Open Writing

If you wander off the beaten track almost anywhere in the USA, with the possible exception of some of the New England states, you’re unlikely to find the quaint villages and communities that are typical of the UK and Europe. The rural towns of the US are often relics of a better time in their history, before folks drifted to the big cities to make their fortune. Other such places owed their existence to a long ago boom – gold mining, steel, coal or oil and gas wells; all gone bust these many years.

It’s a national characteristic of the USA that community development is rapid, and decline usually goes hand-in-hand with equally rapid decay, once the raison d’etre goes away. What remains of a once thriving town is rarely charming, and the remaining population is often angry and resentful, wanting no truck with gawking tourists. I lived in such a place for eight years and served as a volunteer on the re-development board. It was hard and unrewarding work, and ultimately unsuccessful in stemming the tide of population decline.

With this and similar experiences behind me, my expectations were not high when I was invited to stay with old friends who had retired in the heart of North Carolina. I was puzzled as to why a well traveled and cosmopolitan couple would want to spend their last years in what I imagined was such a backwoods.

North Carolina has something of a dual personality. In the northern tier of the State is a thriving concentration of high-tech companies, research organizations, and prestigious seats of learning such as Duke and Wake Forest universities. Away from the coastline, other than the bustling city of Charlotte in the south west, the rest of the State is mostly agricultural; moribund tobacco and cotton farming, hit hard by the decline in smoking and foreign competition respectively.

So it was with no great expectations that I made my way for the first time to Pinehurst. No major highways pass nearby, so I found myself driving along a well maintained, but narrow country road, passing between successive fields of cotton and soy, and just occasionally tobacco. Every few miles I encountered an abandoned house, or one still lived in but clearly in need of rebuilding. Interspersed with these relics were the gaunt shells of no longer used tobacco and cotton barns.

All this came as no surprise, but by way of compensation, the rolling countryside was beautiful and the fields well tended. As I approached Pinehurst I passed through Aberdeen, a stereotypically run-down, rural town, kept alive only by the presence of a railroad line. Once into the outskirts of my destination, however, I immediately sensed a change.

Here, the still narrow and winding road was lined with stately pines, and in between them I spotted elegant private houses and the bright green of a golf course through the trees. From then on my trip was a succession of pleasant revelations. I was further encouraged when I encountered a real, old style town center, with small, prospering stores and a splendid old hotel. People were actually walking about!

Pinehurst, was founded in 1895 by James Walker Tufts. Tufts was an entrepreneur, inventor, and philanthropist. A native of Massachusetts, he suffered with chronic ill health, and in the 1890’s began searching for an area with sunshine, fresh air and a healthy environment. He found it in 1895 in the Pine Barrens of North Carolina. Tufts eventually purchased almost six thousand acres of rolling sandy hills.

Later he hired the landscaping firm started by Frederick Law Olmsted, famous for creating New York City’s Central Park, to plan the new village. For a fee of $300, Olmsted’s firm designed an attractive and welcoming New England-style village, with a village green and winding streets. They filled the area with lush plantings of pines, camellias, crepe myrtles and thousands of other species. Development from that time to the present has faithfully adhered to Olmstead’s concept.

Tuft’s descendants owned and operated the town until 1970 and developed it as a residential, golfing community. Today the Pinehurst Golf Club and Resort boasts eight championship golf courses, and world-class tennis and spa facilities. The Club has the rare distinction of having been selected three times by the US Professional Golf Association to host the US Open on their Course No. 2: in 1999, 2005 and next in 2014. Course No. 2 was designed in 1907 by the well-known Scottish golf course designer Donald Ross.

Hosting the US Open is a huge undertaking for both the town and the Club. Traffic flows have to be modified, accommodation found for competitors, spectators, officials and a host of TV and radio commentators and technicians. The second time I visited my friends in Pinehurst was in 2005, a week before the US Open, during the frenzied preparations. It was like viewing a human ant heap. Most amusing was the sight of TV commentators from all over the world rehearsing their “impromptu” remarks.

I have returned each year since 2004 to visit my friends in their large, graceful home by a lake, and never fail to be delighted by the peaceful surrioundings that James Walker Tufts and Frederick Olmstead envisaged and designed. Whether you’re a golfer or not, Pinehurst is an American treasure, and a model for anyone planning a new community.

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