I grew up in Hendersonville, and Lake Lure was never really a "getaway" to me — it was just where summer happened. Some of my earliest memories are out on that water, and up the road at Chimney Rock, before it was the polished state park it is today. My family and I used to hike out to Silver City, the old mining ghost town tucked in the gorge, back when it was still just a local secret instead of a trailhead with a name on a map. And like a lot of people who grew up around here, I ended up friends with several of the local extras and background dancers who worked on Dirty Dancing when it filmed on the lake in 1987 — small-town connections like that are just part of how this place works.

Eventually I did what a lot of people from small mountain towns do — I left. Chicago, Charlotte, Folly Beach, Canton, Georgia, back to uptown Charlotte, then Belmont, North Carolina. Different jobs, different cities, a couple of decades of it. But Lake Lure kept pulling me back, the way it does for a lot of people who spent their childhood summers here. Eventually I stopped visiting and just moved back for good.

Why a news and information site

My background is in advertising, public relations, and journalism — that's what my degree is in, and it's shaped how I think about information ever since. I've always believed a town this small still deserves real reporting: sourced, fair, and willing to ask an uncomfortable question when one needs asking, not just recycled press releases dressed up as news. That's the standard I've tried to hold this site to on the local stories that matter — the ones with real documents behind them, not just a headline.

At the same time, Lake Lure and Chimney Rock are genuinely special places, and most of what people need here is a lot simpler: where to eat, where to stay, what's actually worth doing with a weekend. So this site tries to do both jobs honestly — the practical visitor's guide from someone who actually lives here, and the accountability reporting a small town like this doesn't always get, side by side.

Between the two, you'll also run into Edmund, the goat who took over a stretch of highway near Chimney Rock and became the closest thing this town has to a local celebrity. That one's just for fun.

If you spot something wrong, have a question, or just want to say hello, the contact page always reaches me directly.

Last updated: 2026-09-04