Out of the Blue

OUT OF THE BLUE

California Dreamin’

The princess of Montecito

By Deborah Salomon

Once upon a time, an attractive young woman from a Los Angeles neighborhood described as “modest” and “interesting” decided to become a princess.

Duchess, actually. Still impressive.

Sure, hon. Don’t we all.

Only two methods work: Be born into a royal family or, more likely, marry a prince. Hey, movie star Grace Kelly did it.

Never mind that this prince has wiry red hair and a wild streak. Its story line echoes those found in literature pre-dating the pyramids, the Bible, the tabloids.

So the presumption is that current maiden with the alliterative name took the same yellow brick road to fame: wrangle an introduction, hang around, smile a lot.

She met her prince, Harry by name, on a blind date — yeah, really — arranged by a mutual friend whose identity has been kept secret. Within weeks the smitten kittens were off on a camping trip to Botswana while the British press panted at the fence. The royal family managed smiles in public, gnawed their nails over tea and crumpets (biscuits passing as English muffins).

American! Actress! Divorced! Black! was whispered at polo matches. But to their credit, the royals stiffened those upper lips and, in true British style, carried on.

And carried on, to co-habitation, then marriage, sealing the deal with the birth of red-haired Prince Archie, followed by Princess Lilibet, strategically named for her great-granny, the Queen.

Thus ensconced, our American TV actress Meghan pulled off her biggest coup, many years in the planning: relocate from smoggy London to a sunny California neighborhood where her $20 million estate felt comfier than Buckingham Palace.

But beware, fair lady: Your glamour is shrinking while the bills, they groweth apace. The tennis court needs resurfacing. And the guesthouse could use a rainforest shower head. Oprah can’t dig you out of this one.

Then, a brotherly plot . . . er, feud . . . escalated over security during a planned trip to introduce grandkids to King Charles, who is ill. He received them at one of his country estates, more suitable than having the monarch show up at a bouncy-house birthday party. Can’t you just see Camilla in face paint?

All the while, Prince Harry was being ripped from the bosom of his bloodline, with sweet Kate (from non-royal mercantile wealth) doing most of the ripping, or so the press chatters. Otherwise a cold shoulder here, an unkind remark there, with little to no brotherly love emanating from William, whose frown shouts “off with his head.”

Reconciliation? Fat chance, shared the California fashionista who can hardly pay the pool boy.

What a kettle of Dover sole, fast becoming rather tiresome, enlivened only by a parade of glossy TV specials à la Diana and Charles, JFK Jr. and wife Carolyn, with subheads proclaiming Americans “can’t let go the monarchy.”

Yet every little girl dreams of being a princess. At least a Duchess, dressed to kill, who still calls the shots.

Hometown

HOMETOWN

Back to School Daze

Ticonderoga and a crew cut, too

By Bill Fields

Summer moved slowly, like a bunted ball unsure if it was fair or foul, but once the dog days had come and gone, the pace quickened. Little League was over. The beach was a pile of Polaroids, a stray Skee-Ball ticket and a chipped conch shell that looked a lot bigger on the Strand.

By the time I rode shotgun with my two-pack-a-day father to a tobacco auction in Fairmont or Whiteville, the strong smell and strange sounds within the vast warehouse signaled that September — and a new school year — loomed. This reality tended to hit me on the drive home as I attempted an annoying imitation of the auctioneer’s rhythmic chant, which usually got Dad to buy me some crackers so I would shut up.

Even a boy who loved those lazy summer days knew there was such a thing as too much watermelon and horseshoes. After a couple of idle months, I looked forward to seeing a new Currier & Ives scene on our wall calendar (an annual freebie from Hobbs Insurance) and returning to the classroom.

Preparation for the first day of school felt like its own season, about which I had mixed feelings. Since I kept my hair closely cropped by getting a crew cut every few weeks, timing a visit to Billie Hill’s Broad Street barbershop certainly was no hardship. I loved the ritual: waiting for my turn, magazine in hand, listening to the adults’ conversation; settling into the chair, smock clipped on and paper band secured around the neck; calming whir of the clippers; a powdered brush when her work was done. After paying Mrs. Hill $1.75 for my haircut, I left ready to take on the world.

Being obsessed with school supplies, stocking up on them was far from a chore even though my mother kept a close eye on the bottom line. We read the “Back to School” ads in The Pilot closely. Valu-Mart might have Flair pens on sale for 39 cents apiece, but they could be three for 99 cents at Mann Drug. I had to be at my persuasive best to get Mom to spring for Ticonderoga pencils instead of a less expensive variety but had better luck with that than I did lobbying each August for a pair of Converse All Star sneakers instead of the brand’s slightly cheaper Coach model.

Mostly, back to school in the late 1960s and early ’70s meant going back to Collins, which had been situated on Main Street in Aberdeen, “the shopping center of the Sandhills,” since the 1930s. It was part of a regional chain of about 30 department stores founded by William Augustus Collins, who opened his first location, in Conway, South Carolina, in 1927. The Collins Co. boasted it was “A Good Place to Shop for Nice Things” while emphasizing its mid-priced mindset that suited folks on a budget. One of its early advertisements said, “Stars in the skies are like bargains at Collins, too thick to be counted.” Another said Collins was “where quality is never expensive.”

Deals on dungarees notwithstanding, my enthusiasm for clothes shopping didn’t come close to matching my gusto for pens, pencils and paper. Although I could play outside for hours in the heat sustained by a few gulps from the garden hose, I tired easily on those annual excursions to Collins, with little patience for changing room visits to see if I fit in regular or “husky” pants. Regardless of the size Mom paid for, it wouldn’t be too long until I’d worn a hole in a knee. She would have to apply an iron-on patch, making me resemble a repaired old tire on one of our well-used cars.

The Collins chain lasted another decade or so, until I had the survived the fashions of the 1970s and was about to graduate from college. Its dozen surviving stores were bought in 1981 by the Peebles Department Stores. William Collins died the following year. “He was a man that never quit dreaming,” Raymond Collins, one of his children, told the Charlotte Observer. “But he believed in backing up your dreams with elbow grease.”

2026 Department Hometown

From the Archives

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Pinehurst Cigarettes

The taste that refreshes

By Audrey Moriarty

Photographs by Tufts Archives

Did you know that the resort founded on healthful living once had its own brand of cigarettes?

The R.W. Swain Tobacco Company of Danville, Virginia, introduced the “Milder Smoother Smoke” on Nov. 19, 1940. The cigarettes were a short (70 mm), soft pack, with 20 cigarettes. The first pack was presented to Richard S. Tufts, grandson of Pinehurst founder James Walker Tufts, at a formal launch and luncheon at the Pinehurst Country Club. In attendance were more than 50 people, including Donald J. Ross, manager of the club; Robert J. Harlow, of the Pinehurst Press Bureau and founder of Golf World magazine; Harris Norris, manager of the Carolina Hotel; and Edward Horne, manager of the Holly Inn. According to R.L. Swain, president of the tobacco company, Pinehurst brand cigarettes contained a new ingredient never before used in the manufacture of cigarettes. That ingredient, Panax Quinquefolium — from the plant commonly known as American ginseng — was tasteless and produced a milder, smoother smoke. It was a humectant, a substance that attracts and holds onto water molecules providing hydration, such as aloe vera, glycerin or hyaluronic acid. Due to this humectant, according to the product information, there was “an amazing lack of sore or raw throat after smoking many of them.” In the tobacco company’s search for a name for the new brand of cigarettes, “Pinehurst” was chosen due to its association with outstanding quality and pleasurable satisfaction.

2026 Department From the Archives

Falling in Love

FALLING IN LOVE

Falling in Love

And planting in abundance

By Randy Boyd • Photographs by John Gessner

You do learn some things at your mother’s knee, which is how I ended up falling in love with gardening. I was raised by a passionate gardener, and while my chores started with mowing the lawn, my eyes inevitably fell on my mother tending her many beautiful rosebushes. Over the years she had more than 30 varieties, all flourishing the way the joy of gardening did in me.

Being raised in Laguna Beach, California, and having designed a number of gardens there, I knew the plants and care appropriate for the West Coast like the back of my hand. When I moved to Pinehurst a little over a year ago with my husband, Mark, my desire for a garden came with me, but the requisite knowledge did not. I had to learn the plants that love to grow in the Sandhills.

In our home here, a walled brick patio and a small, long side yard presented their own promises and problems. I had to rethink what to use and how to landscape this new area. My greatest influence is English gardens, particularly in the Cotswold area, and I approach landscaping like I approach interior design for my clients — I look to see what entertainment or area of interest needs to be found and supported. On the patio this translated into pots of various sizes and materials to help add interest, along with some art pieces like a tall, vintage aviary and some statuary. We located a dining table there to entertain as well.

I watch the sun and temperatures to see what will thrive in what place. My pots are lush because I tend to plant in abundance. I don’t want it to look like we are waiting for something to fill in. Because my side yard has fencing and the patio has brick walls, I have the freedom of not worrying about deer — a luxury not everyone enjoys. I use pots of various sizes, 18-22 inches, filling each with three or four plants purchased at a decent size, anchoring with a 1-gallon plant and adding 4-inch containers.

One important factor in either the side yard or the patio is to have things — pots, statuary, plants — that take the eye up and down so there is constant visual interest and movement. Color needs to be thought through to give a sense of peace, avoiding the kind of clash that can throw off the natural feel while still maintaining a curated plan.

In the first year for the patio I’m using climbing roses on a trellis, hostas, potato vine, shasta daisies, hydrangeas and geraniums. For the side space — inspired by an English garden’s sense of controlled chaos — I plan for height in the back, using color as the eye trails down and forward. Flowers are intentionally planted at the edge of the path to soften the lines.

In California I took a more Mediterranean approach, which has to do with temperature, dryness and the look of the houses where I lived. All the elements, from architecture to flower bed, need to complement one another. I tend toward a cooler color palette of pale pinks, lavender both in color and the plant itself, hostas in various shades, and grey hews from accent plants for contrast. We also have some small lemon trees and a Japanese maple in large pots.

Gardeners love every step from preparing the dirt, filling pots and even watering (although next year I am getting a drip line). Gardening doesn’t just happen — it takes planning and executing and then the daily job of weeding and deadheading so it always looks neat and tidy. All of this brings me great satisfaction as I wander out first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee, or in the evening with my glass of wine. I feel at home and at peace.

England has been called a nation of gardeners. Pinehurst may be called the Home of Golf, but some of us think it could be the Home of Gardeners, too.

2026 Feature

A Stitch in Time

A STITCH IN TIME

A Stitch in Time

Every quilt tells a story

By Sharon Swanke

Every other year “Quilting in the Pines” fills the Pinehurst Fair Barn with color and creativity. Since its beginning in 2004, the show has gathered quilters and their work from all over the Southeast to be shown and judged. Sponsored by the Sandhills Quilters Guild, the 2026 show is Friday and Saturday, Sept. 25 – 26, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults and free for children under 18.

Beyond the judged quilts, the show includes a variety of vendors, a boutique of quilt-related and craft items made by guild members, a quilt raffle, a silent auction, a children’s scavenger hunt, raffle baskets and food trucks. All proceeds from the show go toward gifting handmade quilts and pillowcases to local charities, including Habitat for Humanity and Falcon Children’s Home.

Members of the Sandhills Quilters Guild include traditional and modern quilters, art quilters and storytellers. All quilts are true expressions of the artist’s vision, often telling stories of why the art was created.

Among the guild’s award-winning members, Mary Abbott Williams started her quilting journey at age 5, choosing fabrics to add to her babysitter’s projects. Abbott Williams has matured into a multiple award-winning traditional quilter who finds joy in studying and re-creating antique quilt patterns and motifs with the ultimate goal of “making quilts that look like they belong in another century.” This year she’s curating the balcony display, which will feature her reproduction quilts from the 1760s to the 1800s in honor of the nation’s 250th anniversary.

Christine Weld is a modern quilter and Army spouse who has found quilt guilds across the country ready to welcome her wherever her family has relocated. From the Colonial Piecemakers Guild in Williamsburg, Virginia, to the Hudson Valley Modern Guild, Weld has discovered a social network of sewists. She joined the Sandhills Quilters Guild before her family even moved to the area. During the pandemic she designed modern quilts on her blog and submitted a pattern to Moda Fabrics for its “Bakeshop” line. Now, with Moda quilt patterns in four books published by Martingale & Co., Weld continues to lend her talents to the challenge of creating new and exciting modern quilts using precuts.

Linda James’ art quilts are exquisite expressions of her creativity. She started her sewing journey making doll clothes, and her search for appropriate fabric led her to the Quilters Gallery Shop, where she gawked at the completed quilts for so long the staff came to check on her. James loves it when her quilts tell a story that engages the viewer. “My first show entry featured funky twinkling stars with odd cuts of fabric. It reminded me of peering at the stars in New Mexico with my brother at my side,” she says. James won the Viewer’s Choice award at the 2024 show. Her work with needle and thread has led her to create eye-popping quilts, winning multiple quilting awards and launching a longarm quilting business.

Abbott Williams, Weld and James are just three reasons “Quilting in the Pines” captures the passion and creativity of the art.

2026 Feature

Bookshelf

BOOKSHELF

September Bookshelf

By Kimberly Daniels Taws

FICTION

Ply, by Hernan Diaz

Centuries from now, at the dawn of a historical epoch filled with both uncertainty and promise, an orphan is adrift in a city on the brink of a great transformation. The state has been dismantled, and humans are reinventing social bonds and learning new ways to coexist with nature. Following a childhood defined by loss, survival and found family, the orphan grows up to become a “pincher,” someone who steals electricity from the grid to sell on the black market. It’s a high risk life, one that brings her into a rich art and music scene, using her stolen electricity to power underground concerts. It also leads her to a colossal scientific invention that could change the very fabric of reality. Ply questions the place of technology in the American experiment with a plot that grabs both heart and mind, combining Dickensian odyssey and family drama.

Dodge City, by Patrick deWitt

It’s 1967 in Los Angeles, and Lee Clarke has received his draft notice, calling him up to fight in the Vietnam War. A straitlaced, apolitical 23-year-old from Concrete, Washington, Lee is studying at UCLA until a fistfight leads to his expulsion — and his removal from the deferment list. The draft notice forces him to make the first political decision of his life, and though he’s happy in California and loves his girlfriend, he will leave the country and head for Canada. He signs up at a car-delivery service, chancing into a showroom-new Jaguar bound for the East Coast. Bringing only a single suitcase and a bag of amphetamines, he makes his stimulated progress against the width of the country, pining for the life he’s left behind and wondering what his decision will mean for his future. In four different towns strung out along the northern United States, Lee visits each member of his immediate family: his father, a World War II veteran in a state of degradation; his mother, engaged in a buoyantly manic and never-ending performance with her shut-in sibling; his heartbroken, misanthropic brother, Harry; and finally his twin sister, Grace, a brash young nurse-in-training mired in romantic drama at a Manhattan psychiatric hospital.

NONFICTION

An Unexpected Life: A Memoir, by Gloria Steinem

Before she became a feminist leader, Gloria Steinem was a curious child: going on road trips with her itinerant father, caring for her mother, and devouring every book she could find. In An Unexpected Life, Steinem reflects on the unlikely experiences and pivotal moments — from a childhood rat bite that opened her eyes to the dangers of poverty to the 1970 Women’s March honoring the right to vote — that shaped the visionary woman she would become. She shares her years living in India, learning from the nonviolent movement there, and her travels around the world advocating for women’s rights. Along the way, she honors the people who influenced her most, including trailblazers, writers and thinkers who expanded her understanding of power, community, justice and solidarity. Moving between past and present, Steinem examines the progress and setbacks of six decades of activism. As she reflects on the movements she helped build and the victories won for women’s and human rights, she also looks ahead, urging new generations to imagine bolder, more inclusive paths forward.

An Inconvenient Woman: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America, by Keri Leigh Merritt

After teaching school in China in the early 1920s, Lillian Smith (1897-1966) moved to a small rural town in northeast Georgia. Along with her lover, Paula Snelling, Smith began running a socially progressive summer camp for girls in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Together the couple created and published a magazine devoted to creating a new vision of the former Confederacy that passionately championed equality and integration. They were the first white Southerners to publish Black writers, and Smith wrote articles instructing white Southerners to stop supporting the dictates of Jim Crow. In 1944 she published a bestselling novel, Strange Fruit, which became a national sensation and was banned in Boston and Detroit. She went on to publish six more books, both fiction and nonfiction, exploring topics ranging from racism and human suffering to sexual repression and Freudian psychoanalysis. Because of Smith’s provocative work, the FBI spied on her for decades, she received countless death threats, and her home was burned three times by angry racists, resulting in the loss of multiple works-in-progress. Undaunted, she continued her ardent fight against segregation, maintaining friendships with some of the great leaders of her day, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr, W.E.B Dubois, Paul Robeson and Pauli Murray.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Be the Acorn, by Jason Douglas Griffin

There’s a hole in the ground where the squirrel family tree used to be, and so they set out on a hunt to find a new home. Choko Choko, the smallest squirrel, is determined to help . . . but he’s told he’s too little to join. Luckily his grandma, Great Haha, always knows just what to say. “Like an acorn, you may be small, but you have big possibilities . . . Be the acorn.” When Choko Choko discovers the largest acorn he has ever seen, he remembers Great Haha’s wise words, and he realizes that although he’s small, he can dare to dream big. In this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed story about a valiant squirrel, young readers learn that, with patience and time, they too can grow into something beautiful. (Ages 4-8.)

Horizontal Crocodile, by Scott Rothman

In a nice, loooooooong swamp, lives a nice, loooooooong Horizontal Crocodile whose loooooooong lost best friend is coming over . . . but Horizontal Crocodile’s nice, loooooooong house is one HUGE mess! Can he get it cleaned up in time for his best buddy’s visit? See the lengths Horizontal Crocodile goes to in the name of being a caring and considerate friend in this hilarious and heartwarming read-aloud. (Ages 4-8.)

Socks & Secret Quests, by Triona Murphy

Peri has been waiting for her magic to show up, but there’s been no sign of it since she was chosen as an Apprentice Shopkeeper a year ago. Now she travels with a magical shop that equips adventurers for their quests, unsure if she’ll ever do more than stock shelves, mend mittens, and knit non-magical hats that don’t do anything but keep heads warm. Then a dark wizard kidnaps the Master Shopkeeper, intent on using her power to create an unstoppable army. To save her master, Peri must leave the cozy shop and seek help from the closest adventuring party, who is really good at arguing and really bad at working together. As Peri’s magic unexpectedly begins to show itself in the items she’s knitting, it’s up to her and her team to stop the dark wizard before war breaks out — or it won’t be just her shop at stake but the entire kingdom. (Ages 10-13.)

2026 Bookshelf Department

Golftown Journal

GOLFTOWN JOURNAL

The Spirit of ’76

When the “World” came to Pinehurst

By Lee Pace

A quarter-century before Payne Stewart dropped his 20-foot putt for birdie to win the 1999 U.S. Open, there was another dramatic and electrifying moment on the 18th hole of Pinehurst No. 2. A PGA Tour event was hanging in the balance. A popular golfer crouched behind his ball, some 15 feet to the right of the cup, to get the proper read. Record crowds circled the green.

Ray Floyd struck his putt and the ball hung on the edge of the cup for a millisecond. Some in the gallery thought it had stopped for good, the first strains of “Awwww . . . ” rising in their throats.

Finally, the putt had just enough juice left to tumble over the edge. Floyd balled his fist and thrust it above him. The crowd erupted in celebration. Over to the side, Jerry McGee winced.

“I was positive in my mind I could birdie 18,” Floyd said. “I’d made only one birdie all day. I was playing too well to just make one birdie.”

McGee thought he’d won the tournament only moments before when he made a 25-foot putt for birdie to go up by one stroke on Floyd, the 34-year-old who was a leading contender for 1976 PGA Tour Player of the Year.

“Somehow that ball fell uphill,” McGee noted incredulously.

Floyd and McGee proceeded to the first tee for a playoff in the 1976 World Open. Floyd, the Fayetteville native who helped draw a record gallery of some 24,000 spectators on the final day, drove his ball into the rough to the right of the fairway. McGee was comfortably in the middle of the fairway. The advantage appeared solidly in McGee’s favor.

But Floyd caught a good lie and stuck his approach to 4 feet, and McGee missed the green on his second shot. Floyd rolled his birdie putt into the cup and collected the $40,000 first prize.

“I was lucky,” Floyd said. “I drew a good lie from the rough and hit a terrific shot.”

That was 50 years ago. Pinehurst was six years into a new ownership regime, with the Diamondhead Corporation led by Maxton native Malcom McLean having bought the resort, club and five golf courses from the founding Tufts family at the end of 1970.

It was halfway into a decade of having a regular PGA Tour event and wrestling (as it would for many years) to find the proper strain of grass for its greens — bent grass to be pure and smooth during the resort high-seasons of spring and fall, or Bermuda to hold up during hot Southern summers? At that moment in 1976, the greens were bent after a 1972 conversion. But these PGA Tour events were held in late August or mid-September, and the putting surfaces were left defenseless. Players like Hale Irwin said the greens “were like sponges” when he shot a 62 in 1977.

The victory in 1976 for Floyd, the reigning Masters champion, was his eighth on the PGA Tour but his first significant triumph in the shadow of his hometown. Floyd was born in Fayetteville in 1942, and his father, L.B., was a career Army man and in charge of Stryker Golf Course, the Fort Bragg course used by enlisted men. Floyd was more of a baseball fan growing up and even played the game in the minor leagues. He never had an amateur career to speak of and retains only spotty memories of traveling to Pinehurst as a boy to play golf on No. 2.

“I remember my first trip was in the winter and the grass was dormant,” Floyd says. “And I remember how tough it played, especially the front nine. I was excited because it was a treat to be leaving town to play another golf course, but I wasn’t even aware of the history or tradition. Back then, there was no such thing as rough. There was sand and pine straw, and the natural environment was the rough.”

The big names in pro golf in the mid-1970s were Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf and Tom Watson. The 1976 competition was significant because it marked the end of Nicklaus’ streak of 105 consecutive PGA Tour events without missing a cut. He had last missed the 36-hole cut in October 1970 and was bearing down on Byron Nelson’s run of 113 straight made cuts set in the 1940s. Nicklaus shot rounds of 72-74 for a 146 total, missing by one shot.

“The record had been brought to my attention — weekly,” Nicklaus said. “Sure, I’m disappointed I didn’t get it, but the streak is over.”

The ’70s were a decade of change around Pinehurst — some for the good, some for the bad — and after that 1976 World Open there was another interesting development.

When the PGA Tour returned in 1977, it was no longer the World Open. It was now the Colgate Hall of Fame Classic.

There were only a few corporate names attached to tournaments on the PGA Tour in the ’70s. The 1976 schedule included events named for Eastern Airlines, Mutual of New York, Kemper Insurance and Buick. It was star power that ruled the day, with other tournaments named for entertainers or star golfers like Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Glen Campbell, Andy Williams, Jackie Gleason, Byron Nelson, Danny Thomas and Sammy Davis Jr.

David Foster was the president and chairman of Colgate-Palmolive and in the early 1970s recognized the marketing power of golf. He partnered with actress and singer Dinah Shore in 1972 to launch the Colgate Dinah Shore Winner’s Circle at Mission Hills with an unheard-of purse for the time of $110,000. His company’s investment in golf led Foster to a seat on the board of directors of the World Golf Hall of Fame, which was launched in Pinehurst in 1974 — ergo Foster’s connection to Pinehurst and his decision to have Colgate as a title sponsor for Pinehurst’s PGA Tour event from 1977-79.

The pro tour wasn’t long for Pinehurst, though, fizzling out in the early 1980s amid bad dates, a soft golf course and Diamondhead’s financial struggles that led to losing the resort to a consortium of banks. The table was being set for the resurrection that began when Robert Dedman Sr. of Dallas bought the resort in 1984.

After his win at Pinehurst in 1976, Floyd would collect 10 more titles in six years and be a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame when the Tour Championship visited Pinehurst in 1991 and ’92. He failed to qualify among the top 30 players for the 1991 competition, but he was a contender in 1992 and tied for fifth place. Two years later, Floyd had turned 50 and was among the favorites for the 1994 U.S. Senior Open at Pinehurst.

“I was really impressed with the course in the 1994 Senior Open because it was in such great condition,” Floyd says. “Among the players, No. 2 was known as a great golf course, maybe top five or top 10 in the world, but that wasn’t for its conditioning. It was just such a great layout.

“But the week of the Senior Open, the course was in superb condition. I had never seen it like that.”

2026 Department Golftown Journal

Point of View

POINT OF VIEW

Point of View

Lakeside living in the Sandhills

By Jenna Biter • Photographs by John Gessner

At the end of a sleepy cul de sac, beneath a Southern canopy of magnolia, dogwood and pine, stands a dove gray house with a water-lover’s view. Bob and Mary Jo Newman enjoy 270 degrees of Lake Pinehurst from their place on the point.

“We wanted every room available to the view,” says Mary Jo.

The Newmans hired Mark Parson to make that happen. The architect spent hours on the acre-and-a-half property, envisioning a traditional-style design that works with the trees, shoreline and lake itself. The 4,000-square-foot build combines stone with wood shingle siding, white accents and porthole windows that evoke a weekend of sailing.

A rounded veranda takes advantage of the view. “It’s a very serene and relaxing place to finish the day,” Bob says. Heaters and a ceiling fan make the space comfortable year-round. Way up in the tower, a baby blue room takes equal advantage of the view. No TV, no distractions, just sunsets and the lake. Off to one side, there’s a dock for the Duffy cruiser. “You can’t be on a lake like this and not have a boat,” says Bob.

The Newmans found Pinehurst by way of nearby real estate investments. “I discovered what a great place it would be to live,” Bob says. Residents of Minnesota, the Newmans camped out in the Sandhills while searching for a place to purchase. The hunt was short-lived. The lakefront lot had been on the market for six years, probably because the home that sat on it was a bit of a project, but the Newmans were ready to take it on.

“We just fell in love with the property,” says Mary Jo.

It was the trees and lakeside living. Bob grew up in California, competed as a rower, first at Orange Coast College, then UCLA, and then the U.S. National Team before coaching for 17 years. Their plan was to remodel, but due to restrictions, it didn’t work out. “So, we scrapped it and built,” says Bob.

That was about three years ago. The Newmans relocated their primary residency from Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, to Lake Pinehurst. Now they’re consolidating life in their North Carolina home. They spend mornings and evenings outdoors and retreat to air conditioning when the summer sun is unbearable. They open the glass on the double front doors to let the lake breeze waft through screens when it isn’t.

Bob’s Swedish ancestors would be impressed by the Viking-worthy wood beams holding up the vaulted ceiling of the great room. “I’m 6’ 6” so I really appreciate volume around me, particularly height,” Bob says. The men’s locker room at Forest Creek Golf Club inspired the design. A wood-burning fireplace stretches to the ceiling, and a pair of Mary Jo’s watercolors flank the column. They’re portraits of dogs past and present. Dog present, a Welsh springer spaniel named Winston, puppies around on the hardwood floors.

“I love a center island,” says Mary Jo, moving on to the kitchen. “I do a lot of cooking.” She wanted counter space to work and room for people to congregate during parties. She got both. There is a telescope and a dining table that seats 12 when both leaves are inserted.

“This was an add-on, an afterthought we call ‘the alcove,’” Bob says, referencing their favorite room, a sitting area by the kitchen. “It was supposed to be open patio, but we thought that a large open patio wasn’t going to be used as productively as it could.” They pivoted. The shingle siding had already been installed. They kept it and closed the outdoor space in. It’s flooded with natural light and became the place where they spend much of their time.

There’s an oar on the wall from Bob’s rowing days. The Newmans purchased the coffee table from an English antique shop when they were abroad for the Henley Royal Regatta. It features a segment of a rowing boat, Bob guesses from the 1800s.

Another favorite space, Bob’s office, is on the first floor, plus the master bedroom with an heirloom needlepoint chair from Mary Jo’s family. Two guest bedrooms, one decorated with green and the other navy, are on the second. Both have dormer windows on two walls.

“The fact that you can see the water from almost every room — it’s like living in a park,” Mary Jo says.

“It’s a little hideaway,” says Bob, “a real pleasure to live here.”

2026 Feature House

Southwords

SOUTHWORDS

Deer Me

Our inconvenient guests

By Jim Moriarty

Illustration by Campbell Pringle

“You’re prancing along, you get thirsty, you spot a little brook, you put your little deer lips down to the cool clear water . . . BAM! . . . Now I ask ya. Would you give a f*** what kind of pants the son of a bitch who shot you was wearing?”

Cousin Vinny, we got trouble right here in River City.

Most days the War Department goes to her gym, the Petri Dish, before sunrise. She’s greeted on these mornings by a deer who, if it was wearing a chauffeur’s cap, would open the car door for her. It might just as well be an Uber driver. You don’t need to order a bunch of camouflage gear from Cabela’s to stalk these deer. Bozo the Clown could sneak up on them. You could play Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 on a klaxon horn and they’ll stand there and stare at you like they’ve got orchestra seating.

Sure the fawns are cute in their little spotted outfits, but the bad news is that they grow into eating machines. Going all leafy and pastoral in our neighborhood is something of a fool’s errand. You might just as well pile the whole herd into a Suburban and drive them to Ruby Tuesday for the salad bar. Hostas in the front? Magnifico. Our compliments to the gardener. In the backyard they ate the oakleaf hydrangeas down to the toothpicks. They never met an azalea they didn’t like. And camellia blossoms? It’s like Cool Hand Luke eating hardboiled eggs.

In addition to the buffet, we may have attracted our four-legged buggers with, of all things, a birdbath. The bluebirds, finches, sparrows, robins and whatnot do a lot of sipping and a fair amount of flapping around in it but, for the most part, they behave themselves. The deer, on the other hand, hang on it like drunks down at the end of the bar in the Bitter and Twisted. I’m pretty sure the head deer put both his/her front hooves up on it and tried to lick it dry, because one morning the whole thing was dumped over. This isn’t some lightweight birdbath, either. It’s solid Lake Superior stone. But what do they care?

We’re pretty sure they’re targeting us because there have been off-property incidents as well. You know the way World War II aces put little decals on their Spitfires to represent downed enemy aircraft? My son has three Bambis on his bumper. The only thing is, he didn’t run into them, they ran into him. Same thing happened to the War Department one night when she was on her way home from a Bruce Springsteen concert and a deer ran full throttle, Kamikaze-like, into the passenger side rear door. Truly Born to Run.

One year a friend of ours thought it would be a splendid idea to make life-sized plywood deer using a jigsaw. The body and head were the largest piece. It settled into notches carved into the front and rear legs. There were a couple of ears to stick on and, of course, a tail. All of it was painted bright white and begging to be draped with festive lights, a perky red nose and wreaths for the Christmas season. The neighbors across the road and up the hill just happened to be bowhunters, and the morning after we proudly displayed our white Christmas deer in the front yard, we arose only to find that they’d been massacred with crossbows. Maybe our current deer are, at this very moment, massing to exact their revenge.

I’m a believer in going green — wind, solar, the lot — and I’m convinced that the ultimate fossil fuel solution may in fact be right under our feet. Pretty much everywhere you look in our yard there are little black piles of deer poop. In the garden. By the birdbath. Everywhere. If there was some way to convert all that poop into energy, I’m pretty sure we could be the Saudi Arabia of scat. It helps to look on the bright side.

2026 Department Southwords

Pleasures of Life

PLEASURES OF LIFE

Hello, Muddah. Hello, Faddah.

Here we are at Camp Grenada

By Peter Doubleday

Illustration by Miranda Glyder

Every summer my thoughts meander to the summers that were like no other. Sure, I had great friends and schoolmates at home in Syracuse, New York, but my special buddies were all heading for Brentwood Camp, a three-hour drive to the southwestern part of the state, in Angelica.

Before leaving, my mother helped me organize my clothing list — the prime directive came in the mail from the camp like an astronaut’s checklist. I identified each pair of shorts, underwear, T-shirts, bathing suit and jeans with my initials in indelible Magic Marker. Laundry was done once a week. Even after this meticulous exercise in labeling, when I was 10 I got a bra back in my laundry the first week.

The drive to Angelica — could it have had a more perfect name? — cut through rural countryside and the Finger Lakes. For a city boy, it was like leaving planet Earth for six weeks. Cabin assignments and bunk positions — upper or lower — were doled out on arrival. There were 80 kids at these summer reunions, 40 boys and 40 girls, with the cabins segregated by sex and separated by a giant stream that ran through the middle of the camp. Ages ranged from 10 to 17, and kids came from all over the country.

Trunks, with all your personal possessions, were positioned at the foot of each bunk. The toilet experience was rustic, to say the least, with limited hot water in the shower building. Bathing suits that never seemed to dry hung on the lines outside each cabin, perfuming the air.

The camp’s specialty was horseback riding. I learned a lifetime of equestrian skills but not without some challenges. One year a female instructor asked me to jump a few obstacles in the ring. I did but got “left” in the saddle (not moving forward with the horse) and came down in a very uncomfortable way for a boy. Sick to my stomach, the instructor insisted I try again. “Can we wait just a couple of minutes?” I begged.

I became one of the leaders in the barn, mucking stalls, cleaning tack and saddling up for others. I learned to drive the tractor, a mower and the camp pickup. Trail rides were highly anticipated, especially when we passed the abandoned house on the railroad bed supposedly occupied by a mean old hermit who loved to scare passersby. Curiously enough, we never saw him. Once every two weeks a chosen few would trail-ride to an area for an overnight campout, just like on TV’s Rawhide or Gunsmoke. It was the first time I sampled coffee. Yuck. And, of course, when I was 13, I fell in love with one of my instructors.

Camp days were divided into four periods, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. Along with the horses, we had a daily swimming session, a 90-minute arts and crafts period where I fashioned one boondoggle after another, and a final period devoted to baseball, kickball, etc. I learned to shoot a .22 rifle and a bow and arrow. After dinner, we had a giant campfire, scary stories and, naturally, a weekly snipe hunt.

The mess hall was our meeting place. A large bell called everyone together. When someone had a birthday “around the mess hall you must go” was sung, and everyone celebrated. After dinner we stopped by the commissary for a treat — candy, ice cream or a Popsicle. It took me a while to figure out why everyone snickered when someone ordered a Hershey’s candy bar and the counselor would ask, “Male or female?”

The summer was not without an occasional romance. Don’t tell anyone, but there were the late night “sneak-overs” to the girls’ side of the stream. If the camp owners found out, you could face the ultimate punishment — expulsion. But it was worth it.

At the end of each summer, as Labor Day loomed, it was invariably a sad day when we were fetched by our parents and returned to the real world. But oh, the memories. I still run into a fellow camper once in a while and all we can do is smile.

2026 Department Pleasures of Life

Month: August 2026

OUT OF THE BLUE

California Dreamin’

The princess of Montecito

HOMETOWN

Back to School Daze

Ticonderoga and a crew cut, too

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Pinehurst Cigarettes

The taste that refreshes

FALLING IN LOVE

Falling in Love

And planting in abundance

A STITCH IN TIME

A Stitch in Time

Every quilt tells a story

BOOKSHELF

September Bookshelf

FICTION

NONFICTION

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

GOLFTOWN JOURNAL

The Spirit of ’76

When the “World” came to Pinehurst

POINT OF VIEW

Point of View

Lakeside living in the Sandhills

SOUTHWORDS

Deer Me

Our inconvenient guests

PLEASURES OF LIFE

Hello, Muddah. Hello, Faddah.

Here we are at Camp Grenada