Open to Art

OPEN TO ART

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Open to Art

The Sandhills Photo Club conducts six competitions a year. The last competition of 2025 was “open,” allowing the 115 club members to submit their best images on any subject. The photo club posts its themed topics — voted on by the membership and suggested, in some cases, with the aid of artificial intelligence — two years in advance, and any submitted image must have been taken within the last three years. What appears here are the results of the member-judged open competition when the camera is free to roam anywhere the photographer’s eye takes it.

Tier 3

Tier 3 – 1st Place, Horses of the Camargue, Pat Anderson
Tier 3 – Second Place, On the Rocks, Donna Ford
Tier 3 – 3rd Place, First Light, Dee Wiliams

Tier 2

Tier 2 – 1st Place, Curious Chimp, Joshua Simpson
Tier 2 – Second Place, Glen Coe Canyon, Michael Sassano
Tier 2 – Third Place, Standing Out, Cathy Locklear

Tier 1

Tier 1 – First Place, White Whiskered Puffbird, Dawn Willis
Tier 1 – Tied Second Place, Morning Glory, Catherine Maready
Tier 1 – Tied Second Place, I See Moo, Cindy Murphy
Tier 1 – Tied Honorable Mention, Embracing the Blue Horizon, Sharon Kitchen Miller
T1 Tied – Honorable Mention, America the Beautiful, JoAnn Sluder

The Inn Place

THE INN PLACE

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The Inn Place

Return of the Magnolia

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner

In a mere 130 years the Magnolia Inn has gone from overflow to intimate, a destination within a destination. Completed in 1896, just one year after the Holly Inn, the Magnolia began as a boarding house — its rooms referred to as chambers — needed to comfortably house the servants, doctors, even some family members of people attracted to James Walker Tufts’ new health resort for consumptives built on 6,000 acres in the Sandhills of North Carolina.

Closer than Florida and located on a north/south rail line, with an adorable village layout designed by the firm of Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot — fresh from the completion of its work at Biltmore House in 1895 — and implemented by his right-hand man, Warren Manning, Pinehurst was positioned to attract those in need of a little R&R in the pine-scented outdoors. There was just one problem: The disease, as it turned out, was communicable. Hanging around in groups was contraindicated. Just two years after its founding, the resort’s raison d’etre had been undermined. Pinehurst needed to find another path.

As luck would have it, the timing more or less coincided with the arrival in 1901 (the year the Carolina Hotel, the “Queen of the South,” opened) of a Scottish golf professional named Donald Ross. There were already 18 holes to be tended, built by Dr. Leroy Culver and John Dunn Tucker, Pinehurst’s first golf pro. The game, growing exponentially in the United States at the dawn of the 20th century, would become the backbone of Tufts’ resort. The Magnolia, designed by architect Lyman Sise (the brother of Gertrude Sise Tufts and the man who also designed the Holly Inn), morphed into an annex, handling the overflow from the Harvard, Berkshire and Holly inns, ultimately adding the Carolina to the mix.

With deep Boston roots, Tufts knew how to attract talent from New England. He snared J.L. Pottle from the Highland House in Jefferson, New Hampshire, to be the first manager of Magnolia Inn. Pottle arrived with a complete staff of maids, janitors, cooks, handymen and other staff. An 1898 advertisement for the Magnolia in the Pinehurst Outlook touted “the finest Northern cooks.” Another boasted of amenities like steam heat, electric lights, bathrooms with hot water and “perfect sanitary arrangements’’ all for $8 to $12 per week.

In the 1920s the Magnolia was sold to Mr. E.J. Fitzgerald, manager at the Carolina, who used it as an annex to the main hotel. Fitzgerald’s wife continued to run the Magnolia after his death. Pottle’s son also remained in the area. During that period Dr. Francis Owens, who would become one of the founders of Moore Memorial Hospital, maintained his office in the Magnolia, even performing some minor surgeries and child deliveries on the premises.

If its occupants changed over time, so did its footprint. The lovely Queen Anne-style building with 14 bedrooms was originally five stories rising between the village and the Carolina. Porches, verandas and rocking chairs hugged the structure. Not long after the completion of the Carolina, the Magnolia underwent its most drastic alteration. The building was making it difficult to see the village from the grand, new Carolina — and vice versa — so the top two floors were lopped off. The Magnolia still contains an interior stairway that now leads, well, absolutely nowhere.

After a half dozen or so changes of ownership through the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, the Magnolia was reacquired by the resort in 2023. It no longer answers to the name boarding house and instead is a stately presence overlooking village streets where well-dressed vacationers browse the shops and relax from days on the golf course. Inside, eight posh bed/sitting rooms, called spaces, each identified with a brass plate bearing the name of a village street, showcase period and early-modern furnishings. Colors are soft grays and pastels. Padded headboards, pull-across drapes, bay windows and angular upholstered chairs suggest the ’50s.

The enticing aroma comes from fine Italian dining at the in-house Villagio Ristorante & Bar, and the only surgery performed in the Magnolia Inn these days is stress removal.

Poem March 2026

POEM

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Poem

Julian

In christening gown and bonnet,

he is white and stoic as the moon,

unflinching as the sun burns

through yellow puffs of pine

pollen gathered at his crown

while I pour onto his forehead

from a tiny blue Chinese rice cup

holy water blessed

by John Paul II himself

and say, “I baptize you, Julian Joseph,

in the name of the Father, and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.”

Nor does he stir when the monarchs

and swallowtails,

in ecclesiastical vestments,

lift from the purple brushes

of the butterfly bush

and light upon him.

  — Joseph Bathanti

The Artist Known as Cowman

THE ARTIST KNOWN AS COWMAN

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The Artist Known as Cowman

b. 1949? — d. not long ago now

Fiction by Daniel Wallace

Illustrations by Keith Borshak

He wasn’t always Cowman. Before he was Cowman he was just a boy, and like a boy he played in the fields, in the river and the woods, near the lake, and down the road. He worked with his family planting things. In the summertime he didn’t wear shoes or a shirt, just a pair of cut-off jeans passed down from brother to brother, the blue worn nearly white, and sometimes he wore a hat, when the sun bore down so hot he could feel it boiling his brains. This is the way it was from May to the middle of September, and by then he looked less a boy than he looked like something that was once a boy, or that could become a boy, under the proper supervision and a bath.

Near the end of a long afternoon sometimes beneath the spindly towering pine trees that were everywhere, he cleared the pine needles away until he made an open patch of dirt. With the palms of both of his hands he would smooth it out, harder and faster, until the dirt pressed so hard into his skin that no bath would ever get it out completely. His hands would always be a little bit darker than the rest of him and that makes for an interesting biographical detail.

Then he would take a stick and carve a picture into the ground, and maybe some words. In the beginning, he always said, he drew nothing but cows.

This is how it started, becoming what he later became: Cowman.

Now of course he’s known the world over.

But before. Before all this, where was he?

A valley where there was a river — small at times, then bigger, frothy and white, then . . . not. Mountains this way, that. A hill, a dale. No place anyone has ever been, however, nor a place they would want to go, and for precisely this reason it remained undiscovered by the likes of you or us for centuries probably. It had no name, this place. For generations the people there weren’t aware there were other places, so isolated was this little town, quiet and dark in the hills and in the dales, the mountainous extremes of their lives. Why name it? Why name something there is no more of than one?

Home is what he called it. He hasn’t been home in such a long time and knows now he will never see that forgotten patch of soil ever again. But the day he left he knew he never would. All of his work is influenced by what he no longer has.

Dug into the side of a hill was his house. Two-sided wooden walls, the front stone, the back wall a dense red clay, which, true, he grew up eating. Not for the main meals. Just a little something in-between. When a new baby came they just dug deeper into the mountain for room.

Worms were a problem. When it rained the wall dripped. But it mostly did the job it had to do.

The wall in his room had a streak of lime running through it. The pale white against the dull orange was like a late summer sunset, he said. The artist transforms the world with his eyes, even when his world is no more than an ambitious hole.

The fifth of seven, Cowman was. The first three were girls, the second three were boys, and the last was some odd combination of the two but less than either. They called it Tarp. While the others were passing fine in almost every respect — the boys big and strong, the girls industrious, pleasant — all of Tarp’s parts were either bigger or smaller than they were supposed to be, and inside his head was probably not something anyone could actually think with, no better than a peach pit, really, or gravel. Truth be told he never did amount to much and had he amounted to anything no one would have been more surprised than he. Everything surprised him, though. Even chairs and rocks.

The others were named, in order of their birth, Estem, Maudry, Ebee, Root and Mold. The Cowman’s real name is not included in the list, as it has been carefully lost to time. It has variously been suggested to be Remly, Tirk, Lebby, Crop, Moses or Pisky. No one can say. Cowman has thus become Cowman, now and forever, and can avoid the embarrassing parenthetical approximations which attach themselves to the nomenclature of famous geniuses.

Estem, Maudry and Ebee, his sisters, were beyond beautiful. They all had thick auburn hair and perfect freckles. It was said no man could look at any one of them without falling in love, and thus the daughters were never in the same place at the same time. Except once, one time, and a man fell in love with all three of them and courted each on a revolving basis. Finally, they all said no, and his heart was broken once a day for three days running by each of them in turn, repeated on a loop for months, and he did not live long thereafter.

Mold and Root were large — Mold largely fat, and Root like one big muscle. Root’s strength was legendary. He once threw a wild bobcat high into the air using naught but his little finger — and caught it with his face. Before this legendary event he was a handsome man, too. Or handsome enough.

Mold’s girth impressed as well. He was one of those constant growers — ever expanding, like a balloon blown up by God. One morning he overslept and could not leave the room through the same door he entered it and stayed there for several months. He eventually became so big that he filled the room from side to side, floor to ceiling. Root dug him out. He remained an outdoor child after that, and for as long as he lived was never allowed within the dwelling of another human being again. Sad.

Cowman, being the seventh child and the third boy, spent most of his childhood either lost or forgotten. The seeds of art are born within the desolate souls of the suffering. Wagon trips across the wide valley to visit relatives who lived in a holler never failed to exclude him — not out of cruelty, or dislike, but out of pure absentmindedness. His family had a sense of him, but they could never be sure — like something glimpsed quickly out of the corner of your eye — was there a – ? did we have a – ? He was more of an idea, a vague one at that. Maybe he was a dream — a communal dream? Communal dreams were common in that time and place. Hard to conceive of nowadays, that people were too poor to have dreams of their own, but had to share them with their family, sometimes the entire village. But it was true. Dreams were crowded places. Cowman did not help his cause by being quiet in an exceptional way. He was neither small, nor large. He rarely complained, by nature content. When he would wake up and find his entire family had gone he tried to pitch in by cleaning up around the house and doing worm duty on the back wall. Then he might go fishing.

And then, of course, it goes without saying, sometimes he would make his art. He would use a stick, or a piece of charcoal, or pieces of bark crumbled almost into dust, making the line he wanted across the plank wooden floors of the front room. The famous Cowman line, a line that came from his bones and from the rest of him, from all his parts, and flowed into his hand and through whatever he was holding. He knew who he was before anyone else did, but he kept himself to himself. When he came of age he packed a small tote and left the red clay enclosure to parts unknown even to him and was never missed because no one was really sure he had ever been there at all. He did miss the old life, though, from time to time. He was a cave dweller at heart.

Why did he leave that place? No one left, ever, there being no known place to leave to. But he saw a light no one else could see, heard a song sung for him alone, and he smelled something sweet over yonder, something that could not be found in the red-clay, lime-striped box he called home.

He sought it out.

He seeks it still.

II

Cowman crossed many hills, many dales, and over the last of both came to the first town. So many people, dozens upon dozens, all of them arrayed in colorful garb and shoes made of shiny leather. Some wore hats that looked like clouds and hair that curled and bounced like a small animal living on their heads. Not the sort of people he was used to, and he not theirs. They gave him the side eye and hustled past, as if they were afraid he might bite them, for he looked like someone who lived at the bottom of a swamp, wearing clothes made of mud and dead leaves. A nice woman took him home with her, a young widow named Mary. She gave him a bath and a haircut. He was so handsome then. No one could ever believe he was the same boy who had scared the dogs with his face. She showed him the ways of the world, too — Mary, to whom all thanks are given by him for everything always.

Oh, Mary.

He left at the end of the year, fluent in the ways of human beings, breaking Mary’s heart into so many pieces that no one was able to put it back together again. The first of many broken hearts left in his wake — but what could be done? Not a single thing. He had his work and that was all that mattered. No heart could pine for him more than he pined for the making of great things.

He is most in love with that which has yet to exist.

That’s what mattered to him, and that’s what matters to him still.

(His poor children, though. The less said about them the better.)

III

An old man now, crumbling, silent, possibly happy as a clam, but who can say, waiting for death with his trademark wrinkly grin and nursed by his 7th wife, the lovely Sophia, who is 63 years his junior. All Cowman makes now are dreams, dreams made of bits and pieces of clay and leaves, caves and pine trees, rivers, hills and dales and of Mary, of course, to whom all thanks are given by him for everything always. He has regrets, to be sure, but none that really matter. He can’t remember much of what he’s done, the good things or the bad. He can’t remember his friends or his enemies or his children or any of his many wives, including the one at his bedside now. She is quite beautiful, though, this woman. Her skin is smooth and brown and her golden hair shines like sun on water. She reminds him of nothing because there is nothing in his mind. But he could look at her face forever, and so this is what he does. 

From Fossil to Fame

FROM FOSSIL TO FAME

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From Fossil to Fame

A dino-sized discovery

By Hampton Williams Hofer

Step into the SECU DinoLab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, and you may find yourself shoulder-to-shoulder with a paleontologist dusting off a specimen or examining a slide with a microscope. This high-tech research laboratory is open to the public, a chance for regular folks to see real science in action. And it’s home to a pair of very famous residents: the “Dueling Dinosaurs.”

The Dueling Dinosaurs — thought to be the remains of an intact tyrannosaur and Triceratops that died 67 million years ago — are considered perhaps the most significant fossils ever recovered from Montana’s storied Hell Creek Formation. For one, the specimens were nearly complete and exceptionally well-preserved. For another, these two dinosaurs had interacted, likely even died fighting, as evidenced by teeth fragments embedded in the Triceratops. They were first unearthed in 2006 by Clayton Phillips, a Montana rancher and self-styled dinosaur cowboy, who excavated and stored the specimens while spreading word of his discovery.

By 2016, Dr. Lindsay Zanno, head of paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, had heard of the fossils. She and her team traveled to New York, where the Dueling Dinosaurs were being stored, to verify the legitimacy of the fossils, then on to Montana to examine the conditions of the landscape where they were excavated.

Convinced of their importance, Zanno, along with the Friends of the NCMNS, worked to raise the funds to not only bring the Dueling Dinosaurs to North Carolina, but to build them a new home worthy of what she knew would be one of the most significant paleontological finds of the century. The NCMNS acquired the dinosaurs in 2020 — and got to work.

The museum built a new annex to support the Dueling Dinosaurs’ 31,000 pounds of bone, sediment and plaster. Unlike the way fossils have been treated in the past, the Dueling Dinosaurs would not be fully excavated and reassembled but remain within their plaster preparations — all the better to learn clues about how they behaved and appeared. (In the stone surrounding the Triceratops, for example, are impressions left by octagonal formations on its frill, offering insights into how the dinosaur’s skin may have looked and felt.)

While paleontologists had historically spent their research work dusting bones in dark museum basements, their work at the NCMNS would literally be brought to light. Visitors can see them, even talk to them, ask questions and observe their work in real time. The SECU DinoLab at the NCMNS, which opened in spring 2024, revolutionized the visitor experience with this groundbreaking exhibition.

The remarkably preserved fossils and whatever Cretaceous secrets they held were, as Zanno said at the time, like “a big, unopened Christmas present.” Now, less than two years since the museum welcomed the Dueling Dinosaurs, the first gift has been unwrapped. And it’s a whole new species, flipping decades of Tyrannosaurus rex research on its head.

The small tyrannosaur was believed to have been a teenage T. rex for the 20 years since Phillips spotted its pelvis weathering out of the ground. Using CT scans and imaging to look inside the blocks of earth housing the fossils, paleontologists at the NCMNS uncovered characteristics in their tyrannosaur specimen that set it apart from a T. rex, including larger forelimbs, more teeth, fewer tail vertebrae, and distinct nerve patterns. In addition, growth rings and spinal fusion data proved that the specimen was an adult. But at 18 feet long and 1,500 pounds, it is only around a tenth of the body mass and half the length of a full-grown T. rex.

That meant that the small tyrannosaur is, in fact, a mature Nanotyrannus lancensis.

“The implications are difficult to overstate,” says Zanno. “The fact is, much of our current understanding of T. rex was built on three decades of research that unknowingly mixed data from Nanotyrannus with that of Tyrannosaurus — two different tyrannosaurs that aren’t even closely related. Most of that research now needs a second look.”

Along with co-author Dr. James Napoli, a vertebrate paleontologist at Stony Brook University, Zanno published the findings of their study in Nature this past October.

The scientific gift of the Dueling Dinosaurs exhibit will continue to give, as Nanotyrannus changes much of what paleontologists have believed about history’s most famous dinosaur and the world in which it reigned supreme. A longstanding debate in the realm of paleontology questioned whether Nanotyrannus was a distinct species or simply an adolescent T. rex. Zanno and Napoli showed that the Nanotyrannus at the NCMNS is biologically incompatible with a T. rex — meaning that the T. rex’s dominance in the final million years leading up to the asteroid was not unchallenged.

“To me, what’s exciting about this discovery is that it opens the door to a whole new series of questions about how these drastically different predators — one built for brute strength and one built for speed — interacted in the twilight of the dinosaurs. What we can say right now is that life at the end of the Cretaceous was a lot more colorful than we had imagined,” says Zanno.

Though smaller than T. rex, Nanotyrannus was still a valiant competitor, and a quicker, more agile hunter. Its existence proves that predator diversity at the end of the age of the dinosaurs was richer than previous research suggests. Now a new question arises: How many other mistakenly identified dinosaur species could be hiding in plain sight?

“Scientists have long debated whether dinosaurs were thriving or diminishing when the asteroid struck,” Zanno says. “Without understanding the number of dinosaurs alive at the time and the ecological roles they filled, we cannot document how mass extinction events have shaped life on our planet in the past, nor how they are likely to affect us in the future.”

Zanno and Napoli conducted exhaustive research before releasing their findings in Nature, work supported by the State of North Carolina, N.C. State University, the Friends of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and the Dueling Dinosaurs Capital Campaign. Their process included examining more than 200 other tyrannosaur fossils. One of those, like the specimen at the museum, was originally believed to be a teenage T. rex, but also ended up being a fully-grown Nanotyrannus.

Interestingly, this specimen differed enough from Nanotyrannus lancensis at the museum for them to conclude it was, in fact, a new species entirely. (Zanno and Napoli named it Nanotyrannus lethaeus after the underworld River Nethe in Greek mythology, where souls who drank the water forgot their past lives and were ready to be reborn.)

“Nanotyrannus was clearly an animal capable of speed, darting about on long limbs, unlike its bulkier cousin, T. rex. It also had powerful, dextrous arms, large hands, a shorter tail, and unserrated peg-like teeth at the front of the mouth — oddly, not that dissimilar from yours and mine,” says Zanno. “But how fast could it run? How did it hunt? What was its favorite prey? I am excited to dive into Nanotyrannus itself. We know next to nothing about its biology; in a very real way, this is a dinosaur being reborn to the scientific community.”

The specimens at the NCMNS have affectionately been named after two North Carolina locations. Murphy, the Triceratops, is named for the westernmost town in the state, signifying the strength and longevity of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Manteo, the Nanotyrannus, is named for the coastal town on Roanoke Island, home to The Lost Colony and the original American mystery. It suits the Nanotyrannus, a name that now represents question, discovery and the spirit of exploration.

Zanno says this is just the beginning. “We have decades of incredible research in the pipeline on the Dueling Dinosaurs. This is all made possible not just by the outstanding preservation of the fossil carcasses and the talent and dedication of the team we have put together, but also by the community backing we have received,” he says, adding, “The people of North Carolina and beyond banded together to protect these fossils for science and the public alike — a powerful force for good that will continue to pay dividends.

“We simply can’t wait to keep sharing the excitement with all.”

 

The Ruth Pauley Speaker Series welcomes Dr. Lindsay Zanno, PhD, for National Geographic Live: “Rise of T. Rex” on Tuesday, April 28, 2026 at 7:00 PM in Owens Auditorium at the Bradshaw Performing Arts Center (BPAC). Join RPS as Dr. Zanno explores the story behind one of history’s most fascinating creatures. Admission is free, but tickets are required and available at TicketMeSandhills.com.

History in the Backyard

HISTORY IN THE BACKYARD

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History in the Backyard

Leaving a legacy on Pinehurst No. 2

By Jenna Biter 
Photographs by John Gessner

A couple of years back, Quinn Breuer accompanied her son, Quinton, to a U.S. Kids Golf tournament in Pinehurst. One visit was all it took. “It’s the pine trees. The environment. The people. The village,” Breuer says. She asked her husband, Todd, “Can we retire here?”

Quinn has been a stay-at-home mom, but now her babies are heading out the door. Todd hasn’t retired yet — home base is in Peoria, Arizona — but the Breuers are already preparing for their golden years in the village. The empty nesters purchased a modified Cape Cod a month before the 2024 U.S. Open on Pinehurst’s No. 2 course. “Good timing, you know?” says Quinn. Their backyard abuts the third hole.

The 5,240-square-foot, five-bedroom, pass-it-down-to-the-kids legacy house lounges on a half-acre plot that sidles up to No. 2’s wiregrass. “It’s location. It’s history. It’s unique,” she says.

The house on Midland Road was built in 2005. “It’s only two doors down from the Donald Ross house,” she says, referring to Dornoch Cottage, the home that was built by and belonged to the Scottish golf architect and mastermind of No. 2.  “When you walk into the backyard, it’s the flowers and the golf course and the pine trees. We don’t have trees in Arizona. We have desert.”

The couple initially purchased land on Linden Road and were finalizing plans for new construction. Todd surveyed the property on a visit. He longed for a better view, preferably a golf course. Father and son both enjoy the game. Quinton is 19 years old and plays on the golf team at South Mountain Community College, in Arizona.

The Breuers wanted something different than the lot they had. They lined up a Hail Mary and asked their Realtor to notify them if any houses on No. 2 came onto the market.
“A week and a half later, we got the call,” Quinn says, still in disbelief. “About a month later, we owned the house.”

The exterior is classic Pinehurst. The Breuers liked the village vibe and kept it that way. Its painted brick is a warm Southern cream; crape myrtles flank the front portico; and a wing sweeps out to each side. The left side extends further than the right, ending in a cupola-topped, two-car garage that connects to the house via breezeway.

Interior remodeling began right away. “We wanted it to be warm and traditional and modern at the same time,” says Breuer. Constrained by only a short list of musts and must-nots (a sectional in the family room, substantial bookcases in the study, no window treatments obstructing the golf course view), interior designer Angela Budd of Angela Douglas Interiors had enough creative wiggle room to run.

Quinn didn’t love the cherrywood floors — “too red,” she says — but they could be replaced more easily than a place on No. 2 could be found. The old floors came out and new ones went in. Just inside the front door, the white oak planks piece together in a herringbone pattern. A blown-glass chandelier counterbalances the floor and draws the eye upward. Attention fixes straight ahead on a black entry table that pops against the clean, white walls.

Like a roundabout, the table’s circular top whirls guests around the foyer, spinning them off into the rest of the home. To the left is Todd’s study. A drip painting print in the style of Jackson Pollock hangs on a wall. Pop art lips rendered by the Breuers’ daughter decorate another. Kiana, now 20, made the artwork for her dad when she was a kid. “I always think the best homes are personal,” says Budd. “They feel collected.”

Opposite the study is the formal living room. A marble surround frames the gas fireplace, and shearling swivel chairs sit in conversation with a white couch. One room removed, closer to the back of the house, guests can find the dining room drenched in a dramatic blue called Gray’s Harbor. “It’s not all blue, and I don’t do navy because it feels too nautical,” Budd says, “but this color is a nice blend between moody and elevated.” A pair of panel-ready, Sub-Zero refrigerators keep the Breuers’ wine. A bar between them doubles as a buffet for dinners when the kids are home.

“It’s a family space,” says Quinn.

The kitchen, across the hallway, underwent a light refresh. In the family room, Budd added a corner banquette for chatting, sipping and informal eating. The L-shaped sectional occupies the rest of the room.

“The house is just very . . . to me, it’s so warm, and it fits with their personality,” says Budd.

The master is on the first floor. It’s beige and green, clean-lined but cozy. The kids each have an ensuite on the second floor. French doors open onto a shared balcony that overlooks the brick-edged pool and outdoor seating, lush flowers trailing over the white picket fence, and the pinch-me-I’m-dreaming view of the fairway beyond.

“We want to hand it down to the kids, and the kids to their kids,” Breuer says. “We still can’t believe we own the house.”

Home Away From Home

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

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Home Away From Home

The legend and allure of the Pine Crest

By Bill Case

It’s March 1961. You’re 45 and a lifelong resident of Erie, Pennsylvania, where you’re the respected managing editor of the local newspaper, the Erie Daily Times. You’ve worked at the paper for 20 years and been its editor for five. You have an excellent relationship with the paper’s owner. The job is yours as long as you want it. And you love it.

Your wife, Betty, comes from a prominent Erie family. Her father, Charles A. Dailey Sr., owned and operated Dailey’s Chevrolet from 1925 until his death in 1958, when Betty’s brother, Charles “Chuck” Dailey Jr., took over. The Dailey family has been among Erie’s foremost philanthropists. And your kids  — Bobby, age 9, and Peter, age 5 — are happy in Erie.

Bob and Betty Barrett seemed the unlikeliest of couples to pull up stakes and seek a new life. While Bob was making a good living at the hometown paper, he wanted to own his own business. He discussed the possibility of partnering with Betty’s father in a second auto dealership in Erie, but that trial balloon blew away with Charles Sr.’s death. His passing did, however, result in a significant bequest to daughter Betty. With this nest egg and additional assistance from Betty’s mother, Elizabeth Dailey, the Barretts began looking for investment opportunities. But where?

“My dad had contracted pneumonia and worried he might not live long if he stayed where he was,” says Bobby Barrett, now 74. “He thought he stood a better chance of a long life if the family moved south. The Barretts and Daileys made regular golf trips to the Sandhills after my dad started playing in his mid-’30s. He fell in love with Pinehurst.”

While walking down Dogwood Road during a March ’61 vacation, Bob happened to encounter Carl Moser, then owner of the Pine Crest, sweeping the inn’s front steps. The men struck up a conversation in which Moser indicated he would consider selling if the price was right. Bob and Betty began mulling over the idea of making an offer. While the Pine Crest was no luxury hotel, the Barretts knew that many golfers weren’t interested in cushy surroundings. The inn’s 44 modestly sized rooms provided a homey, affordable alternative to the upscale lodgings at the Carolina Hotel and Holly Inn. And it was a going concern. The Pine Crest boasted a solid base of recurring guests, migrating golfers who returned like swallows year after year. Some had been doing it for as long as the inn had been in existence, 48 years.

Built in 1913, the hotel was the creation of enterprising innkeeper Emma Bliss. A New Hampshire native, Bliss had spent the previous nine years (1903 to 1912 ) managing The Lexington Hotel — where The Manor is today — which primarily served as a boarding house for resort employees. Leonard Tufts, who controlled most business activity in Pinehurst, hired Bliss after being impressed with her surehanded management of a Bethlehem, New Hampshire, inn.

Bliss shuttled back and forth with the seasons between managing The Lexington and her inn in Bethlehem. Possessing an entrepreneurial spirit of her own, she aspired to own a hotel herself, not just manage one. In January 1913, Tufts sold Bliss property on Dogwood Road, adjacent to the Lexington. By year end, she had erected and opened the Pine Crest Inn.

The Pinehurst Outlook hailed the inn’s arrival as a “delightful addition to the list of hotels; its comfort is suggested by the charm of its exterior . . . Modern in every particular, it provides several suites with private bath; radiant with fresh air; sunshine, good cheer, and ‘hominess’.”

Bliss operated the Pine Crest for seven years before selling it in April 1920 to Donald Ross and his fellow Scot expatriate W. James MacNab for $52,500. Ross, Pinehurst’s patron saint, was hitting his stride in the golf course architecture business and supplied the money for the purchase. MacNab managed the inn.

Instead of simply returning to run The Lexington, Bliss bought that property and tore down the old hotel. In its footprint, she erected a new lodging house — The Manor, a far more upscale house than its predecessor. Neither Tufts nor Ross seemed to begrudge Emma’s maneuvering, and Bliss owned and operated The Manor until her death in 1936.

To keep pace, Ross financed several improvements at the Pine Crest. He summarized them in correspondence with a prospective buyer in 1939: “Ever since I purchased the property, I have put back every cent earned and also some additional cash in the furnishing and maintenance of it. . . . Among the improvements I made are a telephone in every room and a Grinnell fireproofing system.” Ross dropped an additional $35,000 adding the inn’s east wing.

The Ross era at the inn began winding down after MacNab died in 1942. Aging himself, Ross chose to sell the inn in 1944 to the Arthur L. Roberts Hotel Company for $65,000. The company operated hotels in Florida, Minnesota and Indiana. The company’s founder, Arthur L. Roberts, arranged for title to the Pine Crest’s property to be placed in his individual name.

In September 1950, Carl Moser came to Pinehurst to manage the Pine Crest. Moser had extensive experience in hotel management and customer service. In 1941, the native New Yorker managed the Officers Club at Fort Bragg while serving in the Army Reserve. He had subsequent stints managing hotels in Greensboro (the Sedgefield Inn), Charlotte (Selwyn Hotel) and Stamford, Connecticut.

Along with his wife, Jean, the Mosers chose to live in the Pine Crest, occupying rooms 6, 8 and 10 on the first floor. Daughter Carlean joined her parents in these cozy quarters following her birth in May 1953. Arthur L. Roberts passed away in October 1952, and the trustees of his eponymously named company began liquidating its portfolio of hotels. In June 1953, Carl and Jean Moser entered into a land contract with Roberts Hotels to buy the Pine Crest Inn for $65,000 — $12,000 down and the balance paid over time.

By virtue of the deed records, Roberts’ heirs thought they owned the property, not the company. If they were right, neither Roberts Hotels nor the Mosers had any cognizable interest in the property. To resolve the issue, litigation was instituted in Moore County in September 1953. After hearing evidence, a local jury determined that (1) Roberts was acting in his capacity “as president and agent” of Roberts Hotel in effecting the 1944 purchase from Ross and MacNab; (2) it was Roberts Hotels, not Arthur Roberts individually, that paid the $65,000 purchase price; and (3) Roberts Hotels was not “under any duty to provide for the said Arthur L. Roberts in purchasing said property.”

Roberts Hotels was declared the inn’s rightful owner. Carl and Jean Moser breathed a sigh of relief; they had been dealing with the right party after all. And if in the future they wanted to sell the inn, they could do so.

Eight years later, the Mosers were ready to entertain offers, but according to daughter Carlean, her parents did not initially consider the Barretts serious prospects. After the sidewalk chat between Bob and Carl, there was no immediate follow-up. Not long afterward, however, representatives of the Barretts — probably Betty and her brother Chuck, who had experience in evaluating businesses — came to inspect the premises. Negotiations heated up, and in May 1961, the Barretts agreed to buy the Pine Crest for $125,000.

Since the Dailey side of the family was providing the capital, it was determined Betty would hold title to the property.

Unlike Carl and Jean, the Barretts chose not to reside in the Pine Crest. They bought Chatham Cottage (now Barrett Cottage) across Dogwood Road and made it the family’s home. Over the summer, Bob moved his wife and children to Pinehurst, took a crash course in hotel management, and announced a fall reopening date of October 12, 1961.

Eight-year-old Carlean Moser was heartsick to be departing the inn. “My dad broached the subject by asking whether I thought it would be fun for us to live in our own house,” recalls Moser, now 74 and living in Washington, Georgia. “I said it wouldn’t be fun if it meant I had to make my own bed or couldn’t order off a menu like I could always do at the inn.”

To Carlean the Pine Crest’s employees were like family. Some doubled as playmates. Carl Jackson, the inn’s head chef since the Donald Ross days, was a special favorite. The burly African American would spot Carlean entering the kitchen and commence beating the pots and pans hanging over the counter. The cacophonous clanging delighted the little girl. “I nicknamed Carl “Boom-Boom,” says Moser. “He was kind and fun.”

She played with guests too. At age 6, she sat on the lap of 19-year-old lodger Jack Nicklaus, in town for the 1959 North and South Amateur (which he won). ”We sat in the lobby watching the Mickey Mouse Club on television, and I wore my mouse ears,” says Moser. “Jack was very shy then. As long as I was on his lap, no one was going to bother him.” (Nicklaus bunked in room 205 in ’59; 26 years later, son Jack Jr. also roomed in 205 while winning his own North and South title).

The inevitable pitfalls of Barrett’s unlikely career switch presented the sort of scenario reminiscent of the 1980s comedy Newhart, the long-running television show about a New York City-based author of travel books, played by Bob Newhart, who abandons his former life to operate a 200 year-old Vermont inn.

In contrast to Newhart’s neighbors — Larry, Darryl and his other brother Darryl — a coterie of dedicated employees kept Barrett on track. Foremost was Jackson, who proved to be the ultimate lifer, remaining the inn’s chef until 1997, a full 61 years of employment. Starting in 1936 as “the pot washer” in the kitchen, Jackson began preparing meals about five years later.

“I started cooking under a German lady, “he told a Pilot interviewer in 1986. “She became ill and left it in my hands.” Jackson mastered a variety of Southern-style recipes. His pièce de résistance was “Chef Jackson’s Famous Pork Chop,” 22 ounces of meat “so tender you can cut through it with a fork,” effused writer John March in his 100th anniversary piece “Legends of the Pine Crest.” The famous dish is still on the menu.

Barrett insisted the kitchen serve the best cuts of prime meat. Specially ordered steaks came from Gertman’s in Boston. Freshly squeezed orange juice graced breakfast tables. Assisting Jackson in the kitchen was his apprentice and nephew, Peter Jackson. Peter had been employed at the inn for three years when the Barretts arrived and worked in tandem with his uncle for nearly 40 years. Carl Jackson’s cousins Elizabeth “Tiz” Russell and Josephine “Peanut” Russell Swinnie were sisters and permanent fixtures on the housekeeping staff. Tiz also babysat for youngsters Bobby and Peter.

Then there was Peggy Thompson, who supervised the dining room for decades, charming the guests and making a point to know them on a first-name basis. She recruited Marie Hartsell, who labored at the inn for 33 years, first on the wait staff, then as kitchen supervisor. Though Hartsell did not fancy herself a cook, she assisted in the kitchen baking pies. Her tasty banana cream became a Payne Stewart favorite.

And Betty Barrett was a worker bee too. She assumed the duties of an assistant manager, working behind the counter, preparing menus and ordering supplies. Even Betty’s mother, Mrs. Dailey, a frequent presence in Pinehurst, pitched in, assisting with the inn’s bookkeeping.

Though it took time for Bob Barrett to find his innkeeping sea legs, his personality proved perfectly suited for his position. A natural schmoozer, Barrett easily befriended guests. A major factor was his resourcefulness in arranging golf itineraries, an aspect of the job he enjoyed. During the ’60s, independent hotels like the Pine Crest had little difficulty getting starting times at the Pinehurst resort, Mid Pines and Pine Needles — a lifeblood for the inn.

Barrett also expanded the Pine Crest’s footprint. When the old telephone exchange building next to the inn was offered for sale, he outbid The Manor to get it. The revamped “Telephone Cottage” would become a favorite lodging choice for pros like Roger Maltbie and Ben Crenshaw.

Things ran relatively smoothly for the Barretts throughout the 1960s, but that changed when the Tufts family sold Pinehurst in 1970 to Malcolm McLean. His Diamondhead Corporation promptly converted vast wooded acreage into housing subdivisions, tacking on Pinehurst Country Club memberships to lot purchases. With the ranks of new club members swelling, securing tee times by the independent hotels became a nightmare. Under the new regime, outside starting times could, at best, only be reserved three days in advance.

Barrett did find a lifeline at the resort who assisted him in coping with the new order. Young Drew Gross, the first assistant to the resort’s director of golf, greased the skids for Barrett, keeping him abreast of last-minute openings on the resort’s tee sheet. The two men formed a bond that would have lasting impact.

Despite Gross’ assistance, the early 1970s were a bleak time for the Barretts. Bobby recalls his dad becoming so frustrated with the starting time debacle he considered suing Diamondhead for ruining his business. Instead, Bob and Betty decided to get out altogether. In 1974, they sold the Pine Crest to Richmond businessman Nat Armistead. The Barretts agreed to take periodic payments from the buyer and to continue managing the inn for an interim period.

The Barretts were in the midst of planning their future when tragedy struck in 1975. Betty Barrett, just 53, died suddenly at home. The family was devastated. To make matters worse, Armistead defaulted and Barrett (now in joint ownership of the inn with sons Bobby and Peter) remained saddled with a teetering business.

Barrett rededicated himself to improving the Pine Crest’s facilities. He installed air conditioning in 1977, allowing the inn to stay open during the summer. He reduced the number of rooms in the hotel to 35, increasing the size of several, and added rooms by moving out of Barrett Cottage and converting it into an eight-room headquarters for larger golf groups. When Diamondhead exited the scene, obtaining tee times at the resort eased up and new courses, like the Carolina Golf Club and The Pit, were open for play.

A 1978 change in state liquor law provided a major boost to the Pine Crest’s bottom line. North Carolina had historically been a “brown bag” state; customers brought their own booze to restaurants, and the bartender would mix their drinks. But with passage of the new law, inns and hotels could sell liquor themselves. Originally situated in the Crystal Room at the western end of the inn, the bar was ultimately moved to its current location, just off the lobby. Bill Jones, the flamboyant personality who tended the bar, began attracting regulars to the watering hole known as “Mr. B.’s.”

While Jones’ long blond hair gave him the outward appearance of a California surfer dude, he was actually a high-voltage comedian, flashing his rapid-fire albeit caustic humor. John Marsh wrote that Jones’ “rapier-like wit reminded many of comedian Don Rickles, and it was generally conceded that you weren’t really accepted within the Pinehurst community until you had been insulted by Bill Jones.”

Adding to the atmosphere at Mr. B’s were regular appearances of renowned golf writers Bob Drum, Dick Taylor and Charles Price, all bon vivants. They formed the bar’s notorious “Press Row.” A Pittsburgh Press alum, Drum was Arnold Palmer’s muse and later a feature presence on CBS golf telecasts. Taylor was the longtime editor in chief of Golf World, and Price was the author of several noteworthy books (A Golf Story: Bobby Jones, Augusta National, and the Masters Tournament and Golfer at Large), and at one time or another wrote for every golf publication worth the ink. Bob Barrett often permitted these luminaries, as well as other notable golf figures, to imbibe on the house, or at least at a steep discount. And they made the most of it. 

Just about everyone in Drum’s family worked at the Pine Crest in some capacity. Son Kevin served as busboy or, as he puts it, “the relish tray girl.” Bob Drum himself served as a celebrity bartender from time to time, standing in for Jones. On one such occasion, a customer ordered a “George Dickel.” Drum, a man of substantial girth, broke a sweat rummaging through the bar in feverish efforts to locate the whiskey. Once he was ready to pour, the guest said, “Oh, and mix Coke with it.” The thought of despoiling fine Tennessee whiskey so offended Drum he suggested the man take his business elsewhere.

Barrett considered his generosity toward Press Row money well spent. He’d been in the newspaper trade himself, and the writers did provide the Pine Crest some favorable publicity. Mr. B.’s soon began appearing near the top of ubiquitous listings for “the best 19th holes in golf.”

Jones fit right in, moonlighting a golf column for The Pilot. Despite his bluster, he was a revered part of the scene, and it was a shock when Jones passed away in 1995 at age 40.

Bobby Barrett’s wife, Andy Hofmann, who has worked in reservations for 45 years, got teary-eyed recalling Jones’ passing. “Bill said he wasn’t feeling well at work on November 13th,” she says, “went home, and by the 15th he was in the hospital. He died December 5th.”

Jones’ successor behind the bar, Carl Wood (now the owner of Neville’s in Southern Pines), was at first unaware of the local luminary discount. He recalls two-time U.S. Amateur champion Harvie Ward sitting down at the bar with a friend and ordering a Bombay. “That will be $6, sir,” said Wood. A clearly mystified Harvie turned to his companion and observed, “I think he’s serious!”

The return of PGA Tour events to Pinehurst, beginning in 1973, brought increasing numbers of golf greats into the village. Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Payne Stewart, Bill Rogers, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite are just a few of the champions who stayed, ate or drank at the Pine Crest. And their appearances led to memorable anecdotes.

Barrett made friends with the great, the not-so-great and the run-of-the-mill alike. Probably his best buddy in PGA circles was Pinehurst pro Lionel Callaway. Whenever there was a March snowstorm, Bob would call on Lionel to give golf lessons in the lobby, a tradition begun by Donald Ross, who likewise provided instructional tips to snowbound guests when he owned the inn.

Callaway’s greatest contribution to the Pine Crest is the celebrated chipping board. No golfer’s Pinehurst pilgrimage is complete without trying to knock a ball into the hole in the wooden board covering the old fireplace. Ben Crenshaw has the record for consecutive chips holed  — 28. Not everyone is as accurate. The fireplace mantel has more dents than a car in a demolition derby. The glass protecting the painting of Donald Ross above the fireplace was smashed so often, it was ultimately bulletproofed.

Both of Barrett’s sons became skilled golfers. Bobby Barrett made the final field of the 1969 U.S. Amateur, competed at medal play that year at Oakmont Country Club, America’s most demanding championship test. Not to be outdone by his elder sibling, Peter Barrett would subsequently make a strong run at winning the Carolinas Open. He did win the 1974 Pinehurst Country Club championship, his 283 total edging Pinehurst mogul-to-be Marty McKenzie by one shot.

Both boys were advancing in their professional lives as well, though on different tracks. Bobby obtained professional degrees at Duke and UNC. He became a CPA catering to individuals and small businesses (including the Pine Crest). His office is located on Community Road just behind the inn. Bobby also obtained a law license but never practiced. “I never lost a case,” he deadpans.

Groomed by Bob to one day succeed him as the inn’s general manager, Peter attended hotel management school. Given his own golf chops, he related well to the younger pros, like Payne Stewart, who became a friend. It was he who created a slogan touting the inn’s no frills persona:  “A third-rate hotel for first rate people.” It supplemented the inn’s other tagline, employed since the Emma Bliss era: “An Inn Like a Home!” The youngest Barrett also sold real estate.

In the course of Bob Barrett’s first 37 years of the inn’s ownership, a slew of PGA Tour events were contested at Pinehurst, but no professional major championships. So it was a thrill for the 84-year-old when the USGA brought the 1999 U.S. Open to Pinehurst. And not surprisingly, both the Pine Crest and a longtime employee became involved in the lore surrounding Payne Stewart’s epic victory. Payne ate dinner at the Pine Crest after an early round of the championship and affixed a hyper-enlarged signature on the wall of the ground floor men’s room. The passage of time has rendered the script undecipherable, but his outsized signature is replicated in the lobby.

Margaret Swindell, a mainstay behind the desk for decades (you’re a newbie until you’ve been employed at the Pine Crest for at least a decade), had a memorable encounter with Stewart prior to his final round. Swindell was working at her then-primary job with Pinehurst Country Club at the Learning Center when Payne approached her counter and requested a pair of scissors. He did not like the feel of his rain jacket and wanted the sleeves trimmed away.

Swindell and a co-worker held the jacket taut while Stewart snipped. She placed the detached sleeves in a drawer, thinking nothing more about the remnants until Stewart won the championship, and a ruckus was made afterward concerning his sleeveless rain jacket. Today, the sleeves and scissors are displayed at the World Golf Hall of Fame in an exhibit titled “Style and Substance: The Life and Legacy of Payne Stewart.”

Bob Barrett’s hope that moving South would lead to a long life came to pass. He died at age 89, two months after the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst. John Dempsey, the longtime president of Sandhills Community College, gave the eulogy.

“Bob lit up every room he ever entered,” said Dempsey. “He was truly the community’s innkeeper.” Dempsey, who first met Barrett while guesting at the Pine Crest many decades ago, credits Bob for persuading him to apply for the position of SCC’s president, a job he would hold for 34 years.

Though already performing the bulk of managerial duties, Peter Barrett formally became the Pine Crest’s general manager following his father’s death. But additional leadership was required, and it came from Bob’s old friend.

Drew Gross was hired in 2011 as the Pine Crest’s resident manager. Gross had been involved in a diverse array of activities since his Diamondhead days: caddying on tour, event planning, cultivating relationships with airlines for National Car Rental, and operating a company that provided retired baseball players moneymaking opportunities. It was Gross who arranged for retired greats like Sparky Lyle, Lew Burdette, Tommy Davis and Warren Spahn to bivouac at the Pine Crest during the old ballplayers’ 1992 Pinehurst golf get-together.

Recognizing the inn’s history constitutes a major part of its appeal, Gross organized a gala centennial celebration of its founding on Nov. 1, 2013. Bagpipers played, dignitaries spoke, Hoagy Carmichael’s son, Randy, performed “Stardust,” and a bronze bust of Donald Ross was unveiled.

Free drinks at Mr. B’s are a thing of the past. Head bartender Annie Ulrich makes sure of that. The Long Island native came to the Pine Crest as a fill-in barkeep during the 2014 Open. Ulrich, whose husband, Gus, is a two-time North Carolina Open champion, loves her job. “Making one person happy is great,” she says. “But at any one time, I can make 20 people happy.” The narrow passage between the piano and the bar is now called “Annie Avenue.” Even as Mr. B’s flourishes, courses like Pine Needles, Mid Pines, Southern Pines, Talamore, Mid South, Tobacco Road, etc., continue to work with the inn booking tee times.

It is true that the Pine Crest celebrates its history — the three barstools at Mr. B’s bearing brass plaques dedicated to the long departed trio of Drum, Price and Taylor; the two Donald Ross sculptures and the painting of  Ross over the fireplace; the many images of long-gone golf heroes; and the tiny monument to the succession of orange cats, Marmalade or Marmaduke depending on the feline’s gender, that patrolled the porch — but this is no museum. Stop by on a weekend night when music is playing, folks are dancing and guests are chipping, all in the snug, yet somehow uncrowded, lobby. It’s vibrant, intimate and fun.

There’s no place quite like it.

Poem February 2026

POEM

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February 2026

Past Life

On the night you read my cards, 

you told me the spiraling moth

was my dead grandfather but you did not 

tell me we’d be lovers, had been lovers 

since the first sound waves collided 

on the ocean floor. 

 

Now I know why I felt like crying

when you traced the lines across my palm.

Why you looked away when the fire hissed.

If you’d kissed me, I would have kissed back. 

 

When I left the dead moth for you 

in the morning, paper wings outstretched

like a faerie scroll across the Three of Swords, 

I did not know I was seeing my future, 

spiraling toward your light until the end.

          — Ashley Walshe

Vinegar Valentines

VINEGAR VALENTINES

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Vinegar Valentines

When matters of the heart are in decline There’s sure to be a warning sign. The postman rings twice In your fool’s paradise Delivering your vinegar valentine.

Illustration by Harry Blair

Is there an easier holiday to lampoon than Valentine’s Day? We’re betting the answer is “No.” As proof, here is a collection of “Vinegar Valentines.” The cynical, sarcastic cards began to appear in the middle to late 1800s. By the turn of the century cartoonists were creating their own lines. Most of the cards reproduced here — with the exception of our contemporary “Postman” — were published in the early 1900s.