Long before the lights come up and the actors take the stage at Flat Rock Playhouse, the Playhouse marketing department will have been working towards that climactic moment for months. Indeed, because of the talent and dedication of the staff responsible for promoting FRP, the many brilliant performers who will grace the Leiman Mainstage this season will be greeted by a theater full of enthusiastic patrons.

After 20 years in Miami, photographer Jaime Seymour-Newton resolved it was time to marry together her passions for photography, animals, and the mountains of North Carolina.  She discussed the idea with her husband Rupert and made her case for the move to a new home. “I said to my husband, ‘Let’s have an adventure.’”  He agreed and together they embarked on an adventure that eventually brought Jaime Seymour-Newton Photography to Flat Rock.

Twenty years ago, when a FedEx courier handed Ken Jones a package containing a book he’d ordered from a small bookstore in South Africa, he had no idea that he’d just been handed the inspiration for his first novel. Indeed, he had no idea that he would ever be an author.

The Highland Lake Inn & Resort is known today as one of the Southeast’s premier resort destinations. But its history extends back over 230 years to the earliest European settlers in western North Carolina.

Tucked back in the heart of East Flat Rock, there is a place of unexpected creativity, camaraderie, and community known as Raven’s Wing Studios.  Owned and operated by Phoebe and Don Blackwell, the studio is both an incubator and sanctuary for people with a passion for art. The exterior may be humble, but the heart of this place and the artists within its walls shine a bright light on the beauty around us. 

Christopher Memminger’s first recorded visit to Flat Rock came in the fall of 1836, although he may have visited earlier. It was during that visit that he apparently determined to build his own summer home at Flat Rock. 

By the end of 1837, he had begun preliminary work, including the construction of a bridge across the creek that later formed Front Lake and perhaps leveling a building site in the hillside above. The story of the building of Rock Hill, the Memminger mountain home that eventually became home to Carl Sandburg.

Just down the road from Flat Rock is Tuxedo, North Carolina, the heart of the Green River Township. Once a vibrant mill village, Tuxedo was founded in 1907 by Joseph Oscar Bell, Sr. The pioneering businessman orchestrated the building of the mill village and the making of a dam above Green River Falls to power his textile mill, Green River Manufacturing Company.

This is the story of the historic town that grew up around his mill.

Flat Rock lost one of its leading lights this week with the passing of Rick Merrill at age 73. The legacy of his accomplishments will echo through the history of Flat Rock for decades to come. Ultimately, Rick lived a life of real consequence.

Growing up in Gainesville, Florida, Amelia Brashear was immersed in a family culture that embraced the preparation and sharing of good food as an act of love. At the same time, 500 miles away in the mountains of North Carolina, young Kip Lindsey was watching and helping his talented and well-known father, Larc Lindsey, excel in the kitchen of the Highland Lake Inn Restaurant in Flat Rock.

At the time, they had no way of knowing that their formative childhood experiences would play such an important role in their lives - ultimately resulting in a marriage and partnership that launched them on a decades-long adventure exploring their passion for exceptional food, gracious hospitality, and shared community.

The advanced guard of a winter storm loomed on the horizon as I struggled to upright his fallen tombstone. The rose-colored granite resisted my first attempts to lift it back into place. Determined to see his name, I gave the ponderous stone one last heave and it slowly returned to its base – crooked and off-center, but upright, nonetheless.  There, slightly discolored from resting the red North Carolina clay, I could now read his name.

“Hello, Henry,” I whispered into the wind. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Flat Rock Playhouse announced its 2023 season this week and the intriguing lineup of shows promises something for everyone. The Playhouse playbills will be full of familiar titles, classic favorites, a regional premiere, an original production by a member of the Playhouse staff, music that runs the gamut from country to Christmas, the first-ever production of Shakespeare on the Playhouse main stage, and a family show sure to enthrall audiences of all ages.

In short, Flat Rock Playhouse’s 2023 season offers a delightful variety and promises to be one of the most entertaining years in the long and storied history of the Vagabonds Players.

Decades before an influx of Lowcountry landowners began looking for a reprieve from oppressive South Carolina summers in the mountains of western North Carolina, Abraham Kuykendall was arguably the most prominent European settler to live in the area we now know as Flat Rock. 

In the early 1960s, Gordon McCabe, Jr. decided to sell the cottage property and 25 acres to Laurie and Alex Schenck of Greensboro, North Carolina. In no time the Schencks renamed the house Rutledge Cottage in honor of the Rutledge family. They quickly became one of the best stewards of this historical gem where three years later, Alex Schenck founded Historic Flat Rock, Inc.

The scene was busy, bustling, and bittersweet. A combination of commerce mixed with a celebration of the friendships created inside the gallery’s walls during the past seven years. There were smiles, hugs - and a few tears - as the community gathered one last time to say farewell to the Firefly.

Selecting five favorite stories from 2022 is akin to the proverbial dilemma of picking a favorite child. Each story has its merits and is deserving in its own way. Meaning of course, that any list has a distinctly arbitrary quality about it.

Still, there are stories that stick in our memory and elicit special feelings when we look back at 52 weeks of Flat Rock Together. Here are five of our most popular stories from a year full of great personalities, amazing accomplishments, fascinating history, and heart-warming stories which make Flat Rock the fascinating place it is to live.

In 1915 Eleanor Vance and Charlotte Yale, co-founders of Biltmore Estate Industries, left Asheville, N.C. and resettled in Tryon, a small mountain community just 40 miles southeast on the South Carolina border. Already a center for arts and crafts, Tryon became the new home for Vance and Yale’s little non-profit business, the famous Tryon Toy Makers and Wood Carvers. The company focused on two operations; the toy makers created small, painted wooden figurines based on classic nursery rhymes, while the carvers created mantles, furniture, church altars and other specialized wooden pieces.

Packing only what was necessary, Oleksandr and Halyna left Kyiv and headed 30 miles east of central Kyiv and away from the heaviest shelling, seeking refuge at her parent’s home. Although they did not know it at the time, that short journey of just 30 miles was to be the first step on a much longer odyssey leading them to a small village in the mountains of North Carolina -  5,246 miles away.

A post office was established in Flat Rock in 1829 and John Davis was appointed the first postmaster. In 1845 the Rev. Peter Stradley was appointed postmaster. It was during his tenure that the “old post office” was built. Read accounts of its history from various authors here.

Mountain Lodge — considered to be the first house built by Charlestonians in the Flat Rock settlement — was purchased out of bankruptcy by Historic Flat Rock, Inc. The house was in extremely poor condition due to its age, lack of maintenance, and vandalism. The preservation group submitted an offer from a revolving fund it uses to buy and resell endangered historic properties. Their purpose was to stabilize the house and find a preservation-conscious person to buy it.

The story of Mountain Lodge’s origin and its ultimate return to glory …

I love living in a small town where the morning show at the local radio station announces your name on your birthday. And for that, I am very thankful.