Newcomers revive quaint Blue Ridge
By: Norman Arey - Staff

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Monday, April 14, 2003

Blue Ridge --- Joann and Ron Pizell were out for a Sunday drive four years ago. They stopped for gas in Blue Ridge and basically never left after buying a place on the Toccoa River.

Although both still live and work in east Cobb, they drive up to their weekend home in Blue Ridge "every chance we get," she said.

This quaint little village in Fannin County has quietly and quickly remade itself for folks like the Pizells and thousands of others who now have a second address in Blue Ridge or its environs.

Once faced with closing stores and economic disaster, a strong push by the Chamber of Commerce and an influx of new businesses has not only brought this 100-year-old community back from the brink but made it a bustling tourist stop-off, retirement haven and second-home mecca.

Two major things happened to this mountain Lazarus in a short period.

The Zell Miller Parkway (I-575, Ga. 515) opened 10 years ago, giving Atlantans a straight 90-minute shot to Fannin County. The Blue Ridge Scenic Railway chugged into town five years later.

The parkway opened the gate to folks building and buying second homes and retirement homes; the railway brought in the tourists.

Suddenly, Blue Ridge became a happenin' place, and local builders found this sudden influx of flatlanders was a pretty good deal.

The town of 1,200 and county of 19,000 had to do something fast. Three of its five major industries closed within a few years of each other. American Uniform and Shaw Industries left first, and the Levi's jeans plant closed last year. The Levi plant's closing alone cost the community $48.7 million per year.

Now Fannin County's No. 1 industry is tourism. The Fannin accommodations guide shows 491 cabin rental properties available today; a decade ago there were 11.

Smart Money magazine in 2002 listed Blue Ridge as one of the five best places in the country to purchase a vacation home, along with Sandpoint, Idaho; Hatteras Island, N.C.; Phoenicia, N.Y.; and Michigan City, Ind.

"Sixty percent of the property here is owned by people who don't live here," said Coldwell Banker's Rick Murphy. "We get tremendous tax benefits from absentee ownership. You can get twice the house here as opposed to overcrowded Lake Burton. The houses that were built five years ago have quadrupled in value."

To back up Murphy's point, the local telephone company sends 3,067 telephone bills to out-of-town addresses.

One of those bills goes to the Pizells of east Cobb.

"My husband was saying we might retire to Montana, but he told me if I'd find him a place to fish, we'd stay around," recalls Joann Pizell. "Now he fishes on the Toccoa River, and we spend Thanksgiving and Christmas there. We go up probably three times a month for long weekends."

'Small-town feel'

Gary and Kim Keel, another metro Atlanta couple, have owned a place in Blue Ridge for three years. "It's a great, clean lake, and I love the small-town feel," said Gary. "So much of the land is owned by the U.S. Forest Service that it's never going to be overcrowded."

More than 42 percent of Fannin County is national forest.

Many folks who started out with weekend cabins end up moving to the mountains permanently.

Bo Chance and wife Deena owned a home in Atlanta's Virginia-Highland. They started making trips to Blue Ridge in 1992 to work on a small cabin they had purchased.

Bo Chance, a vice president of sales for a software company and a handyman extraordinare, bought a boarded-up downtown building in 1996 to fix up and rent. Deena opened an art gallery and frame shop.

When Chance finished one building, he bought another. Today, he owns seven buildings and is the most famous entrepreneur in Blue Ridge --- having long since left his software sales job.

Today, there are roughly 80 businesses in Blue Ridge; only seven are older than five years.

Of those businesses, there are 13 antiques and collectibles shops, five art galleries, 26 specialty shops, 10 restaurants or fancy gourmet takeout shops and 17 service industries, such as banks, insurance companies, doctors and attorneys. There is a fish market with a marvelous choice of fresh catch brought in from Florida.

Blue Ridge is also the home of one of a handful of drive-in theaters left in Georgia --- the Swan.
And for those urban transplants, there's plenty of culture. The Blue Ridge Community theater opened in late March with "Della's Diner" as the first production. The Blue Ridge Arts Association has 600 dues-paying members.

The Mountain Scholar Bookstore is one of the nicest bookstores in North Georgia. Bill Alexander, an artist who specializes in fiber, tends the store in his spare time. He says the most requested books include esoteric religions, New Age, classics, works on color and decor --- and books on how to raise chickens.

"We're having a writers conference, and we have [Georgia poet laureate] David Bottoms as the keynote speaker," Alexander said. "We were going to have a wine-and-cheese reception for him, but the town outlawed serving alcohol in the city limits. I guess it'll be a wineless coffee-and-tea reception."

Or they could opt for bottled water. There are six bottled-water businesses operating in the county.

Land prices soar

Tom Carroll started Georgia Mountain Water in 1980, sold it for a fortune and went into the building business. "Land prices have doubled in three years," Carroll said. "A 1-acre lot on Lake Blue Ridge will cost $1 million today."

Carroll, a high-end builder, says the average two-bedroom home he builds sells for $275,000. His company has built several that sold for more than $2 million.

Ray and B.J. Martin, who live in metro Atlanta, bought a place on Lake Blue Ridge 19 years ago --- before prices escalated --- and have never regretted their decision.

"We have grown children now, and their fondest memories are of the lake," said B.J. Martin. "Now we have five grandchildren, and they love it. It was the best-kept secret in Georgia for a while, but not anymore."

Sisson Log Cabins is at the other end of the spectrum. It advertises a cabin for as low as $69,900. "We don't cater to the high end," said Cheryle DuPont, who runs the office for the Sisson brothers. "Most of our homes are between $69,000 and $200,000." DuPont says they are building 27 spec homes "and most of them sell before we get them finished."
Life has changed in Blue Ridge, and nobody has seen it flip-flop more than Sheriff George Ensley. "Ten years ago, our main crimes were bad checks and marijuana," he said. "Today, methamphetamine in on the increase, and we have some burglaries because people leave their homes and don't come back for two or three weeks. And there are more traffic accidents.

"Ten years ago, we seldom had a female in the jail," he said. "Now we get five to 10 females, mostly on drugs."

George Godfrey, who owns a leather and shoe repair shop in downtown Blue Ridge, has seen the little town explode over the last few years.

"I've been here since 1947, and I've seen most everything," he said. "To the people born and raised here, the boom ain't really helped them. You can't change it and go back, though."
Godfrey says he misses the old days.

"I am the last generation," he said. "You used to go fishing anywhere you wanted to. Now it's posted. I used to go squirrel hunting and deer hunting. Nowadays it's all posted."

Godfrey tells a story about a man who brought in a pair of shoes to be repaired, and then got a job in another state and moved away, forgetting his shoes. "He was gone for 17 1/2 years," Godfrey laughed. "And then he moved back. He came in and asked for his shoes, and I pulled them right out and told him they'd be ready by next Friday."

Some things never change.