The Fairfield Inn: Then & Now

The Fairfield Inn, established in 1897, was in and of itself an elegant property, and also the proving ground for the larger Toxaway Inn to come.

The nearby Sapphire Lake site had already been habituated to some extent, as evidenced by this July 1902 remark in the Charlotte Observer: “The present company [Toxaway] is not the pioneer in the work here… Years ago, the Sapphire Valley Company opened and operated the extensive corundum mines at Sapphire, which are the second largest of their kind in the United States.” The Toxaway Company, in fact, had purchased the mineral and land holdings of the Sapphire Valley Company (which included the existing Sapphire Inn).

Even so, considering that the railroad extensions were not yet in place, construction of this fashionable resort must have been a nightmare, with supplies brought to the build site by horse and wagon on largely undeveloped roads.

A Jan-1897 Asheville Citizen-Times article indicated that the Toxaway Company had broken ground at the Fairfield site.

Several months later, reports in the same paper discuss the progress made on the Fairfield dam, at the northernmost point of the lake: “[It] is 196 feet at its base and the water 41 feet deep at the dam. It is 1-1/4 miles long and a quarter of a mile wide. At its head, the waters of Fairfield creek tumble into the lake from a cascade 50 feet high…”

Also noted: “Thousands of loads of sand and gravel have been hauled and deposited on the banks of the lake, constituting a perfect beach and making a fine bathing place.”

Finally, this short but amusing report by the Asheville Daily Gazette in May of 1898:

News clip about the Fairfield Inn

Fairfield Inn, R. Henry Scadin. Courtesy of Transylvania County Library, Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room.

A Great Beauty

At an elevation of 3,250 feet, the Fairfield Inn consisted of a 2 1/2-story main block with two rear wings. The Queen Anne style frame building featured three massive singled gables, hipped dormers, a three-story corner turret, elliptical windows, and a one-story lakeside verandah.

The Inn enjoyed immediate success. With its original 57 high-ceiling guest rooms and a breezy veranda with dozens of rocking chairs, the Inn developed a reputation for comfort, excellent food and a relaxed atmosphere. Open seasonally, from June through September, the inn’s rates were $5 a day, with meals included and provided in the dining room three times a day.[1]

An early bulletin for the Fairfield Inn boasted:
“Twenty miles of mountain streams in an estate of twenty thousand acres belong to the Inn and furnish an abundance of good trout fishing. The Inn itself faces Fairfield Lake, around the edges of which grow flowering water lilies, which makes it a most beautiful spot, where you may enjoy rowing, black bass fishing and swimming in water that is clear, clean and invigorating.”[2]

One writer was rapturous in his first impression of the area:
“Soon we come to the entrance gate of the drive leading to the large and elaborate summer hotel known as Fairfield Inn; and skirting the lake – a lovely expanse of water, framed as it were with woods and rocks and sloping green banks – we come to the steps of the hotel and the extensive piazza facing the lake. On entering the house, we find ourselves in an elegant and bright up-to-date hotel, with the equipments and attractions of a cheerful modern house of entertainment, a vast dining room, parlors, office, suites of rooms, bowling alley, tennis courts, etc.

But we must dwell a little longer on the view from the piazza. One looks down to the gleaming surface of the lake, and across the lake one beholds one of the most striking objects that can be conceived – and immense mountain mass of dark rock rising bare and grim and tremendous in its vast bulk, from the opposite slope – and object so strange and grand that it strikes the beholder with wonder, and photographs itself vividly in his memory, a striking sight indeed.”[3]

He was, of course, referring to Bald Face, shown here in a 1900s-era colorized postcard, as well as in the image collection below.

Fairfield Lake and Inn, circa 1902, by photographer William Henry Jackson

Activities at the Inn

Newspaper clipping A lively account of activities on the property was published in The Asheville Daily Gazette, August 9, 1899, under the heading Sapphire Country Happenings:

“A reception given recently by Mr. Aiken, the genial host of Fairfield Inn, was a most enjoyable occasion. One of the features of the evening was a musical program exquisitely rendered. Refreshments were served, after which dancing was indulged in by the younger society set until the “wee sma’ hours.”

Colonel and Mrs. Woolsey, Miss Woolsey, Asheville, Ex-Secretary of State William Day, Mrs. Day, Messrs. Stephen and Luther Day, Canton, O., Dr. Van Valzah, New York, have returned to Fairfield Inn after a fortnight spent at the Lodge, on Mount Toxaway.

A picnic to the Upper Whitewater Falls was much enjoyed on Saturday last by Dr. and Mrs. J.F. Hayes, Mr. and Mrs. Ed C. Wilson, Miss Louise Wilson, Master Edwin Wilson, Sapphire, N.C.; Mrs. Tenner and daughter Mary, Miss Mabel Wilson, Sharsburg, P.; Miss Josephine Boyd, Miss Jennie Hutton, Newcastle, Pa.

A delightful addition to the social set at Fairfield is the arrival of Mr. E.H. Jennings, Miss Jennings, Misses Katherine and Brooks Jennings, Mr. E.H. Jennings, Jr., who have taken up their residence at their elegant summer cottage on Lake Fairfield. They have as their guests Miss Parkhill, Miss Louise McGee, and Miss Gertrude Irwin on Pittsburg, Pa.

A progressive euchre party was given on Tuesday evening last in which 32 couples participated. Mrs. McBurney of Atlanta took the ladies’ first prize. Mr. Swift of Columbus, Ga., captured the first prize for gentlemen, while Mr. Flourney of Columbia, S.C., took the “booby” prize.

Miss Annie West of Asheville gave a “marshmallow roast” to quite a party of her friends Wednesday night on the beach in front of the bathhouses.

Thursday night a “watermelon party” was hugely enjoyed by the guests. Upon the beach, great bonfires burned brightly, and while the orchestra discoursed sweet music, the luscious watermelons were dispatched.

Horseback riding is at present the favorite pastime for the guests in the Sapphire country, large parties going out from the Inns every day for a canter over the beautiful mountain roads.

The billiard and pool parlors and bowling alleys just being completed will prove quite a popular attraction.

A regatta or boat race is to take place on the Fairfield Lake in front of the Inn at an early date, the participants to be guests of the Sapphire and Fairfield Inns, quite a number of the guests having become expert oarsmen.

The orchestra, under the direction of Prof. McMillan, of Boston, plays at both houses; concerts and dances being given alternately at the two Inns. Prof. McMillan’s violin solos are much enjoyed.”

Descriptions of the Area

This ecstatic account was posted in the Asheville Daily Gazette of October 1900: “Soon Fairfield Inn is before us. Our first impression is that the nymphs and elfin spirits of the forest have been at work and converted a spot in the wilderness into a veritable fairy dell. The Inn faces Fairfield Lake and the surrounding scenery is beautiful beyond description! It has all the convenience which one can enjoy in a large city, and our genial host informs us that in the present fall, extensive additions will be made to the premises, and steam heat will be introduced so that guests will be entertained there in the winter as well as the summer.

We stroll down to the little boat house on the lake and take a peep in at the round-bottomed row boats and also at the little naptha launch in a house all to itself. We also visit the sandy beach which in the summer is lined with happy bathers who are utterly oblivious to the fact that at some places the mercury is sticking fast at ninety in the shade.

Bald Rock, an overgrown pebble eleven hundred feet high, stands like a huge sentinel guarding the lake. The distance around is four miles, and as there is an excellent road around its borders, we are driven around and take in the points of interest along the way. When we reach its head, we find that the lake is fed by a waterfall which dashes over the rocks above, and we are told that the bathers take great pleasure in rowing up the lake and taking a shower bath here as finishing touch to their day’s sport.”

In the 1901 version of The Beautiful Sapphire Country brochure, it was noted that “The Toxaway Company takes pleasure in announcing that during the past winter, the Fairfield Inn has been enlarged and improved by the extension of the main building fronting the lake and the addition of forty rooms, some twenty of which have baths attached. The dining room has also been enlarged, length of porches doubled, and guests who have visited in past seasons will be very much pleased with the added attractiveness.”

Also noted: “[The Inn] is a modern house in every respect, with excellent water supply, good baths, electric light, etc. It has wide spacious porches and commodious public rooms, while beautiful grounds and parks, delightful boating and bathing, serpentine drives and shady walks about and around the lake, make this an ideal place for health and pleasure seekers.” Obviously, the notion of “serpentine drives” continues to this day, just not with the same modes of conveyance.

Finally: “A well-equipped bowling alley, with pool and billiard rooms is located on the… grounds, a short distance from the house.” [3]

The Charlotte Observer reported in August 1903 that “horseback riding and driving delights many Fairfield guests. They go to Sapphire Inn, to the Lodge, to the Narrows, in Horsepasture River, around Lake Fairfield, the Twin Falls, on Thompson’s river, the Whitewater Falls, on Whitewater Creek, Lake Toxaway and Toxaway Falls, Whitesides’ Mountain, the Highlands, and Cashiers. The walkers go by trail to the top of Bald Mountain, Chimney Top, Mount Toxaway, and other points.”

The 1905 season brochure (also titled The Beautiful Sapphire Country) added information about area springs: “The two celebrated springs on the grounds of the Fairfield Inn are noted for their purity and medicinal properties, the water from one of these springs having the same analysis as the noted Poland Springs waters, flowing at a temperature of 52 degrees the year round. The other is a fine chalybeate and magnesia spring, with one of the finest tonic waters in the world. There is also a good sulphur spring on the hotel grounds.”[4] A notation to “Poland Spring”: Yes, they refer to the same Poland Spring water brand owned today by Nestlé. The water has its origins in the late 1700’s with the opening of The Wentworth Ricker Inn near Alfred, Maine.

R. Henry Scadin image of the Fairfield Inn property. Photo courtesy of Transylvania County Library, Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room.

According to a 1907 news article, ‘the financial embarrassment of the Toxaway Hotel Company, whom creditors seek to have declared bankrupt, will not affect the hotels in the least.” (In 1907, the Toxaway Company had leased all its holdings to the Toxaway Hotel Company, to be operated by John C. Burrowes for the next 10 years; but just two years later, in 1909, Burrowes was forced to sell his leases.)

The same article explains that “The Fairfield Inn was leased to Richard Jennings, a son of E.H. Jennings, one of the principal stockholders in the Toxaway Company. This favorite resort will open at the usual time and an able management is assured.”

And in fact, a promotional brochure of the same year seems to bear this out with its suggestion to “ride, drive, or walk around Fairfield lake – a good road all the way. The rustic bridge, just half way around, is the signal station for the tired walker; wave to the boat house and a boat will be sent across the lake to you. This is a particularly desirable horseback ride, as the road is comparatively level.”[5]

Jolly times continued in the summer of 1908: “The guests of Fairfield Inn participated in a very enjoyable fish fry…A flotilla of row boats conveyed the party to fishing grounds at Fairfield Falls, about sunset, when the fishing began.”

“A roaring camp fire was built on the shore by attendants and soon the fish began to bite…About 10 p.m. everyone went ashore, where a banquet of fried mountain trout, cornbread, and many good things were served. The party broke up about midnight after an Indian war dance around the fire.”[6]

A Long Run

From the Sylva Herald, September 9, 1948.

Throughout the years, The Fairfield Inn, its visitors and their activities were regularly remarked upon by the Brevard News, the Sylvan Valley News, and the Jackson County Journal, among other broadsheets of the day, and appeared to be maintaining a brisk business.

When the Toxaway Company itself did eventually fail in 1911, its assets were purchased out of receivership by E.H. Jennings for $100,000. He personally kept significant acreage in the Sapphire Valley area.

This property passed to his only remaining son, Richard Gundry Jennings, upon the elder’s death in 1923 (the eldest son, 32-year-old Edward Henry Jennings, Sr., had passed away the year prior). Richard Gundry Jennings Sr. died in 1941, and shortly after WWII, Richard Jennings Jr. and his brother retained 650 acres of that property, which remains in the family.[7]

At about the same time, Tatum Wofford of Miami purchased approximately 12,000 acres of land – including Lake Fairfield and the Fairfield Inn – for development as the Tatum Sky Club (a fly-in resort). Also included in this property exchange was farmland and a farmhouse built in 1864 that had served as kitchen to the Inn.[8]

Gene Howerdd in front of the Fairfield Inn, circa 1954. Courtesy of the Sapphire Valley Historical Society.

In 1954, a retired executive named Gene Howerdd acquired 2,000 acres to develop a golf course, as well as 6,000 acres which included the Inn and Lake, developing it collectively as the Sapphire Valley Resort.

Improvements to the hotel (re-named the Sapphire Valley Inn) included the installation of an elevator purchased from a grand hotel in Palm Beach; installation of private baths in former closet space; closing in the side porch to create the original Library Lounge; covering the back porch to expand the dining area; and kitchen upgrades, minor painting, and carpet. [9]

Never otherwise renovated, the original Fairfield Inn building was listed on the National Registry of Historic Places in 1982.

Ironically, the first of the great resorts to be built by the Toxaway Company was also the last of them to close its doors, when the Inn was deemed unsafe after a fire in 1986, and the property was razed.

Even so, some key remnants of the “great resort era” of the Fairfield Inn still live on.

The original Inn farmhouse was opened in 1992 as a private dining club, The Library. Seven years later, the restaurant underwent a major renovation and expansion of the dining facilities and outdoor patio and gazebo. The Library closed in 2010, then was purchased, renovated and rebranded as Library Kitchen + Bar in 2016.
And, close to the site of the old inn, Camp Merrie Woode — originally established as Lake Fairfield Camp in 1919 for the daughters of guests, and later sold by E.H. Jennings Sr. in 1921 to Marjorie Harrison of Florida, to re-establish with its current name — still operates today.

Want a peek at the lake today? Visit their webcam here.