Take another N.C. sidetrip to visit Saxapahaw

Just down the road a piece from sleepy-town Swepsonville in Alamance County is Saxapahaw. It’s only about a 6-mile drive between the two communities.

 Saxapahaw is hot-hot-hot. It’s both a nostalgic textile mill village and a renaissance community on the banks of the idyllic Haw River.

 

The fellow who serves as “honorary mayor” of Saxapahaw is developer John McLean Jordan Jr. (everyone calls him Mac). He likes to joke: “We’re a bunch of rednecks and hippies all mixed together.” 

Mac Jordan is fully invested. Saxapahaw is his hometown, and his grandfather was one of the owners of the old cotton mill on the river as well as a U.S. Senator – B. Everett Jordan.

 Sen. Jordan

It’s an interesting story, and the first thing you need to know is how to correctly pronounce Saxapahaw. Locals say the second “a” is silent. Can you say “Sax-pa-haw?” Three syllables, not four. 

The native Americans who inhabited this territory were of the Sissapahaw tribe. One of the first Englishmen to journey through North Carolina in 1701 was John Lawson. He described this spot on the Haw River as “the Flower of Carolina.” 

John Newlin built the Saxapahaw Cotton Factory in 1848. Over time, the plant was enlarged to become a three-story brick building. Eventually, the facility was purchased by Charles Sellers.

 

In 1927, Sellers brought in his nephew, B. Everett Jordan as general manager of Sellers Manufacturing Company. The mill once employed more than 1,000 workers. Dixie Yarns bought the business in 1978. 

The plant closed in 1994, but a new window of opportunity opened for the Jordan family to “reinvent” the property. It’s been an ongoing process for nearly 30 years now that was first spearheaded by John Jordan, Mac’s father. 

Sixty-six old mill village houses were renovated as cottages and sold off. The old mill itself is now Riverview Mill, a mixed-use complex with “a cavernous maze of apartments and condominiums” and eclectic businesses, said Jeri Rowe, a contributor to Our State magazine.

 

Initially, investors were hesitant. “Everybody considered us in the middle of nowhere,” Mac told journalists Fiona Morgan. “We thought we were in the middle of everywhere.” Saxapahaw is roughly 16 miles due west of Chapel Hill. 

Tom and Heather LaGarde left their home in New York City after the terrorist attacks on Sept.11, 2001, in search of a safe and sane place to raise their two young children. Their priority was to simplify their lives. “There’s a come-as-you-are openness that seems to make Saxapahaw work,” Morgan wrote.  

 

A native of Chapel Hill, Heather knew about Saxapahaw. “It just seemed like this faraway place was very close,” she told Morgan. The LaGardes found a fixer-upper farmhouse near the village. 

Although Tom LaGarde grew up in Detroit, Mich., he spent time in Chapel Hill from 1973-78, as a 6-foot-10 hot-shot basketball player recruited by University of North Carolina coach Dean Smith.

 Tom LaGarde was a dominate force for the Tar Heels, and he is shown here skying above a trio of Duke defenders for an easy bucket using his opposite hand.

It seems that all of the “Saxapahaw Jordans” have Duke University ties, but the LaGarde’s were instantly welcomed…and immediately began pitching in. 

The LaGardes breathed new life into the old dye house. It’s now the Haw River Ballroom, a live-music venue that can accommodate an audience of 700 people. 

The LaGardes also enticed Jeff Barney and Cameron Ratliff to come and invigorate the Saxapahaw General Store. By serving “peasant food from around the world,’’ the pair “turned an old convenience store into a culinary magnet,” Rowe said.

 

Jeff Barney and Cameron Ratliff

“Saturdays in Saxapahaw” is another innovation introduced by the LaGardes. It’s a summertime evening farmers’ market accented by live music, artists’ stalls and children’s activities.