It has reclaimed wood floors, brick walls covered in high-tech German-made acoustic panels, a disco ball that bathes concerts in spinning luminous fairy dust. What a remarkable place-a cavernous, 750-person music venue opened in 2012 by the LaGardes. In the center of a pollinator garden a rusty dye vat towers overhead, with “Haw River Ballroom” punched out of the metal so that at night, when lighted from within, the words glow. The landscape designers trained flowering vines up old drying racks. The architects left part of the dye house unfinished, giving the place the feel of ruins. The refurbished cotton mill on the Haw River. It’s still free nearly two decades later but now draws more than a thousand people weekly. They were encouraged in those early days by Heather and Tom LaGarde, two other Saxapahaw pioneers, who started a summertime Saturday farmers’ market and free music event back in 2005 that has grown into Saturdays in Saxapahaw. Jeff and Cameron opened the restaurant and store in 2008. Locals and foodies who drive for miles line up together to order house-braised brisket, duck confit, and chorizo biscuits and gravy. Buy local beer and vegetables, bread, milk, and chewing tobacco. He and his acolytes practice whole-animal “seam butchery,” hand-slicing along natural seams to separate muscles instead of sawing through blocks that contain muscle groups of varying tenderness.Ī few doors down is the Saxapahaw General Store, which owners Jeff Barney and Cameron Ratliff call “your local five-star gas station.” Fuel up at the “Saxaco” pumps. Among them are a brewery ( Haw River Farmhouse Ales), coffee shop ( Cup 22), bike shop ( River Mill Cycles), and craft store specializing in products made in North Carolina and woman-owned brands ( Freehand Market).Īt Left Bank Butchery, next door to the Eddy, owner Ross Flynn has partnered with a couple of local farms for all his beef and pork to ensure the best animal conditions and quality. On sunny Sundays, we’ll join friends for a morning paddle on a flatwater section of the Haw and then have a leisurely lunch on the terrace of the Eddy Pub, one of many businesses in the former mill’s funky, sprawling rehabilitated dye house. I find the pull of Saxapahaw, sixteen miles west, even stronger. East of Chapel Hill, where I live, Durham and Raleigh offer plenty of excellent restaurants, breweries, and live music venues. For two decades now, a collection of rural visionaries and dedicated craftspeople have made the tiny river village and its once-abandoned mill a cultural magnet. The rebirth is what draws me over and over to Saxapahaw (locals say SAX-puh-haw). First there was a river, the Haw, tumbling over ancient volcanic boulders. A book of words might not even be enough. I don’t have the space to explain the magic of Saxapahaw, North Carolina, and how it came to be.
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