Followill - The Southern rustic cabin

The Southern Rustic Cabin

Emily J. Followill

with Lisa Frederick

The Southern Rustic Cabin

Digital Edition 1.0

Photographs 2015 Emily J. Followill

Text 2015 Lisa Frederick

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except brief portions quoted for purpose of review.

Gibbs Smith

P.O. Box 667

Layton, Utah 84041

Orders: 1.800.835.4993

www.gibbs-smith.com

ISBN: 978-1-4236-3886-5

In memory of dear Dad. He and his endearing love, Southern grace, and devotion to the land and people in the South were with me every step of this adventure.

To Tom, Sarah, and Thomas, you are my world!

To all the people who were instrumental and helpful in making this happen, I appreciate each of you and your contribution.

Thank you to the assistants and friends that helped carry the load on the road and in the homes: Kathryn Rogers, Andrew Horne, Kelly Blackmon, Samantha Angel, Lacey Sombar, and Andrea Dorsey. You are all dear friends and are always ready to go the extra mile for the shot. Thank you also to Kyle Burdg for putting the finishing touch on many of these images, and to Eleanor Roper and Lisa Mowry for putting your stylistic touch and beautiful props and flowers in some of the cabins.

I truly enjoyed the people I met while on the road, and was delighted to stay in the project areas. Thank you to Tom and Mary Katherine Greene for giving me the key to your wonderful home in the North Carolina mountains and for your scouting assistance on those winding roads!

Thank you, Lisa Frederick, for your words, which bring the photographs to life and tell the story of each cabin. You truly took the project under your wing and used great care to interview everyone involved to retell their stories for you. I am so thankful for your gift with words.

Maggie Kennedy, Photography Director at Garden and Gun magazine, you were an enormous help. When I asked to pick your brain about log cabins in the South, you immediately came up with several homes, which were great additions to the book. Many thanks for brainstorming with me.

James Farmer, thank you for introducing me to my editor, Madge Baird, at Gibbs Smith. James, you are an amazing talent, and it is through working with you that this book evolved. This would not have been possible without you. Im thankful for your unending joy in all that you do. Madge, you have been a patient and faithful tour guide and mentor on this fun adventure. Thank you for your knowledge and advice, and for making it a delightful process.

Most of all, I thank my incredible family. To my mother, thank you for always lending a patient ear, encouraging me every step of the way, being a wonderful and helpful grandmother, and being the best mother I could ask for. As we know, it will all work out! Your unending strength, love, and compassion never go unnoticed. Ann Carol and Judge, thank you for being wonderful parents-in-law, loving and supporting me at all times. Your cabin is a beautiful southern rustic retreat that delights all of us. And to my children, thank you for being you. I am incredibly blessed to be your mom. Thank you for your patience while I was away from home. You always welcomed me home with hugs and kisses that meant the world to me after a long day of work and travel. I hope you know that you can be whatever you want to be with Christ by your side. To Tom, you know that none of this would be possible without you as my rock, my sounding board, my rational side, my love, my Christian companion, and my dearest friend. I love you.

Finally, thank you to the reader. I hope you will find this book a wonderful retreat in itself.

Southern and rustic: these two words are as congruent as mossy rocks in a cool mountain stream.

The South is a land of complementary combinations; a land whose cadence and rhythm is dedicated to the balancing harmony that a juxtaposition of opposites affords. We eat our homegrown, earthy garden delights and fried catfish, too, on precious heirloom plates on which our grandmothers hand-painted their monograms with delicate silver. In college, we attend tailgates and football games in our finest Sunday attire. We build fine homes painted a gleaming white, with columns and parapets and porches extending into the red clay and loamy farmland. As a people, we celebrate our heritageour homeland that is likewise a mlange of peoples who share this patchwork of coastal marshes, fertile deltas, rolling farms, peach- and pecan-lined fields and ancient mountain ridges.

It is in these ancient mountains that we southerners find solace from the summer heat that their altitude affords. Here we can experience true seasons, not simply hot and not-so-hot. Here, though, amid the granite cliffs, oak-cloaked ridges and waterfall-laced Appalachian Mountains we find congruence with nature againnot our southerly juxtaposition of opposites. In Appalachia and the foothills and into the surrounding lands, we find log cabinssouthern and rusticconstructed of hand-felled and -hewn logs from the rocky ridges. Along with the logs are the cedar shakes, pine boards, laurel wood railings and chestnut bark siding, all of which play into the reverence southern cabins pay to their setting.

Our log cabins are our home places and retreats, where we raise families, summer, or simply escape for tranquility amid summers feverish heat. These homes are the scenes for reflecting on nature amidst nature itself in a home clad with treasured trees. This is where we can be southern and rusticnot southern and sophisticated, with our balancing acts of silver julep cups and barbeque. That balance, though, is who we are and a hallmark of our famous hospitality. When the time comes for us to be southern and rustic, that, yall, is never more apropos than in our log cabin homes amidst our hallowed, beloved mountains and farms.

James T. Farmer III author of A Time to Plant, A Time to Cook and Dinner on the Grounds; editor-at-large, Southern Living

The quiet rhythmic monotone of the wall of logs fills one with the rustic peace of a secluded nook in the woods.

Gustav Stickley

I was born in the South. Its where my parents were born. Its where my grandparents were born. Its where I went to school. Its where my husband was born, and its where his family was born. Its where my children were born. It always has been, and will be, a part of who I am. If you were to ask me where my heart belongs, its not hard to imagine how I would respond.

The South is defined by its beautiful countryside, its rustic origins, and its peoples creativity. It is a beautiful area of the country in which to live, work, and play. When it is time to relax, my ideal place to retreat from everyday life is nature. Time spent in a cabin in the woods, on a mountain, or by a lake is a true vacation for me. Of course, the creature comforts are wonderful, but its the place that moves me and allows me to rest, relax, and restore. It was with this in mind that I was inspired to capture the southern feeling through the architecture and design of some of the Souths most wonderful log cabins.