Lois and Fred loved each other.  Make no mistake about that, gentle reader.  The House on Strawberry Hill was known as Fred and Lois's house for 65 years.  Every evening, you'd see them sitting on the front porch, sporting rocking chairs, sitting closer to one another than most married folks sit after that many years.

As their granddaughter, my bedroom was the blue room (see photos).  I would snuggle under Granny's quilts on cool mountain nights while I listened to their whispers from the front porch.  Earlier in the evening, I would have been on the front porch with them, fresh from a hot bath in the porcelain tub, dancing around the front yard in my nightgown, admiring how the two hackberry trees in the front yard grew so close together, they seem to be embracing.  Then I would smile to myself and think "how appropriate, it's just like Papaw and Granny."

True love is comfortable, like sitting on the front porch with the love of your life, staring at the moon over Lover's Leap and listening to the crickets.  True love bears fruit.  The House on Strawberry Hill is named for the many wild strawberries that grow on what is known as the high point in town-- the hill on which this house was built in the 1920s. 

Fred was born in Hot Springs and lived there through the Great Depression, World War II, the rise of the Town's popularity and its late century decline into ghost town status. He was an inventor/plumber/electrician/builder, so he is responsible for many of the older additions to homes around town and was always on call for his friends and neighbors. Fred lived a long and happy life and took morning walks to the Post Office where he would discuss the state of things in town with the other fellows. He would also frequent Gentry's Hardware, a store in town still owned by the Gentry family and visit with the patrons and the Gentry's. Fred's sister, Hazel Moore, is still a beautician in Hot Springs and she has authored two historical books on Hot Springs.

Granny's grew up just out of town toward Tennessee in a community called Lower Shut-In. Born Lois Merle Church  she went to college and became a teacher in Hot Springs, spending 35 years teaching full-time and many more years substitute teaching, mostly the 5th grade. Most of the folks who have been lifelong residents of Hot Springs remember Granny's paddle and many fell victim to it if they misbehaved. I remember Granny's remarkable sense of style, her large vocabulary, and humorous sayings that I keep alive by using them today.

True love is also loyal.  When Fred was mortally injured in a car accident in 2002, he asked me to "look after his house, the house he loved so much."  As one might guess, there is no thriving technology sector in a town with fewer than 700 residents.  Despite taking an enormous risk and significant pay cuts, we moved into the house in Hot Springs where we lived full-time for nearly 6 years.

While we lived in the house, we began to understand even more about true love.  We raised our six month old, and a few years after living there, created a sister for him.  Despite medical professionals telling us that we were lucky to have our son and that it was medically impossible to have another child, something about the House incubated us against the naysayers and now we have two healthy children.  We also grew to love the community.  We created the first broadband network, encouraging Verizon to bring DSL to town.  I served on the economic development board for the county, supported local farmers and entrepreneurs, and served as the county's information technology director.  My husband worked as webmaster for the local college.

We were recruited out of our nest, our haven, in 2008.  Yet, true love would not permit us to sell the house or even rent it on a long-term lease.  We wanted to share the experience of it.

When you stay at our House on Strawberry Hill, you will most certainly appreciate the age of the home-- it was built in the 20s-- and the little projects that my grandfather undertook in making improvements. When we lived there, we expanded the kitchen and built a large deck on the back of the house, enabling a substantial view of the northern valley and the corresponding mountains. We also had a red tin roof put on which is wonderful during rainstorms and lovely to look at. All of the windows in the house are new.

But the true love you feel in the home is timeless, priceless.  Stay at the House on Strawberry Hill with someone you love.

Thanks for reading,

M. 

NEW! Video below shows a visitor's take on the French Broad River. Enjoy!