My Wife and I spent many vacations in Western North Carolina while the kids were growing up, visiting places like Joyce Kilmer Forest in Robbinsville and Chimney Rock near Lake Lure. We would usually drive from South Florida and mainly camp with the occasional cabin rental. After decades of doing this and enjoying every minute we decided to look for a second home in the area anticipating moving from South Florida all together when the time came. This proved to be a lot harder than most think, without being in the area all the time we lost multiple opportunities as the good properties go fast and trying to coordinate time off work on a days notice was always difficult and usually impossible, we tried to rely on Realtors in the area but they tended to focus more on getting the sale rather than doing the leg work for us, who can blame them? I wished at that time I knew someone local with a similar knowledge base as mine, that could visit a new property in our absence and report back, someone who could fill in the blanks, advise on the unknowns. I can’t count how many properties we ended up visiting that looked fantastic on line to find out they were next to a burned down house or abandoned lot full of trash on a road that would be better traveled by donkey.

So why hire me? Great question. Originally from the UK where my first job was sweeping a construction site at the age of 16, I have expanded my skill set with over 40 years of construction knowledge, 10 of which have been related to land management, design and layout. I am a Certified General Contractor in Florida, albeit inactive as I don’t use my licensure here in NC. I have built residential homes as well as high rises and multipurpose properties and have a vast array of expertise and insight. And did I mention I’m full of opinions?

My Wife and I have been through this, with 3 dogs I might add, made offers on a few homes which unfortunately/fortunately didn’t work out due to inspection findings or future adjustments looking to be too costly. We both had compiled a list of wants and needs and prioritized them, understanding that we may be hard pressed to get the exact place that ticked all the boxes, we both knew we would need to sacrifice something. So it finally came to a point where we’d tried everything as long distance buyers for a year or more, just to realize we couldn’t make it happen until we could finally get here full time.

This is not something everyone would be capable of pulling off, but in the end we sold our home in South Florida, quit our jobs, put everything in storage and with nowhere to live we set off in our 1985 Minnie Winnie, and decided to drive around for as long as it took to find the right place. Although this was probably the best vacation/time of our lives, we visited on average 8-10 properties a day, every day for 3 months until the right one came along, including the ones we offered on but didn’t close. We went through 3 different realtors, some are better than others we found, had issues at closing with right of way and access problems, something very common here we later found out also, to finally find our dream home on the perfect piece of property in Cullowhee, not far from the College and about 20 minutes to the nearest grocery store, which was our limit. This property ticked all but a few boxes but was our little piece of heaven on our private mountain property. (Since sold and now we live in Franklin with a bit of an upgrade and without the issues the first property proved to have) Little back story here, the Cullowhee house had water in the finished basement, it had been abandoned for over 4 years, but as a Contractor I was good with that, I set aside 10k to excavate the side of the house, rent an excavator and waterproof and French drain the side of the house before backfilling again, the sure way to fix the problem, and that price was me doing all the work myself, turns out when we moved in, I redirected 2 downspouts costing $50 in parts and never had water in the basement again. This was my first clear understanding of how things are different here in the mountains and its best to think outside of the box.

I pride myself on my honesty and integrity and would love to help you and your family find the right place with less headache than we had, and hopefully you are not waiting years like we did to make your dream come true. Lets talk and see if it makes sense for us to do business together. Cheers, Lewis.