Carolina Connection, The

Florida Trend, Oct 2007 by Barnett, Cynthia

Floridians are buying up homes in North Carolina - and Florida builders are not on their heels. But the Sunshine State's brand of development is creating tension in the hills.

For a quarter-century, each July, University of Florida Foundation officials have packed up orange and blue banners, balloons, Gator cups and other UF paraphernalia and driven eight hours to throw a party at the favorite summer getaway spot of some of the university's most generous donors: Western North Carolina.

So many Floridians now sojourn in the area that in recent years UF officials have had to split the mountaintop bash into two parties over two nights. To treat the Carolina crowd to an evening of "blue-grass, barbeque and Bernie," President Bernie Machen has to spend one night in Highlands and the next across the mountains in Linville.

"It's grown so much, we've really maxed out the seating," says Carter Boyd stun, senior associate vice president for development at the UF Foundation. "Every summer, we have a lot more names to add to the invitation list."

Whether chased north by the heat, the hurricanes or property-tax and insurance costs, more Floridians are buying second homes in western North Carolina - or packing permanently for the mountains.

And Florida home builders are following their customers north. Seeking to diversify operations as they ride out Florida's housing downturn, the builders are buying up mountaintops and developing them by the thousands of acres.

But they are betting on an uncertain boom. For in these cloud-laced mountains, Florida history is repeating itself in a dozen different ways. In some areas, speculators have lost money on development deals that proved too good to be true. In others, rising land values and taxes are leading locals, such as artisans and farmers, to sell out and move on, homogenizing the mountain culture as Christmas tree crops become rooftops. Across the region, lack of development regulation has led to environmental problems, from groundwater scarcity to soil erosion.

"People move to western North Carolina communities because they think these small towns are so quaint, and then they perch a 5,000-sq.-ft. house on the side of the mountain," says Robin Cape, an Asheville city councilwoman first exposed to western North Carolina on many summer trips from Tampa with her grandparents.

"I wish people could remember that they're not in Miami anymore."

Florida's connection to the mountains of North Carolina dates to the late 19th century. University of South Florida historian Gary Mormino says those who could afford it began to leave coastal Florida each summer to escape annual scourges of deadly yellow fever.

Asheville area leaders worked shrewdly to make sure their region became a major destination for those fleeing other states, says Western Carolina University history professor Richard D. Starnes, author of "Creating the Land of the Sky: Tourism and Society in Western North Carolina." During south Florida's real estate boom in the 1920s, the Asheville chamber hired director Fred Weede away from the Miami chamber, "a clear statement that Asheville wanted what was happening in Miami," Starnes says.

Boom towns like Palm Beach and Miami had proven that transportation - rail or road - was key to landing tourists and second-home buyers. Weede was among the North Carolina leaders who persuaded federal officials to route the Blue Ridge Parkway through North Carolina, excluding rival mountain destinations in Tennessee.

Throughout the 20th century, Asheville's real estate fortunes were tied closely to Florida's. "You see many of the same people operating under different business names in both markets, and the same speculators speculating in both markets," Starnes says. In the 1930s, he says, 'When the Florida market crashed, the Asheville market followed."

Starnes, North Carolina real estate agents and others say they see a similar symbiosis today. "We can pretty much connect the dots," says Tom Tveidt, director of research with the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, who tracks migration data for Buncombe, Madison, Haywood and Henderson counties. Tveidt's research shows Florida is the top feeder state by far.

21st century boom?

Southwest of Asheville, in a rugged but upscale town called Cashiers, Realtor Jane Ebberts shows up for an interview looking ready for fly-fishing: Jeans, hiking boots and a backcountry blouse. Originally from Buffalo, N.Y., Ebberts and her husband raised a family and pursued careers in central Florida, where she was a software designer. They left for North Carolina in 1997, when he sold his security firm to a national company and retired early. "We really wanted to get back to all four seasons, but not Buffalo's four seasons?" A friend recommended Cashiers. They came in May and didn't want to return home, even long enough to sell their house. "It was love at first sight;" Ebberts says. "It's beautiful weather and a lifestyle, and you're not going to get attacked by mosquitoes, either?"