The Revival of Lake Toxaway
After the dam burst in 1916, Lake Toxaway drained away, and over the next several decades, the area reverted back to its natural state across the lakebed.
“From 1916 to 1960 there were many attempts to bring Lake Toxaway back but with two World Wars, the Great Depression and the United States changing from a rail economy to a road economy, there never seemed to be a right environment for Lake Toxaway (and the area) to become the destination resort that it once was. Also, and unfortunately, the Toxaway Inn was torn down for its valuable miles of copper wire, windows, doors, lumber, Persian runners, and flooring. It seemed that Toxaway could never come back as it was. That was, until…the pieces of the puzzle began to come together [again]”[1]
In 1955, Floridians David and Bertha Cosby bought approximately 9,000 acres of property from the Jennings family, becoming the new owners of the former site of the Toxaway Inn and a large swath of the land around it. Meanwhile, the Jennings maintained their significant acreage further west.
By December of that year, the Cosbys had established a self-named choir camp, with a plan to offer 3-week music courses throughout the summer months for young Christian music students. The structure they built to house this enterprise was reported to be located only a few hundred feet from the site of the original Toxaway Inn.
Several months later, the couple established a second entity, D.H. Cosby Inc., to develop some of their acreage as a Christian mountain community. A handsome brochure was produced touting the advantages of living there, with lots a real steal at $1600; but it’s unclear how many properties were actually sold. [2]
Eventually, the Cosbys listed the greater part of the property, electing to retain only their own summer home and the site of the music camp.
An aside: The pair later re-developed the latter as a 20-unit motor inn named the Lake Toxaway Inn, “an elegant stone lodge with a cheerful lobby and gorgeous views of the mountain and lake”[3]— as pictured in an architect’s rendering, top right, and a postcard, middle right. The new enterprise opened in August of 1962 with the Cosbys operating it for a number of years. Eventually, the motel was converted into condos; you can still see some of the former motor inn’s profile in a current photo of Toxaway Landing, bottom right.
D.H. Cosby with his wife and her twin
at the opening of the Toxaway Motor Inn,
Transylvania Times, August 16, 1962
During the winter of 1959-1960, a real estate agent alerted a group of Columbia, SC-based investors to the Cosby’s listing. On a raw January day, two of them, Darnell “Donny” Boyd and Reginald Heinitsh Sr., visited the area via a very rough Highway 64 and found few houses remaining. Nor could they determine where the lake had been because of the growth of trees and underbrush.[4]
Listen in as Donny Boyd recalls their visit in a 2011 recording [you can also hear his wife, Susan Faire Boyd, commenting occasionally offstage]:
L-R: Donny Boyd, Reg Heinitsh Sr., and Bobby Burgess.
By June of 1960, the Asheville Citizen-Times was announcing that City Investment Corporation had paid $450,000.00 for the land (approximately $50 an acre). Darnall W. Boyd was listed as the President of this entity, with his wife as the Vice-President.
Amonth later, Heinitsh, Boyd, and several others (Bobby Burgess, Robert Dial, W. Griswold Smith, and Henry Sherill) formed a new corporation, Lake Toxaway Estates, Inc., which became the driving force behind the redevelopment, and the next chapter of Lake Toxaway began.
SOURCES:
[1] ncmountainguide.com/Lake-Toxaway.html
[2] Treasures of Toxaway, Jan Plemmons
[3] The State magazine, September 15, 1962
[4] https://burlingameccwnc.com/history-of-bcc
