As discussed elsewhere, the Toxaway Company arrived in our area in the late 1800s and set to work developing five grand hotels. We’ll focus this post on their earliest acquisition: The Sapphire Inn and Cottages on Lake Sapphire.
The Sapphire Inn
The Sapphire Inn, R.H. Scadin. Courtesy of the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library.
The Sapphire Lodge (its original name) was built in 1892 by then-landowners, the Sapphire Valley Mining Company. This company, led by R.A. Jacobs, built a 12-foot high dam on the Horsepasture River which created the snake-like shape of Sapphire Lake, then built the hotel, cottages, and office facilities just above the shoreline of the lake.[1]
The property changed hands in 1896, when the mining company sold to the newly-formed Toxaway Company; as the Sapphire Inn and Cottages, it continued to operate as a popular hotel, with accommodations for 50 guests. It also functioned as the Toxaway Company’s home base; for instance, General Manager J.F. Hayes and his wife Minnie spent the entire summer of 1900 there. Edward C. Wilson, who would become another Toxaway Company player, was the second manager of the property.
While the elegance of Toxaway sister resorts has often been described in states of near rapture, tourism tracts of the time seem to have less to say about the property, for example: “The Sapphire Inn, with cottages, [and its] grounds are spacious and well-kept. There is an excellent livery in connection with the house, and a number of pleasure boats have been placed on Sapphire Lake for the use of the guests. The fishing on this lake is unsurpassed.”
The 1898 advertisement in the Asheville Daily Gazette below seems similarly restrained.
This newspaper description may explain why: “The [Sapphire] Inn was built for home comforts and not for show…”[2]
A writer traveling through the Sapphire Country in November 1902 gives a wonderful further explanation:
“At the Sapphire hotel, we find ourselves in a good substantial temporary home, with comfortable equipment and neat service and abundant creature comforts, where real excellence rather than mere display is observable in the cuisine and the arrangement of the house, and where, under the intelligent oversight of an experienced manager and the gentle influence of the lady of the house, the tourist of tired city denizen seeking rest in the country may feel in great measure that, though ‘there is no place like home,’ there are at least spots with many of the comforts and sensations of home, even in the strongholds of sylvan nature and under the shadow of the everlasting hills.
“Near the Sapphire Inn, we find the Toxaway Co’s store, the post office and the office of the company… forming an important business center, from which the other inns of the company (Fairfield and the Lodge), are to a considerable extent administered and supplied with horses, buggies, mail accommodations, and store goods, etc. From the genial local representative of the company, we learn many particulars of the vast enterprise…
“Close at hand, in addition, we find the extensive stabling supplying horses and vehicles for the conveyance of passengers and their baggage, and enabling visitors to take their drives and rides for exercise or pleasure around the lakes, over the graded roads, or along the pleasant woodland ways.”
Given its origin, as well as its central location along the Turnpike, it only makes sense that the Sapphire Inn and cottages would be considered the “workhorse” property of the company. Yet even a workhorse can be a showhorse, as this gorgeous collection of Lake Sapphire images, shot by noted photographer William Henry Jackson in 1902, certainly illustrates.
Social news of the day also provided frequent accounts of the activities of Inn guests as they came and went during the season, and the Sapphire Inn was clearly just as lively as the other Toxaway Company properties.
“Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, assisted by Miss Little, are dispensing the hospitality at Sapphire Inn and Cottages and are establishing for themselves and the Inn an enviable reputation as typical Southern entertainers.
On Monday evening a ‘cake walk’ was upon the program of entertainments and the guests from the Inn and the Cottages entered into the spirit of the occasion with a great deal of zest and merriment. Mrs. Craig, Savannah, and Mr. Cart, Charleston, being voted the most uniquely arrayed and graceful couple, received the cake.
Tuesday evening Mr. Leonard Haas of Atlanta delighted the guests by a number of violin selections. Miss Crigler, of Spartanburg, held the audience enraptured with her beautiful voice, giving the ‘Pilgrim’s Chorus,’ from ‘Tannhauser.’ Mrs. Hays and Mrs. Turner assisted at the piano.
Wednesday evening Mrs. Shelton, of Georgia, gave a ‘gramophone party’ which was a most pleasant diversion after the giddy round of gayeties during the week past. Among the selections rendered were Sousa’s ‘Anvil Chimes,’ ‘The Mocking Bird,’ ‘Suwannee [sic] River,’ ‘Old Kentucky,’ etc. Refreshments were served and the evening wound up with tableaux and shadow pictures. [Editor’s Note: What, no Facebook?! No Instagram?!]
Thursday evening the ‘Dumb Orators’ delivered their series of lectures, songs and recitations and were applauded to the echo. This was the most mirth-provoking entertainment, and withal, one of the most enjoyable of the season.
Friday evening the regular weekly dance was given in the parlors of the Sapphire Inn. Refreshments were served. Music by McMillan’s orchestra.”
(The Asheville Daily Gazette, August 9, 1899)
We looked for, but couldn’t find, more information about the musical stylings of “McMillian’s orchestra.” We did find mention in the same timeframe (1898-1899) of 6 musicians performing under this name: one in Placerville, CA, and another matching this group’s name from Logansport, IA. This was a prime era for John Philip Sousa’s marches and ragtime music as Scott Joplin published his famous Maple Leaf Rag about 5 weeks after this referenced Daily Gazette article was written.
The Narrows at the Gorge
A spot especially popular near the Sapphire Inn (immortalized in a series of beautiful photos by local photographer R. H. Scadin), The Narrows at the Gorge has been described as “possibly the most beautiful and most romantic spot in this country of natural wonders.”
The Narrows was well-known as a courting spot, where walkers or riders could stop at a rustic bridge to watch the Horsepasture River flow through a high narrow gorge of boulders and rocks: “From the center of this bridge one may get a glorious view, both up and down the stream…The waters tumble and splash over the rocks at a mad pace, throwing its spray high into the air. Here Nature again unfolds a wonderful picture, for if the day be bright, the sun catches the spray and forces it to hold the prismatic colors in the shape of many beautiful rainbows.”[3]
Another news account describes the Narrows eloquently: “In the afternoon…we stroll through the woods and down to one of the most beautiful mountain streams that the imagination can conceive – the Horsepasture River – and cross it on a rustic bridge at a point where the concentrated force of the stream tears along in a narrow groove between the rocks and races down in mad career, a white and roaring torrent. Words fail to describe the beauty of the banks of this stream, with masses of varied foliage rising tier above tier, in shade or sheen, from the rushing water…Below the strenuous tumult of the thundering cataract, the stream spreads out into a wide and comparatively tranquil expanse and flows for a time gently on its way.”[4]
Here is a link to a more contemporary view of The Narrows which is now a private amenity for owners at the Wyndham Resort at Fairfield Sapphire Valley.
Top: Sylvan Valley News, July 27, 1906
Bottom: Richmond Headlight August 3, 1906
It was widely reported in the summer of 1906 that a fire had destroyed the Sapphire Inn. Somewhat oddly, there do not appear to be any subsequent reports about the fire or – despite Mr. Burrowes’ remarks in one of the reports – any effort to rebuild the property. By 1907, the cottages were being leased to individuals for the season.[5]
It becomes apparent why, when Burrowes’ Toxaway Hotel Company, lessee of the Toxaway land company to manage the resorts, begins to have financial difficulties. In due time, the management lease for the resorts, executed for 10 years but only operated for two, was revoked, leaving the Burrowes’ entity bankrupt, and management of the resorts reverted back to the Toxaway Company.
However, financial difficulties for the parent company were also percolating. With typically high expenses and perhaps just not long enough of a season to fully recoup them, financials could be erratic, and in 1911, the Toxaway Company was finally sold in receivership to its largest stockholder E.H. Jennings.
In 1912, Jennings sold a 640-acre tract of land around the site of the former Sapphire Lodge to John Thomas Lupton, founder of the Dixie Coca-Cola Bottling Company, who built a fine home secluded off the highway near the lake. This home and property are still owned by his descendants.
By the time the Moltz Lumber company was established in 1917, it’s likely the Sapphire cottages were no longer operating, and possibly not even standing, as it was recorded that railroad track in support of the logging operation had been “laid through the woods above the Hogback Road to a point of about one and a half miles past the site of the former Sapphire Lodge…”[6]
Although some sources place the site of the Sapphire Inn on present-day Whisper Lake, the 1900’s-era map below shows the property on a small cove of Sapphire Lake, just slightly northwest of Little Hogback Creek, the Narrows, and the Horsepasture River, on the edge of the Jackson County line. That would place the Inn’s old location within today’s private Sapphire Lakes community.
Goldsboro Weekly Argus, August 2, 1906
