Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2015 - 24

Todd Evans operates Cumberland Mountain General
Store. Larry McMillian, below, offers horseback guides at
the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area.

facts. He also serves fare with a
'50s-flair: hamburgers, fries and
malts at the general store's Rock-ABilly Diner, where we eat lunch.
This rambling old building could
tell its own story. "It's originally a
1923 general store, and it was moved
to this location in 1980 from across
the street," Evans says. "It has the
original shelves, the original counters. Most of the original fixtures are
still left in it."
Jamestown, Tennessee
Cumberland Mountain General
Store: 931-863-3880
Southeast Pack Trips:
931-879-2260
Turner House: 931-879-8056,
jamestownguesthouse.com
West End Café: 931-879-6611

WEST VIRGINIA

Lowanda Gernt. This sprawling and
spacious two-story home features
family photos on the walls; it actually looks like somebody still lives
here. Inside, Gernt hands me the
key and then plays a few notes of the
"Tennessee Waltz" on the living
room piano. "I just had it tuned,"
she says. "It sounds good. It's an old,
upright Steinway."
For breakfast the next day, we go
to the West End Café. This is a locals'
favorite in Jamestown; it has also
won high praise in online reviews.
24 BlueRidgeCountry.com

We meet the owner, Fronie Davis,
who says she first worked at this restaurant as a teenager in the early
1970s. Now, she specializes in serving "country cooking. It's as country
as it can get," Davis says. "You've
got your gravies, potatoes, eggs, oatmeal, grits. And then we serve the
big cathead biscuits."
Hours later, we shuttle south to
Clarkrange on U.S. 127. There, we
meet Todd Evans, the proprietor of
the Cumberland Mountain General
Store. Evans offers antiques and arti-

As a girl, Amy McLaughlin dreamed
up a fanciful name for her dollhouse. She called it "The Lafayette."
Now, more than 20 years later, that
dollhouse name has met real life at
McLaughlin's Lafayette Flats, a
recently established rental that overlooks the Fayette County
Courthouse in Fayettville, West
Virginia.
This town took its name from
Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat who fought for the United
States during the Revolutionary War.
Lafayette Flats, in turn, took its
name from Lafayette - and
McLaughlin's dollhouse, says her
husband, Shawn Means.
"The main thing that makes this
unique is its location," Means says.
"And, because it's downtown, that
gave us a reason to use a more urban
design. We wanted to surprise people when they came in."
This couple constructed Lafayette
Flats in what was once a bank building. Each unit includes big beds,
couches, kitchens and multiple
rooms. McLaughlin and Means also
decked the halls with art and folly,
like showing a historic scene of
Fayetteville in the face of an old TV.
In all, it's cheerful and charming.
http://www.jamestownguesthouse.com http://www.BlueRidgeCountry.com
Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2015

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