Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05
February 8, 2007 issue
Play Me Some Mountain Music
New Outdoor Venue on Watauga Lake Is Ready for Action
Story by Lois Carol Wheatley
There will be no complaints from the neighbors when the bands crank up at Johnson County’s newest outdoor bluegrass stage near Watauga Lake.
Well, the deer might get a little flustered, and maybe that’s why the owner of Sugar Hollow Retreat is calling it Whitetail Stage.
The man with the vision behind this remote, scenic new concert venue is a legally blind doctor from Raleigh who wanted to create an attraction well suited to the surrounding area. “When you look at the elements there in Johnson and Carter County, music is sort of the whole aura of that,” said Dr. Surry Roberts. “We would like to highlight that music as part of the cultural heritage.”
His vision impairment has in no way impacted his site selection capabilities. “There’s a view up there on top of the ridge,” he said. “As you’re sitting in the amphitheater looking at the musicians, at the same time you’re looking at Stone Mountain. It’s a pretty spectacular spot.”
Roberts specialized in rheumatoid arthritis until he retired on disability nearly ten years ago. Then he acquired 300 acres on Watauga Lake and undertook one building project after another—a lodge, four guesthouses, a conference center and a 900 square foot deck with a view of the lake. Foot trails on the property follow Native American trade routes and old logging roads, and rumors abound as to bears and caves and relics.
The doctor still spends most of his time in Raleigh and frequently hires someone to drive him out to the retreat. He has hired two resident managers, Marty Plummer and Jim Gresch, to run the place.
The 250-seat tiered-bench arena stands newly completed, surrounded by the usual mud and straw of recent construction, mingled these days with a light dusting of snow. While the arena waits for the warm weather, Roberts in the meantime has turned his considerable energies to booking concerts and events. The first entry penciled in on the calendar is a newly created festival for Memorial Day Weekend, May 26 to 28, tentatively called the Watauga Lake Experience.
“The Watauga Lake Business Association has a board of directors in the process of organizing now to make it happen,” Roberts said. “It will involve everybody around here. The fire department is going to have a breakfast, and as many people as possible all around the lake will have music, crafts and children’s activities. Butler Museum will have a little show at that time as well.”
Events still in planning stages also include a quilt trail tour, car show, motorcycle rally, boat parade and fishing tournament. Vendors of every stripe are being solicited to set up booths on the amphitheater grounds.
Roberts hopes that this season kickoff will raise public awareness of the outdoor stage so that musicians will start showing up with guitars, fiddles and wash tubs, flocking in to fill the blank calendar pages through the summer and fall months. “Anyone interested in coming to use the space, we would encourage them to do so,” he said.
He added that the music doesn’t have to be bluegrass. In fact, a little diversification is a good thing. “We’re going to have shows as frequently as we can,” he said.
Long term, Roberts is prepared to add another 250 seats as these free performances catch on. Of course anybody can bring a blanket or a lawn chair, and just as there will be no one complaining to the sheriff about the noise, there is also very little concern about anyone alerting the fire marshal about overcapacity crowds.
Maybe as a season closer, tentative plans for an apple butter festival will come together. Some of the talk in these parts centers around Johnson County’s former glory as the bean capital of the world, so another festive something or another in mid-summer might center on that theme.
Roberts said the new ideas are coming out of the woods from a community that has never before had such a majestic venue in which to throw a really great party. “That’s how it is the first time you try something,” he said. “We’re out there in no man’s land. I think it was Buddha who said, ‘Start—and then continue.’”
Sugar Hollow Retreat is located on Highway 321 about eight miles south of Highway 67 near Butler. For more information call 800-957-1776, 423-768-3105, or click to www.sugarhollowretreat.com.