thursdays of the month, Downtown
Raleigh Alliance will host local and regional jazz musicians. Sept. 12 features the Gregg Gelb Jazz Quartet, led by Gelb, who has been a jazz musician and composer in Raleigh since the 1980s. On Sept. 19 comes Thrio, a swing-loving modern jazz group made up of Andrew Berrison, Paul Creel and Donovan Cheatham. On Sept. 26 hear award-winning Durham musician Al Strong, who’s known for his skills on the trumpet. Food trucks will be on site and beer and wine will be available for purchase. Free; 201 S. Blount Street; downtownraleigh.org
WALTER’s signature speaker summit is back for the 10th time! WINnovation is a celebration of women and innovation in Raleigh and the Triangle held at The Umstead Hotel & Spa. Enjoy professional and personal development workshops, networking, cocktails and a sit-down dinner while listening to five keynote speakers share captivating stories and wisdom. This year’s lineup includes president of the NC Football Club Francie Gottsegen, CEO of Southeast Raleigh Promise Yvette Holmes, Raleigh Chief of Police Estella Patterson, visual artist Precious Lovell and North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences director Denise Young. From $150; 100 Woodland Pond Drive; waltermagazine.com/ winnovation
Sept. 14 | 10 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Arguably the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science’s most anticipated event, BugFest is a daylong festival full of insect-themed activities for the whole family. This year’s VIPs are the Lepidopterans — the order of winged insects like butterflies and moths. Go behind the scenes of the museum’s viral Ant Lab (a popular channel on YouTube) to learn how they produce their wild entomology videos. Race cockroaches, get close to butterflies and visit a number of booths designed to entertain and educate. If you’re hungry, check out the Café Insecta,
where local food trucks prepare dishes to celebrate entomophagy — the eating of bugs. Free; 11 W. Jones Street; naturalsciences.org
Sept. 14 | 8:30 a.m.
A remarkable event and fundraiser for the ALS community is back for the 11th year. The Sola Hot Mini 5K, hosted by the North Raleigh cafe Sola in honor of their late owner Jeanne Luther, has drawn more than 1,000 participants each year and raised more than $600,000 to date to help find a
cure for the disease. The race starts and ends at the cafe and weaves in and around the nearby neighborhoods. From $40; 7705 Lead Mine Road; solahotmini5k.com
Sept 15 | 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Spend an entire day celebrating the Triangle’s modern residential architecture. This year NC Modernist’s Modapalooza home tour will showcase eight sleek, light-filled homes in Durham, Hillsborough and Raleigh, all designed by female architects including Raleigh’s own Erin Sterling Lewis, Rebecca Necessary and Katherine Hogan. Breakfast and lunch are included and tourgoers travel on a comfortable, bathroom-equipped bus, a great opportunity to get to know other architecture fans and glean inspiration. $179; 800 Park Offices Drive, Research Triangle Park; ncmodernist.org
Sept. 18 | 5:30 p.m.
When powerful South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was convicted of murdering his son and wife, his trial drew international attention. Wall Street Journal reporter and Raleigh resident Valerie Bauerlein was there for it all — and now she’s released the definitive book on the murders, The Devil at His Elbow. Join Bauerlein and WALTER founding editor Liza Roberts over light appetizers and beverages for an intimate Q&A, book reading and signing opportunity. From $25; Theatre in the Park, 107 Pullen Road; waltermagazine.com/savethedate
Sept. 17 | 8 - 10 a.m.
Get to know the people and institutions behind our rich cultural arts scene at Marbles Kids Museum’s Venture Hall. Hosted by the United Arts Council, the morning includes performances by Enloe High School’s Jazz Quartet, announcements of this year’s arts grants recipients and the presentation of the first-ever United Arts Champion Award. Pineapple Sol will provide coffee and pastries. From $25; 201 E. Hargett Street; unitedarts.org
Sept. 18 - 20 | Various times
What makes a house feel like a home? For some it’s a cushy couch for family movie nights or a dining room table topped with cut flowers for weekend breakfasts. But a comfortable living space isn’t the reality for many in Wake County, and The Green Chair
project continues its mission to combat that. Their annual fundraiser, Chairity, pulls talent and donations from local interior designers and home furnishing businesses into an event that’s part inspiration, part sale, by creating shoppable vignettes. From $35; 1853 Capital Boulevard; thegreenchair.org/chairity
Sept. 21 | 12 - 4 p.m.
Foodscaping pioneer and horticulturist Brie Arthur is hosting an open garden and seed sale at her home in Fuquay-Varina. Shop cool-season flowers, vegetables and cover crops, with seed available from dozens of plants including larkspur, poppies, bachelor’s button, radish, carrot and red clover. This event requires no registration and runs rain or shine, promising inspiration for the upcoming growing season. Free; 7624 & 7628 Troy Stone Drive, Fuquay-Varina; briegrows.com
A luxury, rental life plan community, Hayes Barton Place will offer residents exceptional amenities and an unparalleled lifestyle in one of Raleigh’s most sought-a er locations. With the community scheduled to open early 2025 and more than 80% of our residences reserved, now is the time to discover the benefits of Hayes Barton Place.
Sept. 24 - 26 | Various times
Back for its fifth and final year, the International Bluegrass Music Association will host its annual industry conference in Raleigh. In the evenings, catch the IBMA Bluegrass Ramble, a showcase of musicians at venues throughout downtown. The conference is followed by the two-day World of Bluegrass festival downtown full of arts, culture and, of course, bluegrass! Headliners on the main stage at Red Hat Amphitheater include Sierra Ferrell and Sam Bush on Friday and Steep Canyon Rangers with Chatham County Line on Saturday; emerging artists will play sets at the stages along Fayetteville Street. In between all the sounds of the banjo, fiddle and harmonica, explore Artsplosure’s Art Market along Fayetteville Street, with wares from potters, jewelers and other
makers for sale. Free for festival, from $25 for Ramble; downtown Raleigh; worldofbluegrass.org
Sept. 27 | 10 a.m.
Glenwood South’s rooftop bar, The Willard, isn’t just for adult happy hour. This month they are hosting author Rebecca Wheeler from Durham for a special family-oriented storytime. Wheeler will read her latest books, When Mama Grows with Me and When Daddy Shows Me the Sky, and she’ll lead activities like family yoga to encourage a love of the natural world and healthy relationships. Free; 9 Glenwood Avenue; thewillardraleigh.com
Sept. 28 - 29 | 12 - 5 p.m. Have an itch to redecorate or
relocate? Take advantage of this opportunity to tour custom-built and brand-new homes in Wake, Durham and Orange Counties. This year on the tour there are more than 200 homes up for viewing in an array of styles, showcasing this year’s trends in home design for inspiration. The tour is selfguided and open to the public. Free; various locations; triangleparade.com
Brodeto transports guests to the Adriatic Sea
by CATHERINE CURRIN
Over the past several years, chef Scott Crawford and his family spent vacations exploring coastal towns in Croatia and Italy. Naturally, they prioritized discovering restaurants and meeting chefs along the way. Crawford, his wife and their two children sampled seafood and homemade pastas done with bright spices and flavors. “Everything was fresh, but craveable, and light and simple,” Crawford says.
One recurring delicacy was an aromatic fish stew called “brodeto.” “I had it so many times both in Croatia and Italy, though it was often spelled differently and sometimes even pronounced differently,” says Crawford. “To me, it perfectly encapsulates a town on the Adriatic.”
That spirit informs his latest restaurant, Brodeto, a Croatian-inspired food concept in Raleigh Iron Works. The food is welcoming and simple, but full of flavor and decadence. “We’re using more restraint. We have great ingredients and a great kitchen. We don’t want to cover things up,” says culinary director Conor Delaney, who has worked with Crawford Hospitality since 2020.
Brodeto’s menu changes seasonally, but the foundation is constant. There are light crudos like tuna topped with capers and olive oil; sardine toast (one of Crawford’s favorites) smeared with butter and tomato tapenade; fresh pasta with notes of the sea and umami when paired with blue crab, sea urchin butter or squid.
There is, of course, a brodeto. Crawford’s rendition uses a tomato broth and whatever’s seasonal from Locals Seafood, presented in a custom lidded vessel from Haand pottery in Burlington. “There’s a high level of creating something that ultimately presents itself simply,” says Crawford.
In addition to seafood, Brodeto boasts a chicken with salsa verde, a pork chop with lemon blossom honey and a dryaged New York strip. “Smoke is pretty important to this food,” Crawford says. “We’re cooking really good proteins over the wood-fire grill.”
“There’s a high level of creating something that ultimately presents itself simply.”
— SCOTT CRAWFORD
Thomas Sayre, known for his earthcast sculptures, was part of the conversation for this restaurant concept from the start. In the hallway leading to the restrooms, guests will find “little riddles,” as he calls them, small-scale art pieces with a unique kaleidoscope-like print on each. “These are made from nothing but smoke and objects, and they all have to do with food service,” Sayre says.
But this was the first time they worked together from a concept’s inception. “It’s very rare to have the opportunity to sit at the table from day one,” Sayre says. “I was able to respond to his stories and ideas and then be a helper and designer, to look over the shoulder and help.”
The largest piece Sayre created for this space is an earthcast map of the Adriatic Sea. Oriented on its side — tilt your head to get your bearings — guests can see hexagons marking the towns from which Brodeto’s cuisine hails. “We stuck washers in the mud before filling it with concrete and iron oxide to get the shapes, so that Scott or others can actually go up and say, well, here’s where this dish came from,” says Sayre.
Sayre’s art lives within an environment full of light wood tables and chairs centered around a backlit leather bench lined with pots of greenery. Crawford and his wife, Jessica, worked together to design this airy oasis with clean lines and tiny, intentional details like the leathered stone bartop and the coordinating backlit stone bar. “It almost gives the feeling that the bar is made of salt,” says Crawford. “I just kept going back to this place in Croatia where we went to actual salt fields. They dry the seawater the old-school way, with sunshine, and there were just these giant slabs of sort of translucent white salt.”
To round out the menu, Crawford and Delaney developed a creamy, velvety gelato using a machine from Carpigiani, a maker of high-end Italian ice cream equipment whose North American offices are in nearby High Point. “I’ve had this idea of bringing soft-serve ice cream into a refined setting for a longtime,” says Delaney, noting that the gelato flavors change seasonally. “There’s so much nostalgia to it.”
Smoke plays a part in creating the ambiance in the space, too. Raleigh artist
“I needed Thomas to help me tell the story through art and design,” says Crawford. The two have known each other for years, working together on special events here and there, and Crawford showcases Sayre’s art in his other restaurants.
From start to finish, Brodeto is polished and intentional, a truly transporting experience. “The first time I ate here, I was brought to tears,” says Sayre. “I knew what it took to get there. It was fresh and new and unusual and all the creative stuff was still there.”
If you want to wow your hops-loving friends, tuck into In the Land of Ninkasi by Tate Paulette. It’s an exploration of “the world’s first great beer culture,” in ancient Mesopotamia circa 3,000 B.C.E. “The origins of beer date thousands of years earlier, but it’s the earliest we’ve been able to document beer culture in its complexity,” Paulette says.
Paulette, a history professor at North Carolina State University, started exploring the subject more than a decade ago as a graduate student writing a dissertation on grain storage. That led to working with a brewer to try to recreate an ancient Mesopotamian beer using authentic ingredients and equipment, like ceramic urns styled after ones found on archeological digs, with a brewing process outlined in a hymn to Ninkasi, a goddess of beer. “It takes you through the steps,” Paulette says.
The book In the Land of Ninkasi gathers more than 100 years’ worth of research by Paulette and others into a lively exploration of Mesopotamian beer culture, with vignettes introducing each chapter. For example, there’s evidence of people brewing beers at home but also getting beer delivered or enjoying it at a tavern. There’s art that depicts the elite classes drinking beer at banquets, often using a long straw to sip out of a communal vessel. “But pretty much everyone, regardless of wealth or status, seemed to have access to beer,” says Paulette. And while there’s little record of ancient Mesopotamians getting drunk, “there is some medical literature with diagnoses that might have to do with overconsumption — slurred speech, trouble with balance — and other literature that suggests that when people drink beer together, there’s a possibility for boundaries to be crossed,” says Paulette.
It’s all approached in a fun, lighthearted way. “This book is intended for a broad audience, whether you’re interested in history, archeology or just the beer side of things,” Paulette says. — Ayn-Monique Klahre
Paulette will be speaking about his book at So & So Books on Sept. 10. Visit soandsobooks.com for more information.
ANATOMIE TRUNK SHOW
Friday, September 6 - Saturday September 7
PLANET BY LOREN G POP UP September 10 - 30
JOSEPH PLATA TRUNK SHOW
Thursday, September 12 - Saturday, September 14
LA BOTTEGA DI BRUNELLA TRUNK SHOW
Monday, September 16 - Friday, September 20
TOM AND LINDA PLATT TRUNK SHOW
Thursday, October 3 - Saturday, October 5
MARTA’S CASHMERE TRUNK SHOW
Friday, October 11 - Saturday, October 12
DIOMI TRUNK SHOW Friday, October 25 - Saturday, October 26
Fancy Gap’s first album is full of polished, hook-filled songs from Charles Crossingham and Stuart McLamb
by DAVID MENCONI
Years in the making, Fancy Gap’s self-titled first album took massive amounts of painstaking effort to pull together. And when the duo of Charles Crossingham and Stuart McLamb were in the latter stages of tweaking the sounds, an unlikely point of comparison emerged: the grueling lengths that director George Lucas had gone to in making the first Star Wars movie.
“Stu would ask me if it was done yet,” Crossingham remembers. “And I’d say, Almost, but the lightsabers don’t look cool enough yet. I mean, you can’t release Star Wars unless you have perfect lightsabers that sparkle and shine.”
All that detail work definitely paid off, because the 10 songs on Fancy Gap (Ghost Choir Records) are buffed so fine they practically glisten. The hooks are gargantuan, with vibes landing somewhere between Americana and pure pop — a
twangier version of McLamb’s previous group, The Love Language, with hints of everyone from Fleetwood Mac to Glen Campbell.
While The Love Language is now a well-known band, it started out as the working title for McLamb’s solo project. After parting ways with the local band The Capulets, as well as his girlfriend, in 2006, McLamb retreated to his parents’ house in Cary to figure out his next move. Feeling bereft, he wrote songs for solace and began recording them alone — obsessively magnificent torch songs, in versions that were both low-fidelity and operatic. Keyed around McLamb’s epic wail, they were stunning.
McLamb put some of these recordings online via MySpace, and they picked up enough attention that show offers started coming in, even though he didn’t have a band to perform with. Hastily assembling musicians for live shows, McLamb released his solo recordings as the group’s self-titled 2009 debut album.
Love Language members came and went over the next decade, with McLamb the sole constant member. But no matter his collaborators, the results were consistently brilliant across four albums.
Work was underway on what was to be the fifth Love Language album when the coronavirus pandemic shut everything down. Unable to record or play live, the band fell apart. But McLamb and Crossingham, who had been producing the Love Language sessions, kept working as a duo, playing most of the music themselves. Retreating to Crossingham’s cabin in the rural environs of Fancy Gap, Virginia, they crafted songs that turned out more polished and rootsy than Love Language.
“Charles started bringing in what he called cheeseburgers,” says McLamb. “An opening lyric, a title, a central riff. I don’t know the science of it, but it always seemed to work and we rarely hit any walls musically.”
As work progressed, McLamb and Crossingham enlisted other musicians to contribute. Adam Lazzara from the platinum-selling band Taking Back Sun-
day and singer/actress Sharon Van Etten both sang choice cameo vocals. And for added musical ambience, they turned to pedal-steel guitarist Jon Graboff (who has played with everyone from Willie Nelson to Cyndi Lauper) and Foo Fighters keyboardist Rami Jaffee.
“The luck of the pandemic,” Crossingham says with a laugh. “Everyone’s schedule was open, and they were bored. Pedal steel and Hammond B3 organ are drony, textural instruments that add so much liveliness. Jon and Rami were the secret sauce, floating through the sound like a bird in the sky above or an orca underwater below. They didn’t compete with the economy of noise going on with Stu’s voice.”
For live shows, including this month’s Hopscotch Music Festival, they’ve put together an all-star band of locals: ex-Ben Folds Five bassist Robert Sledge, Backsliders guitarist Steve Howell, The Old Ceremony keyboardist Mark Simonsen and well-traveled drummer Nick Baglio. And while The Love Language never officially broke up and might ride again someday, Fancy Gap is very much McLamb’s focus right now.
“Never say never,” McLamb says, “but I feel like another Fancy Gap record is more on the horizon than another Love Language album. That’s where all cylinders are firing nowadays.”
One difference between the two bands is perspective. Compared to the desperation McLamb evoked in The Love Language, Fancy Gap is downright modest. “When the world starts over,” he sings in the album-opening first single “How To Dance,” “I just wanna be in the band.”
There have been times in the past, McLamb acknowledges, when he leaned a little too heavily on real-life drama to fuel songwriting inspiration. But he’s married nowadays, in a better place emotionally than he was for many of The Love Language years.
“Life experiences inform good songs, and there’s always a tinge of that,” McLamb says. “It’s hard for me to write a completely happy song because life’s not one-dimensional. Hope, bitterness and excitement are always creeping into what I’m writing. But I don’t believe I have to suffer for it anymore. I can take pain and translate it into music without feeling like I have to fit drama into my life.”
Caterpillars come in all shapes and colors — here are a few especially cool ones in our area
Ihave shared my fondness for caterpillars with you in a couple of previous columns, so I hope you don’t mind a bit more. The reason to revisit these amazing creatures is that the theme for this year’s BugFest event at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is the insect order Lepidoptera, or butterflies and moths. If you remember your elementary school lessons on life cycles, you can’t have either of those winged beauties without first having caterpillars. So there will be plenty of excitement and information about this marvelous group of creatures this year.
O ne of the best things about caterpillars is that they can be found almost everywhere. You can often attract them by planting the right native plants. Although many species of caterpillars are generalist feeders, some are only found on select plants (like the Monarch Butterfly caterpillars, which feed on milkweeds).
W hen you find caterpillars, they are fascinating to watch as they grow, molt, form a pupa and ultimately transform to a flying insect. Their variety of “attire” and striking forms are just a couple of the reasons that I have developed such a fascination for these cool crawlers.
So get outside this month and find the time to look closely and appreciate the wonder and diversity that surrounds us. Take a moment to sit with a caterpillar and admire it. Prepare to be amazed. If you want to know more, find me at the Caterpillarology tent at the museum’s BugFest event on Saturday, Sept. 14, in downtown Raleigh.
Here are a few of my favorite caterpillars that you can find in our area — if you take the time to look hard enough.
words
and photographs by
MIKE DUNN
Young Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillars mimic bird poop but change to a snake mimic as they mature. They feed on Spicebush and Sassafras leaves and create shelters by folding part of a leaf with silk. The fake eyes may help deter predators.
The Curve-lined Owlet seems to have excess appendages at first glance. But the strange appearance actually helps camouflage it among the curly tendrils of the greenbrier vines on which it feeds.
Nason’s Slug larvae are small green ovals with two yellow stripes down their back. I love the way they almost seem to glow. The small spines contain a venom that produces a mild sting if touched.
Cecropia Moth caterpillars are greenish blue and are adorned with brightly colored knobs armed with thin black spikes. Reaching a length of over 4 inches, they conjure up an image of a weapon that might have been used in medieval battles.
I can’t help but think that this Sycamore Tussock Moth caterpillar resembles some sort of fancy dog that has been gussied up for a show. As the name suggests, they are found on American Sycamore trees.
You gotta love the name of this handsome larva: Turbulent Phosphila. This pic looks like a gathering of caterpillars in pin-striped pajamas. Problem is, it’s hard to tell which end is which — can you?
Though some feel the name of Hickory Horned Devil is an apt one for this scary-looking caterpillar, it is harmless. This behemoth is North America’s largest, at 5.5 inches, and can be found feeding on tree leaves throughout the state.
When disturbed, many of the so-called hornworms or sphinx moth caterpillars, like this Four-horned Sphinx larva, will rise up in a defensive position, ready to thrash their upper body at any potential predator.
Banded Sphinx Moth caterpillars are highly variable. This red form is stunning with its vivid colors and stripes.
Enjoy nature in comfort and style with one of these unique getaways
by MARGARET DEVITT
Glamping — a mashup of the words “glamorous” and “camping” — has become a trend over the past few years for folks who want to enjoy outdoor activities without truly roughing it. These scrappy locales offer just that: accommodations that are several steps up from pitching a tent (see: plumbing and climate control) but without the price tag of an amenity-filled hotel. With glamping becoming more of a trend, different locations have leaned into the experience to offer photogenic places to stay, sometimes with unique themes. As the weather starts to cool off and spending time outside seems more attractive, consider one of these four glamping experiences — each within about two hours of Raleigh — for an easy weekend getaway.
Take a trip to the past — sort of — with a stay inside a covered wagon. Located along the Cape Fear River in Lillington, The Cozy Heron Glamping offers individuals and families the chance to stay the night in modern wooden wagons hand-hewn by the Conestoga Wagon Co.
Each of these “wagons” is a raised platform with a canvas enclosure, equipped with AC, heat, Wi-Fi, refrigerators and a king-sized bed along with two bunk beds. The bath house is walkable and you can spend an afternoon around the communal fire pit and grill. The nearby Lost Paddle Pizza is a spot to grab a slice and a beverage after a day on the river.
Get outside: The campground is right on the Cape Fear, where you can bring your own gear for kayaking or river tubing or rent it from Cape Fear Adventures, the excursion company that owns the wagons. Raven Rock State Park is a 15-minute drive away and offers hiking and biking trails, fishing and paddle boarding.
45 minutes from Raleigh; from $129 per night; 100 S. Main Street, Lillington; capefearadventures.com
TINY HOUSES IN ROCKY MOUNT
River and Twine in Rocky Mount is a collection of 21 tiny houses — each 20 feet long with 188 square feet of space — all arranged in groups around fire pits and Adirondack chairs. Each tiny
house has a queen bed, sitting area and bathroom with a shower, not to mention “full hotel amenities, like TV, Wi-Fi and a microwave,” says assistant property manager Julie Baggett. “It’s like camping and a hotel in one.” They’re just across campus from the Rocky Mount Mills development, a complex of breweries, restaurants and retail in a renovated early 1900s cotton mill — so you can save the campfire for s’mores after you grab pizza or barbeque just a short walk away.
Get outside: There are a number of hiking and biking trails available nearby, including Rocky Mount Natural Surface Trail, Tar River Trail and Medoc Mountain State Park. Canoeing and kayaking are also readily available on the nearby Tar River Paddle Trail.
1 hour from Raleigh; from $139 per night; 24 E. Elm Street, Rocky Mount; riverandtwine.com
Clockwise from top: The tiny houses at River and Twine; nightime at Getaway Asheboro; inside a Getaway cabin.
When the Foundation purchased Teddy, an Emotional Support Dog, I wasn’t too sure how my fellow officers or the community might receive him. But Teddy has been genuinely welcomed in every room and by every department. I believe I can speak for us all when I say, “Thank You Raleigh Police Department Foundation!”
The Foundation is an organization that understands our need to police our communities safely. It doesn’t take much to show your appreciation for what we do and to give what you can. Every little bit helps if we all chip in for the greater good.
– Sergeant Briget Stranahan
Just a 10-minute drive from the Asheboro Zoo lies a collection of tiny wooden cabins, each with the option of one or two queen beds, situated along a trail leading down to a pond. Nestled within the woods, Getaway Asheboro’s rentals each sit on nearly an acre of land, leaving enough space between you and your neighbors for you to truly relax. “Enjoy the luxury of nature with all the necessities you may need,” says Getaway representative Lexie Gracey. “You can just pack your bag and show up!”
Get outside: You can spend your time enjoying your surroundings or catchand-release fishing, but if you’re looking to explore a bit more, there are plenty of hiking trails nearby with river, creek and mountain views. It’s a short trip to downtown for a drink at Carolina Tap House, coffee at The Table or some barbeque at Hop’s. For each vacation booked at Getaway, a donation is made to One Tree
Planted, a nonprofit focused on environmental sustainability.
1 hour 35 minutes from Raleigh; from $122 per night; 2846 Old Cox Road, Asheboro; getaway.house
Located just 2 miles from the waves and sand, Carolina Beach State Park offers the chance for visitors to camp out in cabins surrounded by pine trees. Each log cabin has a queen and two bunk beds, a charcoal grill, picnic table and laundry and showers in a communal area — so you get the classic camping feel without the hassle of setting up a tent.
Get outside: In addition to setting up on nearby Carolina Beach, there are plenty of other attractions, such as the NC Aquarium, Fort Fisher Historic Site and activities like kayaking and fishing to keep you occupied. These cabins require some advance planning — often they’re booked months in advance — but the
state parks website is easily searchable, with additional cabin options in the Raven Rock or Lake Norman State Parks, if Carolina Beach is full and you’re open to a different sort of adventure.
2 hours 15 minutes from Raleigh; from $42 per night; 1010 State Park Road, Carolina Beach; ncparks.gov/state-parks/carolina-beach-state-park
“Now is the time to dive into cool-season garden work,” says Deanna Bigio, a horticulture extension agent at the North Carolina Cooperative Extension service. “We still have another two months or so of warm weather — the first frost in Wake County typically comes around Halloween— so it’s a good time to get things prepped and established.” Here are her top suggestions for the garden this month.
Fight the urge to cut back colorful perennials that might have had a growth spurt this summer, like roses, hydrangeas, gardenias and rhododendrons. “Do not prune in September or October,” says Bigio. “Early fall is when your plants are going into dormancy. Pruning stimulates new growth, but that new growth may not be able to harden off before our first frost.” This means the plants may not be able to stand up to freezing or below-freezing temperatures, high winds, full sun or high heat, making them at risk of dying or a delayed emergence next year.
“Now is the time to plant cool-season grasses,” says Bigio. Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass and tall fescue or fine fescue all do wonderfully in our area this time of year, giving you a lush green lawn through spring.
You may still be harvesting tomatoes, peppers and a few other summer vegetables this month, but Bigio says to go ahead and make room for the next round. She likes to start baby plants of those hearty cool-weather herbs and vegetables. “Things like dill, parsley, leafy greens like lettuce and kale, legumes, bulbs, and root vegetables like carrots, beets and radish are all great to get into the ground now,” she says. —Addie Ladner
Join us for cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and a chef-curated meal celebrating North Carolina
SAM JONES Owner, Sam Jones BBQ
JAMIE DAVIS Executive Chef, The Hackney
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9
6:00 PM | The Merrimon-Wynne House | $95
SCAN HERE FOR TICKETS
PRESENTING SPONSOR SUPPORTING SPONSORS
TITLE SPONSOR
The Belles & Chimes foster camaraderie and competition through pinball
by ILINA EWEN
photography by BRYAN REGAN
Before you could play video games in the palm of your hand, arcades were the place to be. Pinball machines lined the walls, quarters neatly stacked for the next player, the clatter, hum and buzz of the machines a soundtrack for comingof-age woes. Pinball is where pop culture stretched beyond the big screen and comic books, and boys and girls postured for dominance as they hit the flippers with ferocity. And while the mall arcade is from a bygone era, pinball has enjoyed a resurgence over the last few years.
Joan McCool started playing pinball in 1975, in her early 20s. “I liked the lights, sounds and physicality of the game,” McCool says. “It was fun to keep the ball in play, hit the shots and earn points!” Her love of the sport never wavered (her kids recently gave her a pinball machine
as a retirement gift), and today she’s part of the Triangle Belles & Chimes, the local chapter of an international women’s pinball league founded in 2013 in Oakland, California. There are currently about 12 regular players in the group, with a roster of over 80 women. The league’s mission is to create a fun, social environment for women of all skill levels to learn and enjoy pinball, and to create a welcoming space free from the gatekeeping that can sometimes occur in mixed-gender environments. “Men don’t have a biological advantage over women in pinball, but it can be intimidating at times,” says Heidi Reule, another Belles & Chimes fixture. The Belles meet for monthly tournaments and social gatherings at locations like Roshambo in Raleigh and Bond Brothers in Cary, and they invite all ages
and experience levels to learn, watch and participate in group match play. “People think you have to be good to play, but there’s a host of women to help you learn the skills, techniques and trick shots,” says Kateryn Lake, who started playing pinball in 2022. “You’ll often see more experienced players teaching new players about what to aim for and how to play any given machine.”
Pinball is captivating a new generation of enthusiasts in large part due to its sense of nostalgia. But it’s also just plain fun, requiring a combination of skill, timing and strategy. The physical nature of the game, with feedback striking all the senses, offers a thrill that digital games just can’t replicate. For many players, it’s also a satisfying and stressrelieving form of entertainment. “It’s the perfect outlet,” says Elia Lake, Kateryn’s wife and another Belles player.
Each pinball machine is a marvel of art and engineering, featuring intricate designs combining electronics, physics and mechanics. The overall goal is simple; score points and don’t drain the ball. But how you achieve that goal is where the fun begins. To start play, the player plunges a spring-loaded rod to launch a ball into the machine, then uses flippers on the side of the machine to move the
ball within the playfield, scoring points by hitting bumpers, ramps and other targets. Each pinball machine offers different layouts, rules and features.
Novices tend to haphazardly bang on the flippers, but advanced players know how to control and trap the ball on a flipper to take more accurate shots — which helps unlock high scoring modes and bonuses. “It wasn’t until I played with someone who knew what they were doing that I understood the skill involved,” says Reule, an occupational therapist from Raleigh who started playing in 2022. “I was instantly hooked!” Part of the appeal is that the machine is the competition. “You can’t really ‘beat’ a table — you get better, but there’s always room to improve,” says Kateryn. Belles & Chimes members share tips and camaraderie, encouraging more women to pick up the game. “Our events tend to prioritize community and teaching over being competitive,” she notes.
But a competitive spirit is still fierce among the women. “Skill shots are the one thing you have control over. You’re in competition with the machine,” says Sammie Bacon, a local professional pinball player who is currently 30th in the women’s national pro ranking.
Bacon is a member of the Women’s Advisory Board of the International Flipper
Pinball Association Advisory Board, the organization that guides the global policies for competitive pinball and organizes the Women’s North American and World Championships. The board also helps ensure the IFPA represents the interests of women in competitive pinball. “Pinball has a universal language. Our goal is to bring more women to the game. It’s about creating a welcoming space,” says Bacon.
One way the Belles & Chimes are fostering a new generation of players is by hosting youth outreach programs and events at family-friendly venues like Bowstring. “It can be difficult for younger folks to have regular access to a wide variety of machines,” says Lake, noting that most of the spots to play pinball in our area tend to be bars.
And while pinball may seem like just a game to non-fans, the members of the Belles & Chimes say it’s about friendship, confidence and gaining some wisdom, too. “Pinball is kind of a metaphor for life. I plunge the ball and make choices all while trying not to drain,” says Reule. “It’s simultaneously chaotic, intense and calm. It requires me to focus but also take risks.”
“Sometimes a bad game is out of your control,” says Kateryn. Agrees Bacon: “You can have a plan going, but roll with what the game gives you.”
Shop our product online or in-store at a location near you! Scan the QR code below or visit our website for more information!
Visit us every Saturday from 8am to 12pm at Midtown Farmers Market in North Hills, Raleigh!
Follow us on social media @wildersbrand to keep up with all things WILD! Be the first to know about sales, promotions, product launches, and more!
These NC State grads turned a shared love of fashion into a thriving rental business
by RACHEL SIMON
Two and a half years ago, Emmy Weiland and Amelia Zahn were in their sophomore year at North Carolina State University when they found themselves dealing with the same problem that plagues countless college students worldwide: they needed to make some money.
Unlike many of their peers, neither woman had any interest in spending their weekends babysitting or tutoring for extra cash. Instead, they decided to put their shared love of fashion together with their marketing major skills: they
used Instagram to rent their friends’ dresses out to classmates and took a percentage of the fee for themselves.
The response, says Weiland, was “immediate.”
“We realized that we tapped into a market that no one had yet before,” adds Zahn.
The primar y reason their business model appealed to customers was that shoppers could try on as many dresses as they wished before renting them. This ensured that customers didn’t end up with gowns that didn’t fit or look like the photos, a frustrating experience both Weiland and Zahn had numerous times through well-known rental companies like Rent the Runway or Nuuly, which operate largely online and often require pricey subscriptions. “We would waste $100 dollars on something that we couldn’t even wear,” recalls Weiland. Once the duo realized there was such high demand for try-on rentals, opening a storefront was the clear next move. So in the summer of 2022, Weiland and Zahn used their prior earnings and investors’ funds to launch TrenLend, an in-person rental boutique operating out of a small warehouse in Cary.
Initially, they focused on renting out dresses (bought wholesale) to fellow college students who, like them, often needed formalwear for events but had limited budgets to work with. Shoppers could come into the store to try on and rent stylish options from high-end designers like Nicole Miller or Runaway the Label for as low as $10 or $15. With the launch of TrenLend’s website, customers could also order looks online and have them shipped directly to their homes. After they wore the rented pieces, they returned them to the store, where the clothes got washed and inspected before going back on the racks for new customers to borrow.
Despite little advertising (“We hon-
estly have not spent a single dollar on marketing,” Zahn says) it wasn’t long before word about TrenLend got out.
In the months following the warehouse launch, droves of shoppers — including high schoolers readying for prom, college girls looking for outfits for formals and women looking for dresses to wear to weddings, galas and other events — found their way to the store. Business boomed enough that, in August 2023, Weiland and Zahn left the warehouse and opened a true storefront on Cary’s Chapel Hill Road. The space is manned solely by the founders, who do everything from cleaning to accounting.
Here, customers can browse hundreds of dresses (along with some tops, jumpsuits and rompers) in a large number of styles and an inclusive size range. “Right now, we have the widest variety of special occasion wear that’s not bridal and pageant in the area,” Zahn says proudly.
Shoppers can also take advantage of TrenLend’s backup dress service, which allows them to rent a second style or size for a significant discount, as well as purchase optional insurance to cover potential damage. Anyone looking to rent several items for the same time period can create a bundle that’ll give them a percentage off their order.
“I’ve had women drive from South Carolina or Virginia and come in and say, you’re the only store on the East Coast that offers this,” says Zahn. “We definitely try to offer a little bit of everything for everyone,” Weiland adds.
Olivia Martin, a college student and frequent TrenLend shopper, says she often rents from the store when she’s “in need of a wow moment” for parties and vacations. “The dresses are always so unique and pieces I would not find myself,” says Martin, adding that the rental outfits’ low costs are another key draw. “I love not having to commit to the full price of a dress that I will only wear once.”
TrenLend’s success has not come without its challenges, of course. The women had to balance full-time careers with schoolwork while they were students. They graduated this past spring, and now work full time on the business. Their age and lack of experience have also garnered plenty of skepticism from those who don’t believe — or appreciate — that the duo know how to run a business.
“I cannot tell you how many times people came into our store and looked at me and said, So what do you want to do after college? And I’d have to be like, Oh,
this,” Weiland says with a laugh. “They were so taken aback by it.”
“Because of our age, people just automatically assume that this is just something we’re doing for fun right now,” Zahn echoes.
But the founders have big plans for TrenLend’s future. They’ve already outgrown the Cary location and just opened a second location in August in the Makers Alley in the North Hills Innovation District.
“The exposure from this location will finally allow us to make the kind of money where we can grow and invest in ourselves while continuing investing in the company,” says Zahn. They’d also love to expand the types of clothing TrenLend offers and feature some items for sale, an option customers have frequently expressed interest in.
“When we first started, we didn’t think it was gonna be anything serious. We thought it was gonna be just a little side thing we did,” Zahn reflects.
But, she continues, “every day, we have people coming in for the first time, and they’re always like, We had no idea this existed, this is so cool, and we can’t wait to tell people about it.”
by LIZA ROBERTS
lemmons-based artist Frank Campion brings a cerebral tenacity to his abstract explorations of color and geometry. The well-known painter works in a modernist showpiece of a studio attached to his house (a contractor likened the space to the spot where Ferris Bueller’s friend Cameron’s father parked his ill-fated Ferrari). Miles Davis plays on a continuous loop, art books fill side tables, sun pours through a ceiling of skylights; there’s room for giant canvases and places to sit and talk. The floor is a mosaic of speckled paint, and so is he.
“He” being “Frank 2.0,” a “re-emerging artist,” as he calls himself (in writing, anyway), the present-day iteration of a Harvard-educated man who came to prominence as a young artist in Boston in the 1980s. Campion had collectors, critically successful solo shows and was in group shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art and Boston Museum of Fine Arts (where one of his paintings is in the permanent collection). Then he became disillusioned with it, walked away and immersed himself for more than 30 years in a successful advertising career.
That’s what brought him to Winston-Salem, a top job at ad firm Long Haymes & Carr. “It was a great ride,” he says, “very creative.” But in recent years, painting has called him back.
From the beginning, color has been a main attraction. So has tension. Campion says he’s constantly intrigued by “the imposition of geometry, with its logical and rational right angles and parallel lines, pitted against a painterly catastrophe.”
His description of such a catastrophe sounds like the musings
Farrab
of a man in love with his work: “It’s random spills and splats, and drippy, sloppy paint. Thick paint, thin paint, rational form against random painterly incident. When I look at all the things I’ve worked on, that’s a consistent theme.”
Lately, it’s been hard work. “Sometimes artists have this conceit that everything they touch is going to turn to gold,” he says. “The truth is that it rarely does. You have to make a lot of messes.” Campion says 2024 has been a year of “mucking about, cutting stuff up and putting it back together again.”
He made his Dichotomies series by taping off one side of the canvas and painting the other “until it looked interesting.” Then he’d cover that painted side with newspaper and go to work on the blank one. When it was complete, he’d unveil the full canvas to himself. “I’d have a vague memory of what the other side was like when I peeled the tape and the newspaper off,” he says. “Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not.”
Gap represents his current interest in “playing around with the idea of gaps and alleys and fissures; looking for a looser way of working. Instead of having two fields to work with, I’m seeing what happens in between them.”
To watch Campion paint is to witness intuitive creativity at work. Once, on a studio visit, he pulled a canvas to the floor and stared at it for a moment before tipping a bucket of paint onto its blank expanse. The paint was gray and viscous. It splashed indiscriminately, like muddy water. He studied it for a moment, then tipped the bucket again and again and again, finally picking up a broom-scaled squeegee to push and pull it back and forth. As starry splotches became ghostly shapes beneath a paler scrim, this respected painter looked for all the world like a pensive janitor, mopping the floor.
The result, weeks later, belied those humble beginnings. Sharp geometry, deep blue, soft orange and acid yellow layered the gray-splashed canvas with subtlety and contrast, dimension and structure. Pieces of gray remained, muddying some of the bright shades, swirling in tendrils on the margins.
“I like color. I like emotion,” Campion says. “I like the collision of chaos and order.” What viewers see in his work includes all of that, he says, but also what they bring themselves. “Abstraction is a kind of mirror. It’s a challenge.”
When South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was convicted of murdering his son and wife, his trial drew international attention. Wall Street Journal reporter and Raleigh resident Valerie Bauerlein has written the definitive book on the tragic saga. Join Bauerlein and WALTER founding editor Liza Roberts for an intimate conversation, book reading and signing opportunity to understand the deep roots of Murdaugh’s lawlessness.
SEPTEMBER 18
5:30 - 8:00 PM
THEATRE IN THE PARK 107 Pullen Road, Raleigh, NC 27607
by JIM DODSON illustration by GERRY O’NEILL
Aneighbor who walks by my house each evening like clockwork sees me sitting under the trees with a pitcher of ice water and walks over to say hello.
I invite Roger to take a seat and have a cold drink.
“It’s tough to keep moving in this heat,” he explains, sitting down. “It’s something, isn’t it? But your garden looks great. How do you keep it so nice and green?”
“A lot of worrying and watering,” I say. “Sometimes you have to make tough choices.”
In one of the hottest and driest summers in memory, I’d decided to let my yard turn brown in favor of keeping flowering shrubs and young trees
watered and green.
As the late British landscape designer Mirabel Osler once said to me over her afternoon gin and tonic, landscape gardening is a ruthless business, especially in a drought . Grass will eventually return, but no such luck with a shriveled shrub or a dead young tree.
“September brings relief, rain and second blooms,” I add. “I’m already in a September state of mind.”
He smiles and nods.
“Hey,” he says casually, “let me ask you something.”
I expect another question about the garden, like the best time of the day to water your shrubs, or when it’s safe to fertilize or prune azaleas.
But it isn’t even close.
“I’m worried about America. People seem so angry these days. Why do you think Americans hate each other?”
The question takes me by surprise. I could give him a few thoughts on the subject: the woeful decline of factbased journalism, an internet teeming with conspiracy peddlers, politicians who feed on polarization, the unholy marriage of politics and religion, and the sad absence of civility in everyday life.
Instead, I tell him a little story of rebirth.
In the spring of 1983, I telephoned my dad from the office of vice president George Bush and told him that I no longer wanted to be a journalist. For almost seven years, I’d worked as a staff
writer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sunday Magazine , covering everything from presidential politics to murder and mayhem across the Deep South. As a result of my work, I’d been offered my dream job in Washington, D.C., but found myself suddenly fed up with writing about crooks, conmen and politicians.
Bush, however, was an exception. We’d traveled extensively together during the 1980 campaign and had wonderful conversations about life, family and our shared love of everything from American history to golf. During our travels, Bush invited me to drop by his office anytime I happened to be in the nation’s capital. Unfortunately, he was traveling the day I turned down my Washington job, but his secretary allowed me to use her phone. So, I called my dad and told him I planned to move to New England and learn to fly-fish.
“When was the last time you played golf?” he calmly asked.
“I think Jimmy Carter had just been elected.”
He suggested that I meet him in Raleigh the next morning.
So I changed my flight and there he was, waiting with my dusty Haig Ultra golf clubs in his back seat. We drove to Pinehurst, played famed course No. 2 and finished on the Donald Ross porch, talking about my early midlife career crisis over a couple of beers. I’d just turned 30.
I told him that I “hated” making a living by writing about the sorrows of others, especially when it came to the increasingly shallow and mean-spirited world of politics.
“You may laugh, but here’s a thought,” the old man came back, sipping his beer. “Before you give up journalism, have you ever considered writing about things you love rather than things you don’t?”
Sadly, I did laugh. But he planted a seed in my head. A short time later, I resigned from my job in Atlanta and wound up on a trout river in Vermont,
where I learned to fly-fish, started attending an old Episcopal Church and knocked the rust off my dormant golf game at an old nine-hole course where Rudyard Kipling played when he lived in the area.
I soon went to work for Yankee Magazine and spent the next decade writing about things I did love: American history, nature, boat builders, gardeners and artists — a host of dreamers and eccentrics who enriched life with their positive visions and talents.
I also got married and built my first garden on a forest hilltop near the Maine coast.
“I never looked back,” I tell Roger. “I’ve built five gardens since.”
Roger smiles.
“So, you’re telling me we all need to become gardeners?”
“Not a bad idea. Gardeners are some of the most generous people on Earth. We make good neighbors. Most of the country’s founders, by the way, were serious gardeners.”
I pour myself a little more ice water and tell him I’ve learned that gardens and democracies are a lot alike. “Both depend on the love and attention we give them. Especially in difficult times like these.”
Roger finishes his drink and stands up. “That’s something to think about. Here’s to September, cool weather and good neighbors,” he says. “Maybe by then even your grass will be green again.”
by CASSANDRA MAY HOWELL painting by JUSTIN LEITNER
In the midst of a field, to the chirping songs of the crickets, in the lulling of the Sun, a flood of assured dancers flash amongst the waving grasses.
Diligent to the arcs and flashes, with waltz and frolic, rising and falling, The youthful Hunter gleefully follows its prey And all dance, to a new rhythm, of the breast.
The sweeping beauty of the dancers, on the bounding range of the floor, foretell the celestial bodies to come, and tickle the Hunter’s fancy in the waning day.
Some dancers fade, lost to the twilight and the heavens, only to flash just beyond reach, Leaving others caught between the gentle hands. Their feet wade lightly in the grasp.
And while glowing in cadence to the heart, the fingers unlock, letting the light take flight. A spark of beauty to strike anew, when the dancers leap, and prophesy the stars, again.
Cassandra May Howell lives in Wilkes County, where she works as a tutor and teacher. She lives with her sister, soon to be brother-in-law and three dogs. Howell’s poem is based on the yard where she grew up and the fireflies she loved to catch there.
A Raleigh family lovingly maintains a glorious yard planted 84 years ago by a pioneering woman
OOn a warm spring day, Penny Hage walks through her Canterbury Road yard, pointing out the flowers in bloom and describing how others will look when they reach their peak.
“Now, this rhododendron is original to the house. They don’t like our climate, but they’re doing pretty well here,” she says, pointing to the pale pink flowering shrub that is known for growing wild on cooler mountainsides.
“This Tea Olive shrub grows tall like a tree. It has little white flowers that are unbelievably fragrant, like perfume,” Hage continues. “It blooms in the spring, summer or fall. You never know.”
In the backyard she approaches a tree at the corner of the house.
“This golden rain tree is my favorite thing in the yard. It blooms a gorgeous yellow in June and July,” Hage says, spreading her hands above either side of her head. “And all round here beneath it are Lenten roses. They bloom before spring. She designed the yard so there would always be something blooming throughout the year.”
The “she” Hage refers to is Elizabeth Lawrence, the first woman to receive a degree in landscape architecture from North Carolina State University’s School of Design in 1932. In 1942, Lawrence’s book A Southern Garden: A Handbook for the Middle South received national praise and established her as a horticulture authority whose knowledge was compared to that of Thomas Jefferson. It is listed among the “100 Best Gardening Books” by Horticulture magazine.
These days, only traces of Lawrence’s influence remain in Raleigh. Her house on Park Avenue, near NC State, was bought by the school’s FarmHouse Fraternity in
“This golden rain tree is my favorite thing in the yard. It blooms a gorgeous yellow in June and July.” — Penny Hage
One of the original plantings, a golden rain tree, in bloom.
1969 and taken down in 2004 to make room for a bigger structure. Many of her plants were moved to the JC Raulston Arboretum to create the Elizabeth Lawrence Border. During her time in Raleigh, Lawrence designed various residential projects that have since been lost, as new homeowners opted for different landscapes or let Mother Nature take over.
But one of the landscapes she designed, the front and back yards of this Canterbury Road home her good friends Nella and Alfred Purrington Jr. built in 1940, still shows her influence.
“When my parents moved here, it was just a dirt road and considered to be way out of town,” says Ward Purrington, Nella and Alfred’s son. Ward, the youngest of three children, was born in 1940, the year his parents moved to Canterbury Road. He points to the rooftops that now line the back of his former yard and says when his family bought the property, it stretched 2 acres or more down the hill to Beaver Dam Creek and Banbury Road.
“When my father was away in World War II, my mother sold some of the land,” he says. “They decided she might need the money in case he didn’t come back.”
Fortunately Alfred returned. He continued working as a lawyer as well as spending countless hours in the yard for decades. Ward, who also practiced law, remembers being photographed as a young boy with his mother in THe News & Observer for a story about their prolific yard where, more than 70 years ago, he’d play “Mother May I?” with his siblings.
“My mother did not work in the yard,” says Ward with a chuckle. “My father did all the work. She would watch him from inside and bring him water.”
The gurgling pond under a shady trellis designed by Lawrence was, and still is, a distinctive feature.
“We had a bronze dolphin and the water came out of the dolphin’s mouth. My parents got it in Italy,” Ward says. “I remember releasing goldfish into the fountain when we were little,” says his niece, Beth Alley, who visited the home often when her grandparents Nella and Alfred
lived there. Ward’s nephew John Purrington, who also visited frequently, describes family soccer games played in what they called “the soccer field,” a rectangular grassy area to the left of the driveway. It seemed regulation size to a child, he explains, but was really more a small patch of grass. “And we would make fairy villages in the roots of the trees,” recalls Ward’s daughter, Ginna Purrington.
They also played tennis on a “clay court” with a makeshift net behind the yard as the woods began. “It was just North Carolina red clay,” Ward says with a soft chuckle.
Now in his 80s and living in Raleigh, Ward recently visited the home where he grew up, accompanied by Ginna, Beth and John. Ginna teared up when she walked in the backyard. “This is the first time I’ve been here in almost 20 years. It brings back so many memories,” she says, offering one of those smiles that is simultaneously sad and happy.
“They have done a beautiful job,” Ward says, referring to how Penny Hage and her husband Bill have kept the property’s rich history of flora and fauna going strong.
Penny says it was the yard and its horticultural history that was the deciding factor when they bought the house in 2013. (The Hages purchased it from the couple who bought the home after Nella Purrington died.) “We fell in love with this house because of the outdoor spaces,” Penny says. “Bill and I are yard people. My mother and dad were huge gardeners. My father had a rose garden.”
She credits recently retired master gardener Frances Alvarino for a lot of help in tending to the yard and teaching them about its many facets. “Bill and I spend hours in this yard,” Penny says, adding with a laugh: “We don’t talk to people. We talk to plants.”
Those hours are hard to come by for the busy family. Bill is an orthopedic surgeon and also the team physician for all athletics at Leesville Road High School. Penny is a part-time pediatric occupational therapist. They also raise funds that support a special needs clinic at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya. The family has volunteered there three times with Bill’s parents as medical missionaries.
Daughter Mimi recently graduated from Saint Mary’s School and is starting Wofford
Contractor Lewis Penny
College. (Ironically, Lawrence the landscape designer attended SMS for junior college before Barnard College in New York City, followed by graduate school at NCSU.) The Hages’ son, Preston, is a rising junior at Needham Broughton High School and a competitive golfer.
Preston is the impetus for a significant change the Hages brought to the backyard: adding a putting green. Covid is the reason for the pool that sits beside it. “I didn’t want a pool because I knew we’d have to cut down the fig trees,” says Penny, who learned to make fig preserves and gave custom jars out as gifts for almost 10 years. But the pool offered a wonderful family activity during those many homebound months. They lost the trees, but made sure the fountain remained.
In fact, Penny’s uncle, contractor Lewis Penny of Penny Construction, added more history to the backyard’s gurgling centerpiece when he oversaw the 2022 renovation of the house and property. Two of the big chiseled rock stones from the row of pavers in the original driveway were moved to either end of the fountain and repurposed as mounting for water spouts.
“Those stones were foundation stones in my great-great-grandfather’s house on Halifax Street. We moved as many as we could when the house was torn down,” explains Ward, noting that the home and others around it were dismantled and redeveloped in the 1960s.
Ward smiles at the tall wrought-iron trellis that the Hages anchored on a wall behind their patio — decades ago, this same wrought-iron served as a railing surrounding the patio off of his parents’ bedroom. (Lewis Penny thought of that special touch as well.)
When asked to name his favorite flower in the yard, Ward, like Penny, leans toward the golden rain tree.
Elizabeth Lawrence, the original architect of this landscape, also loved its summer blooms. In A Southern Garden, she stresses that June can be as “flowery” as April, if you know what to plant. She describes the golden rain tree with its yellow summer blooms as “a light, graceful specimen, twenty or thirty feet tall.”
Kindred souls.
The NC Oyster Trail connects Raleigh to a statewide effort to support and enjoy our coastal delicacies
“Few ingredients taste so much like the place they come from,” says chef Sean Fowler of Mandolin in Raleigh. “But oysters truly offer the essence of their environment — their taste, texture and aroma directly connect you to the sea.”
“I love everything about them,” agrees chef Sunny Gerhart of St. Roch Fine Oysters + Bar. “Served raw on the half shell with a touch of mignonette, fried until perfectly crispy with a touch of hot sauce aioli and a squeeze of lemon, gently poached in a stew. Oysters are so versatile, you can really do so much.”
St. Roch and Mandolin are just two of a handful of Triangle stops on the
NC Oyster Trail, a collection of more than 80 sites across the state that offer experiences like seafood markets, shellfish farms that are open for touring and restaurants that serve North Carolina oysters year-round. Established in 2020, the trail is administered by the NC Sea Grant (a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration program based at North Carolina State University), the North Carolina Coastal Federation and the North Carolina Shellfish Growers Association. It’s an effort to raise awareness about the many benefits of these farm-raised mollusks. “We’re trying to connect the dots between people who farm oysters and people who eat them,” says Lin Peterson, the cofounder of Locals Seafood.
Oyster farming is unique in that it’s one of the few agricultural techniques that actually improves the environment. “Everything we grow on land — corn, cotton, cows, pigs — they take from the land; we have to add nutrients back once we harvest them,” says Peterson. “But oysters actually clean the water. It’s the greenest form of farming there is; these animals are filtering hundreds of gallons of water each day.”
Farmed oysters are raised in cages or floating bags in the ocean. They can be grown more quickly than their wild cousins and tend to have thinner shells than wild-caught ones, making transportation more economical. “Farming takes the pressure off of wild mollusks.
All you have to do to grow them is put them in the water,” says Jane Harrison, a coastal economics specialist with the NC Sea Grant.
A great benefit is that these farmed bivalves can be harvested year-round — contrary to the often-quoted rule about only eating oysters in the ‘r’ months, a recommendation that comes from two fronts. One is from efforts to avoid depleting wild populations, which reproduce in warmer months. “There are a lot of restrictions on wild oysters so they can restore their populations,” says Harrison. The other is that these raw foods carry a risk of contamination from a naturally occurring bacteria called Vibrio, which multiplies in warm conditions. That risk is mitigated by regulations that stipulate the range of water temperatures acceptable for harvest, as well as cooling and storage practices once the mollusks are
out of the water.
“We allow Mother Nature to grow great oysters for us,” laughs Cody Faison, who runs Ghost Fleet Oyster Company with his wife, Rachel. They’re based in Hampstead, where they moved in 2019 after living in Raleigh. They found that this type of farming combined his passion for fishing with her background as an environmental scientist.
Ghost Fleet was among the first such company to offer tours of its operations to guests. “We always knew that ecotourism and agritourism would be a huge component of what we wanted to do,” Faison says. On their tours, they walk guests through a day in the life of an oyster farmer, showing them how bags and cages are set, explaining the difference between farmed and wild species and talking them through the harvest process. Guests cannot engage in farming
activities — it’s a regulated agricultural activity, after all — but can get off the boat and walk around. “It’s an authentic moment of time in the marsh,” says Faison. “And we end the tour with shucking and eating oysters, of course!”
Which leads back to the taste. These delicacies can be salty, earthy, buttery or have notes of indescribable umami flavors. “We grow the same species all up and down the Eastern Seaboard, but when you pull them out the water, they’re completely different,” says Peterson. “The shell color, the shapes, the flavor — all that is influenced by the environment where the oyster is raised. It’s like a grape: you can plant the same chardonnay vine in North Carolina, California or France, and it’ll taste totally different.”
Farmers have learned to control the flavors of the mollusks by moving them as they grow or tumbling them to change the shape of the shell. “It’s sort of like tending cattle, you move them around to different areas,” says Peterson. “They don’t just throw the baby oysters in a bag and come back in a year.” Farmers can even harvest when the delicacies have reached a restaurant’s preferred size. “St. Roch may want a medium or small oyster to offer cocktail-style, but Hummingbird will want a larger one to char-broil,” says Peterson.
The North Carolina coast naturally offers varied environments to create all these flavor profiles. “We have a lot of different salinity levels and different types of water bodies that are good environments, and even the same environment can fluctuate
The North Carolina Oyster Trail was created in 2020 as a way to “provide experiences that help sustain and grow N.C. oysters, to bring about economic, environmental and social benefits to the state’s seafood industry and coastal communities,” says Harrison. It’s administered by the North Carolina Sea Grant and North Carolina Coastal Federation, in partnership with the NC Shellfish Growers Association. In addition to oyster farms, the trail includes restaurants that serve oysters year-round, retailers and arts organizations that sell oyster-related jewelry and other products, and more. The trail includes both coastal destinations and ones further inland. Learn more at ncseagrant.ncsu.edu.
• EDUCATION • SEAFOOD MARKET
RESTAURANTS
with the wind and the tides,” says Peterson, who supplies various Triangle-area restaurants.
For example, Stump Sound, on the northwest side of Topsail Island, breeds high-salinity oysters because it’s close to inlets that bring in salt water. (“They’re like a salt bomb,” says Peterson.) Currituck Selects, which are raised near Germantown on the Pamlico Sound, are the same species, but they grow in an area with much lower salinity, so tasters may detect a cleaner flavor.
“We’ve got the word ‘terroir’ to describe the land where a crop comes from, but people are becoming more familiar with the idea of the ‘merroir’ — understanding what part of the sea a food product comes from,” says Peterson.
• FESTIVALS & EVENTS
• OYSTER DELIVERY • ARTS
Another prong of the NC Oyster Trail involves supporting the sustainability of both farming operations and wild populations. One way they do this is through shell recycling, in which the shells, or “cultch,” are used to build the reefs that wild oysters grow on. “It takes lots of time and effort, but we’re always in the mindset of sustainability,” says Faison. “We want to make sure things like clean water and fresh oysters are around for our kids, and for many generations to come.” Since 2020, the partners of the trail have planted more than 22 million bushels of cultch material for wild populations. The NC Sea Grant also offers resources like training and technical assistance to anyone who wants to get into the industry.
• SHELLFISH FARM TOURS • OUTDOOR RECREATION
“Oyster farming is a sustainable way to serve and consume a wonderful ingredient that has long been an important part of NC’s food culture. It’s good for the environment and an excellent way to support the local economy,” says Fowler, who has these delicacies on the menu at Mandolin year-round. “They help preserve an important culinary resource for generations to come and help preserve the health of our state’s ocean and waterways.”
“We have such amazing waterways with so many different styles of oysters,” says Gerhart. “I have an enormous amount of respect for the folks that spend their time in the water so that we can enjoy something so delicious.”
“The shell color, the shapes, the flavor — all that is influenced by the environment where the oyster is raised.”
— Lin Peterson
A thoughtful renovation turned this stone house in Five Points into a comfortable space for a young family
by
It sort of happened by accident, the purchase of this house. Robert Cox and Matt Bliss had passed by it a number of times on their walks around Hayes Barton, and one day they noticed a “For Sale” sign. “We thought, we’ll just look into this… and after some back and forth, we wound up getting it,” says Cox.
The 1929 home had originally been built as a duplex and converted to a single-family home in the 1970s, with a few additions and changes made in the meantime. But it had sat empty for a few years, without even the front door locked. Water damage, rotting wood and aging surfaces were evident from the get-go.
“What we ended up with was a house with no heat and no AC; the electrical was largely shot and the plumbing was off — we had to do a gut renovation,” says Cox.
So the couple set about peeling back the layers — removing old wallpaper, lifting up linoleum that covered hardwood, undoing wonky additions — to make the home their own. They leaned into some of the home’s quirks, like the pink-tiled bathroom and stone wall in a first-floor addition, and made small renovations to get every space more functional.
Cox, an architect, designed the plans for the biggest major structural change they made: breaking through the back of a closet to connect their bedroom to a bathroom to complete the primary suite. “We didn’t move any walls; it was more of a surface incision,” Cox says.
Downstairs, they stripped out a half bathroom and closet from an 1990s-era addition to convert a bedroom into a family room for themselves and their toddler son, Charlie. They also removed aluminum-and-glass paneling from the adjoining porch to restore it to its original, open-air glory. “It felt too closed off before! We love to sit on our porch and chat with neighbors walking by,” says Bliss.
In nearly every room, they removed multiple layers of wallpaper to get down to the home’s original plaster. “Some of it was magnificent — we uncovered one paper that had hand-painted dogwood flowers on it — but most of it was in bad shape,” says Cox. “We also spent a lot of time surfacing and restoring the plaster. That’s why we have picture rails now; we’re committed to not putting any more holes in the walls!” They were able to keep the wallpaper in one spot, a bold floral print at the top of the landing to the second floor.
Starting from the front door, the whole house has been updated, including restoring aging plaster and refreshing the woodwork and floors. Cox and Bliss took advantage of NC Historic Preservation tax credits to do the renovation.
The overall decor scheme is eclectic, a mix of vintage pieces, art and decorative items found on travels and gathered over time. “A lot of things in our home come from both of us just wanting to poke around an antique store without anything in particular in mind,” says Bliss. “Not even capital-A antiques stores, but junk stores.”
One of his favorite pieces is a modular candlestick that’s currently on display on the mantel. “I have such a collector gene,” says Bliss. “I’ve picked up pieces to add to that all over Europe — in Paris, Amsterdam. Whenever I travel I keep an eye out for pieces.” Around here, they love browsing Pigfish Lane, Union Camp Collective, Raleigh Vintage, Aisle 3 Modern, Hunt & Gather and Trunk Show. “There is so much amazingly built furniture that needs a new home,” says Cox.
Their efforts have turned this nearly 100-year-old home into a comfortable space that feels collected but unfussy. “We love the idea of giving something old a new life,” says Cox.
“One of the first things that drew us to the home was the huge windows in the front room,” says Cox. “It gets such great light!” Here, they include a pair of Mid-century modern chairs that had belonged to Bliss’s grandparents, as well as art collected from various sources. “I was a history major, so I love having older art in the house,” says Cox.
A 1960s-era Broyhill dining table anchors the formal dining room, which the family uses for everyday meals. On either side of the French doors are built-in cabinets. One set was there when they bought the home, and they had a cabinetmaker make a mirror image of it for the other side. It connects to the living room and the butler’s pantry.
The butler’s pantry was a selling point for the house. “I love that there are just these little moments in old houses that are so special,” says Bliss. They painted it navy from top to bottom and use their shelves to display their collection of ombre metallic glassware. “We just loved how the rich blue offsets our Dorothy Thorpe glasses,” Bliss says. They got a metal table from a restaurant supply store to create a bar there. The art in here plays off the cocktail theme, including a shadowbox with a collection of matchbooks they’ve gathered over the years. In the kitchen, they painted the walls a dark green to lend the wood cabinets some richness. Though they have plans to one day renovate it, for now Cox loves how “in a world of very bright white kitchens, it feels different and cozy.”
Bliss and Cox embraced the 1950s-era pink tile in the downstairs bathroom. “I say, don’t fight the house, let’s just celebrate what’s there! We painted the whole room pink,” says Cox. Says Bliss: “Honestly, it makes your skin look so good!” That room also has the original cast-iron tub and enamel sink, and they chose new fixtures and fittings to keep with the original vibe. They created a gallery wall in the hallway that connects the kitchen to the family, dining and living rooms. “With all the art that we’ve collected and continued to collect, it’s nice to have a big open space that we can play with,” says Bliss. Of the family room, Cox says: “We spend the majority of our time here. We love that it’s cozy and dark.” Here, a bookcase covers the window to the powder room; they also removed a closet and bathroom that had been in this space before.
The primary bedroom has the same footprint of the living room downstairs. “It does feel very grand, but we love that Charlie has a place to play while we’re getting ready in the morning,” says Cox. They knocked down a closet wall to turn a bedroom into the primary bath, then added built-ins along the hallway connecting the two to serve as a walk-through closet. “We kept coming back to the idea of having it look like a high end athletic club,” says Bliss. The only wallpaper they were able to preserve is on the landing at the top of the stairs to the second floor. “We loved it, and luckily it was in great shape,” says Cox. They paired it with a hutch from the late 1800s that they found in the former Broughton House on Anderson Drive, which was demolished in 2020. “Together, we think they make a very cool statement,” says Cox.
The home was built as a duplex, so Charlie’s room was actually originally the kitchen. “It’s the exact same footprint as the kitchen below!” says Cox. They made the room fun with a yo-yo-inspired light fixture, a rug picked up on a trip to India and a painting Cox did in high school. “We just try to use primary colors and numbers to create as much visual interest as possible,” Cox says. “We knew Charlie was going to have all sorts of crazy colors in there with his toys, so we just decided to embrace it.” The attic space, which is accessed through the primary closet, was totally unfinished when the couple moved in. They turned it into an office, gym and television-watching space, with clever storage added by combining IKEA bookcases and framing them out. “We did it as economically as possible, but made use of what otherwise was not a usable space,” says Bliss.
WALTER’s roundup of gatherings, celebrations, fundraisers and more around Raleigh.
On July 27, Catherine Nguyen and Jeremy Parish hosted the 1920s-themed “A Very Catsby 50th” at Heights House Hotel. The event celebrated WALTER photographer Nguyen’s 50th birthday with signature cocktails, a seated dinner and dessert with a great group of friends and family in attendance. Because Nguyen specializes in photographing interiors, the evening gathered a who’s-who of the Raleigh interior design world, with many clients-turned-friends as guests.
To have your event considered for The Whirl, submit images and information at waltermagazine.com/submit-photos
Whatever your musical jam, Weymouth Center’s got you covered. Join us for any one concert or subscribe to a full series and save!
Chamber Sessions a Four Concert Series » Classical music in the Great Room
Live From the Great Room a Three Concert Series » Eclectic music and cocktails
On July 21, the WakeMed Children’s Hospital was officially dedicated in honor of Peg and Dr. Jerry Bernstein. Dr. Bernstein served as a pediatrician and founding member of Raleigh Pediatric Associates while also caring for thousands of children at WakeMed. This special recognition was made possible thanks to the Szulik Family Foundation.
On June 20, Vitis House Wine School, in collaboration with the European Union, hosted a magical evening at Cucciolo Terraza to introduce the Consorcio D’Abruzzo in Italy to elite members of our city. Guests included Abruzzo president Alessandro Nicodemi and marketing director Davide Acerra, Doreen Colondres, owner of Vitis House; Michelle Mackonochie from WRAL, Hummingbird chef Coleen Speaks and members of the media.
BEAUFORT SUMMER PARTY
On July 13, guests gathered for a night of Southern charm and celebration with a fabulous summer party at the Beaufort Historic Site in Beaufort. Scarborough Fare Catering provided the food, and the evening included an open bar, live music and a silent auction with the proceeds benefiting the Beaufort Historical Association.
JK Transportation has been providing white glove delivery services to the RaleighDurham area since 2020. We partner with Interior Designers for full installations. We offer shipping and receiving in our climatecontrolled warehouse.
James@JKTransportationServicesnc.com jktransportationservicesnc.com
On August 7, Hodge & Kittrell Sotheby’s International Realty opened its third office in the Triangle, and the first in downtown Cary. The celebrants included Van Starling, managing broker-in-charge of the Cary office; owners Gilliam Kittrell, Joe Hodge, Michael Jackson and Mollie Owen; and other agents, leadership, members of the marketing team and community partners.
On August 2, Artspace hosted First Friday. In addition to the in-house artists opening their studios to guests, the evening featured an interactive art exhibit by Owen Lowery, Artspace’s Universal Access Artist in Residence, as well as an exhibit from Winston-Salem artist Jerome “Buzzy” Hughes.
MAKING RALEIGH SMILE SINCE 1899
Our patients receive state-of-the-art care in a warm, professional, safe and friendly environment. We welcome new patients!
OUR SIGNATURE SERVICES INCLUDE: Comprehensive & Cosmetic Dental Care
Same-Day CEREC Crowns
SureSmile Clear Aligner Orthodontics
Dental Implants Sleep Apnea TMJ Therapy
3201 Glenwood Ave. Suite 301 Raleigh, NC 27612 • 919-782-0801 info@raleighsmile.com
In June, Trig Modern Furniture Store started hosting Parlor Hours at its new speakeasy-style bar. Beverages were prepared by in-house bartender Preddy, who recently worked at the James Beard-nominated Bittersweet cocktail and dessert lounge. Guests were able to relax amidst Trig Modern’s collection of fine furnishings and soak in the intimate ambience of the bar.
Take WALTER to go! There’s always something to discover on our website and social media.
17 WEEKDAY BREAKFAST SPOTS IN RALEIGH
Start your day on the right foot with a hearty meal at one of these sit-down restaurants that serve eggs, biscuits, açai bowls and more. by Henry Thomas
THE SHOW THAT MADE THE AVETT BROTHERS
Paul Siler, Paleface, Steve Popsin, John Dexter and other music folks remember a magical night at Kings Barcade, 20 years later. by Matthew Busch
7 QUESTIONS WITH ELEANOR RICE
The author of the book Your Pets’ Secret Lives talks about what inspired her niche career writing about the wonders of the natural world. by Addie Ladner
CUSTOM CRAFTED CORPORATE EVENTS
ELEVATE YOUR HOLIDAY CELEBRATION AT THE MERRIMON-WYNNE HOUSE WHERE SOPHISTICATION MEETS FESTIVITY! FOR YOU, BY US!
Contact us today to learn more about our allinclusive packages & the types of events that you can host with us!
by AYN-MONIQUE KLAHRE
Artspace has been a fixture for creatives downtown for nearly four decades, but a new program will extend its reach even further. Called Artspace on the Go, it’s a colorful van outfitted with supplies galore that connects working artists with the community.
“The idea was birthed with access in mind, to have a mobile program that could take the arts to underrepresented communities,” says David Moore, director of community engagement at Artspace. They initially tested the model by hosting workshops at Dorothea Dix Park, Step Up Ministry and the Salvation Army, as well as at street festivals and other community gatherings. This fall, they will be focusing on working with after-school programs, community centers and libraries in Southeast Raleigh.
The big differentiator between Artspace on the Go and other arts programs is the artistled programming, says Moore: “Unless you’re in school or can afford to pay for an art class, you’re not always learning from real artists.” Installation artist Jane Cheek, for example, has led programs that invite people into her process, painting and cutting sheets of acetone that she assembles into installations.
will be able to choose from a menu of artist-led experiences to suit their students. “We want them to be able to decide what their students would like the best,” says Moore.
“It’s a wonderful program that offers such easy access to art, it’s like we’re bringing the studio to you.”
— PATRIZIA FERREIRA
As they build out the programming, Artspace’s partner organizations
Mixed-media assemblage artist Patrizia Ferreira has also participated in Artspace on the Go. “It’s so amazing because we can work together to create a large-scale work of art that incorporates the hands and voices of so many participants,” she says. “It brings this larger sense of meaning into my work.”
In one of her workshops, Ferreira,
who works with found materials, gave children socks, stuffing materials and scraps like ribbon and yarn to create characters. “It’s really sweet because they tended to make these little alter egos — maybe a dream character like a superhero or princess — and they were all so interesting and slightly different,” she says. She’s planning to incorporate these characters into a large piece she’s currently working on in her Artspace studio. “It’s a wonderful program that offers such easy access to art, it’s like we’re bringing the studio to you,” she says. “And for me, it’s such a blessing. Kids are so ingenious and spontaneous, it has an effect on the way I’m making and creating, too. It loosens me up and keeps me humble.”
You have rhythm. So does your heart. When your heart’s rhythm is irregular, quivering or rapid, you could have AFib, increasing your chances of having a stroke or developing heart failure. The good news is you have advanced electrophysiology physicians at WakeMed Heart & Vascular who specialize in your heart’s electrical system. They’ll offer multiple treatment options, most of them minimally invasive. And that should come as music to your ears, your heart and your six string.
wakemed.org/afib-center
Same-day appointments available • Most appointments seen within 48 hours • Easy access to specialists in electrophysiology, cardiology, bariatrics, sleep medicine, nutrition and smoking cessation • Expedited care to improve AFib outcomes • Dedicated visits specific to AFib