The Sweet Life in Saxahapaw

"SAX APPEAL" ABOUNDS IN ALAMANCE TOWN
Featuring North Carolina’s Only Five Star Gourmet Gas Station

By Lynne Brandon

 

 

Featuring North Carolina’s Only Five Star Gourmet Gas Station

By Lynne Brandon

Entertainment, great food, music, and a laid-back life style all come together on the banks of the Haw River in Saxahapaw, North Carolina. Just minutes from Chapel Hill, the former cotton mill town is experiencing a revival. Once defined by the mill buildings, the quaint village has breathed new life into its repurposed structures which now are the scene of great concerts, businesses and residential living space.

The mill’s restoration was led by Mac Jordan, grandson of the late U.S. Sen. B. Everett Jordan, former owner of Saxahapaw Cotton Mill.  To move the changes along, Jordan recruited Tom and Heather LaGarde, a couple with ties to Chapel Hill (Tom was a former UNC basketball player and later NBA), and New York where they resided before moving back to the South.

The restoration took root and the Saxapahaw Rivermill was born complete with residential and commercial space. Others followed: Saxapahaw Artist Gallery, the life-size puppet theater at Paperhand Puppet Intervention, Haw River Canoe & Kayak Company, and the LaGarde’s Haw River Ballroom venue.

The Haw River Ballroom is a renovated textile dye house – perfect for concert crowds and other special events throughout the year. The popular venue brings in crowds from nearby urban cities to the rural retreat to hear live music shows from band members of the Old Crow Medicine Show, Kristian Matsson (who toured with Bon Iver), and other original artists. In a short time, the space has become a powerful entertainment venue and gathering place for the artistic community.

Work gets done in the off the beaten path community, but on Saturdays in the summer months, the community gathers for “Saturdays at Saxahapaw.”  Set on a rolling hill, crowds mingle first at the farmers market and sample local food products and then relax to a variety of live bluegrass, rock and other genres.

The local farm community has had its hand in the revitalization of Saxahapaw. The creative use of fresh, local foods has food lovers and critics turning culinary cartwheels over the gourmet cuisine choices in the unsuspecting setting. The restaurant/convenience store/gas station aptly named Saxahapaw General Store is the hub of the community where neighbors gather and new friends gather around the table to experience local food and beverages. It wasn’t always a hot spot.