[piano intro] - Next on "North Carolina Weekend," join us from The Harvey Hotel in New Bern, as we take you to places that are building on history, like Jeansboro, Greensboro, Fontana Village and Resort, and we'll explore The Harvey.

Coming up next.

- [Announcer] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont, to 300 miles of barrier island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music ends] - Hurricane Helene recently devastated entire communities in Western North Carolina.

We have some mountain stories in this episode, but please keep in mind that these stories were prepared several weeks ago, and tragically, conditions have changed.

However, we wanna support our mountain communities, and they will need your tourism support to help rebuild, but please be patient.

It may take a while for this hard-hit area to recover.

Welcome to "North Carolina Weekend" everyone.

I'm Deborah Holt Noel, and this week, I am in New Bern, exploring a brand new e-boutique hotel called The Harvey.

And what's fascinating about The Harvey is that this building is over 225 years old.

It was once a private home and warehouse built in 1777, and now it's been lovingly transformed into a modern hotel.

And that's the theme of tonight's show, destinations around our state that have built from their history something exciting and new.

Our first stop takes us to Greensboro, which was once the denim capital of the world.

In fact, its denim legacy is so profound, some folks call it Jeansboro.

[sewing machine clattering] [sewing machine rattling] [suspenseful music] - History to me is one's ability to understand why and where they come from, and what its significance to the world has been.

[sewing machine rattling] Our city has now 128 consecutive years of manufacturing denim, which is unrivaled by any city in the world, making Greensboro unequivocally the Mecca of jeans.

[uplifting music] We were formerly the home of the world's largest denim mill, White Oak Cotton Mills, but also still remain the home of Cone Denim, as well as Wrangler, and its former name Blue Bell, which was the world's largest producer of work clothing.

Greensboro, or Jeansboro, is a place that you could eat, stay, and play, not only to have a good time, but also do things that are denim related.

- By the mid 1930s, more denim was produced in Greensboro than anywhere else in the world.

Right now we're standing in denim capital.

In this exhibit, we learn not just some of the facts about factories and denims and the people that were the owners, but the people who worked in these factories, and you get a sense of their full life stories.

The Cones had several factories, Print Works, Proximity, White Oak, and Revolution Mills, all producing different kinds of fabrics, denim being the primary one, but they also produced flannel and corduroy and printed fabrics.

[uplifting music] - East White Oak was one of the city's mill villages, which was created by Cone Mills Corporation.

It was the community of African American employees of the mill.

This space started as a school for the children of African American Cone Mills workers.

On the wall behind me is a picture of my grandfather, Truman A. Gant.

The building was gonna be closed.

It had already been condemned.

The city was going to have it torn down, and he went to a zoning meeting.

When they asked, "Are there any objections, any protests?"

He said, "I object.

I protest."

The community banded together, saved the site.

It still exists today.

The East White Oak Community Center is on the National Register of Historic Places.

You don't have very many places where there are one-room school houses.

You don't have very many places that can say that a legendary Civil Rights hero was from our community.

For those who are interested in seeing the impact of a small people with great strides, this is a great place to visit.

[gentle music] - Is this your first time in?

Hudson's Hill is a boutique and general store.

Everything that we carry in the store is made in USA.

We carry a raw, mostly salvaged denim.

It can only be woven on certain types of looms that aren't even manufactured anymore.

So it does take an artisanal touch and knowledge to be some of the only people that are actually consistently manufacturing American-made denim, and to be, basically, the only store in the country that carries it in the town where it's made is just such a unique thing.

We couldn't make the products that we do and embrace the history and have this concept anywhere else other than Greensboro because this is the only place that we can have a store like this and do what we do.

[uplifting music] - This store is different to our other locations.

First, proximity to corporate headquarters, this being kind of their flagship store.

We carry some collaborations and things here that you will not see anywhere else.

We also will have products in here before it goes to market, and we like to see how the community responds to it.

- Today we're sitting in the middle of what was formerly Revolution Cotton Mills, which, during its heyday, was the world's largest producer of corduroy and cotton flannel fabrics.

You can witness things like looms, spinning equipment.

Innovations in Blue was opened as an exhibit showcasing 100 years of indigo dye technology, as well as the pioneer dye master himself, Floyd Virgil Hayes.

He was an African American gentleman that could not read or write, and he standardized the indigo dye recipe for White Oak Cotton Mills by taste, and he was made the first dye master.

We have this ever-growing number of places to dive in and eat, but not only here at the mill.

In other places in Greensboro, names harken from the earliest days of Greensboro's textile history.

- Blue Denim is a place where we celebrate the food ways of the New South.

We do a lot of Cajun and Creole cuisine.

There are gonna be a few items that are gonna always be on our menu.

Our crawfish beignets, gumbo yaya, shrimp and grits, and crawfish fettuccine, those things never leave.

And the white chocolate bread pudding never leaves the menu, but all the other items come and go.

Over the front window, we have two curtains that are made from bandanas that were made at Cone Mills.

Our cushions on our benches are made from denim that was made at Cone Mills.

[upbeat music] [patrons chattering indistinctly] - With Print Works, we decided that we would like to have a restaurant that we would like to go to, that has a sort of French bistro as it foundation, but also contextualized to Greensboro, North Carolina.

You can't be more than 16 feet away from a window and every window overlooks a garden.

You feel like you're a million miles away from a city.

The original Proximity Mills was named that because of its proximity to the cotton fields and the railroads.

We got to build a hotel that was consistent with our dreams.

It became the first LEED Platinum hotel in the world.

Rock and roll.

White Oak has this saw tooth.

It was a way you make the windows facing north so you could have natural light into the mills.

In this case, we're not letting natural light in, we're letting the energy of natural light give you a warm shower.

[gentle upbeat music] - There are so many ways that the hotel shows the denim history.

Color of the walls and the lobby here, the indigo dye actually starts off being green, and then as it oxidizes, it becomes that pretty indigo blue that we're used to seeing in denim.

The hooks that are above the bench and luggage area are shaped like jean buttons.

The vinyl on the headboard and bench that you'll find in the room is the same color as the tag you would find on Wrangler jeans.

Our lobby market also features a lot of North Carolina snacks and things that are locally made here in Greensboro.

[gentle upbeat music] - We showcase our history at Grandover, which is demonstrated throughout the property.

[uplifting music] The Cone Denim Suite and the Carolina Suite are both bi-level suites, so the living area and the common area's on the first floor, but you travel upstairs to two beautiful, massive bedrooms.

[uplifting music] The days of working in the mill is not known to current generations like it had been to our grandparents, and that's a story that we want people to know.

It's one that needs to be retold and retold again.

It's the fabric of what made us the United States.

It's the fabric that made us a place that showed what ingenuity could do.

[uplifting music] - Having hotels named after denim plants and having refurbished mills that are now multi-use properties, Jeansboro statues throughout town, it just brings that to life for a new generation.

[uplifting music continues] [loom clattering] - History is not only the goal of acquiring the knowledge, but care-taking for it to pass it along.

[uplifting music continues] [sewing machine rattling] - To learn more about Greensboro's denim legacy, go to visit greensboronc.com.

I'm with Charles Cushman, CEO of Herron Hospitality.

Charles, I remember when this was The Harvey Mansion, but there's a long history tied to this place.

Tell me a little bit about it.

- Well, the great thing about this building is everyone remembers The Harvey Mansion.

So the building was originally constructed in 1797 by a ship merchant named John Harvey.

John Harvey was born in England, came to New Bern around 1790, and quickly became one of the wealthiest men in town.

His business was trans-Atlantic trade, and he built this building here because it was right on the Trent River waterfront.

He had his docks, wharves, everything outside, and he built this structure to be both his business and his residence.

About half the building was kind of a mercantile general store to sell all the goods he was bringing across the Atlantic, and half the building was where he raised his large family.

John Harvey had the building, and his descendants had the building for about 100 years.

There was a break in there during the Civil War.

When the Union Army occupied New Bern for three years, this building served as the headquarters of the Provost, or the military police.

Once John Harvey's family got rid of the building, it became apartments for a period of time.

At around the turn of the 20th century, it was the barracks for the New Bern Military Academy.

In 1940 or so, the Marine Corps established the new air station at Cherry Point in Havelock, and this served as barracks for Cherry Point.

It was apartments for a couple of decades after that, and in 1965, it became the first home of Craven Community College.

It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, but then a couple named Bob and Coral Clark did a really thoughtful renovation around 1980.

From that time until Hurricane Florence, it was a popular restaurant and bar.

Hurricane Florence in 2018 flooded the basement pretty badly.

We were able to acquire it in 2020 and have spent the last three years turning it into a 10-room boutique hotel.

[cheerful music] - [Deborah] Charles, I'm curious, what makes this an e-boutique hotel?

- So an e-boutique is a new operational model that's taking the hospitality industry by storm.

The way we describe it is it's got all the luxuries and amenities of a hotel that you're used to.

It's got daily housekeeping.

We have full-time employees on site each and every day.

Hotel guests today expect, you know, mini fridge, coffee, screaming-fast wifi.

Of course, you've got all that here, but there's no traditional front desk.

So you're able to check into our property anytime without waiting in a line.

All you need is your smartphone.

When you make your booking, we provide you with a code and that accesses all the exterior doors as well as your room door.

And we find so far that guests have really been pleased with that hassle-free check in process.

- And what's the guest experience?

What are visitors telling you?

- Well, I'm pleased to report that the reviews have been stellar.

You know, nowadays, online reviews are so important when people are making their purchasing decisions.

And between Google, where we have a 5.0 perfect rating, and hotels.com where we have a 10.0 perfect rating- - [Deborah] Congratulations.

- Thank you, about 70 ratings in so far.

We've only been open about three months, but people love it.

The product is really catching on.

We're starting to see word of mouth really spread.

People appreciate the ease and the hassle-free check in and the ability to access the building anytime they want.

Another thing that's really nice is the location here.

We are right in the heart of downtown New Bern, and so breakfast, lunch, and dinner, nightlife, live music, whatever people are after is just a short walk out the door.

- [Deborah] I love it.

- But Deb, I'd love to show you a few rooms at the Harvey if you'd like to see them.

- Oh yeah, I'd love that.

[uplifting music] - So when we came into this room, we knew The Harvey would make an incredible e-boutique hotel.

This was John Harvey's ballroom.

In 1800, it was probably the finest room in all of New Bern.

Dinner and dancing here.

John Harvey was the wealthiest man in New Bern, wanted to display his wealth, and the way you did that in those days was this fine detail, the crown molding, the framing, the mantle piece, they're all original to this room, and now guests can spend the night here.

It's our room number 22.

- And it's just stunning.

[cheerful music] - And Deb, this is what we like to call New Bern's Smallest History Museum.

Thanks to a lot of local experts and historical aficionados in New Bern, we were able to put together some original documents and photographs that tell the story of The Harvey.

This is the deed in 1797, by which John Harvey acquired the property, and he bought it from a real estate speculator in New York, who was one of Alexander Hamilton's business partners.

- Alexander Hamilton.

[laughs] - This is a Civil War illustrated newspaper from 1862.

It shows the scene of General Burnside taking the city of New Bern.

And you can see The Harvey Mansion is prominently depicted right there in the skyline.

And then this is an artist's rendition of the building as it originally looked.

One interesting fact about the building is it had a tunnel going right through the center of the first floor from the street back to the waterfront so that horse and carriage could go from South Front Street out to the docks to pick up goods.

- Wow, this may be a small museum, but there's so much history within this small space.

It's just amazing.

- Thank you.

It's one of my favorite parts of the project.

[uplifting music] So as you can see in this room, we've got largely North Carolina furniture.

Everything was acquired at the High Point Furniture Market.

- One of my favorite places to shop.

- Oh yeah.

We've got a heron in each room, an original painting.

And then four of our rooms have private balconies.

Of course, all of the rooms have a private bathroom.

Let me show you something else over here.

[uplifting music] So Deb, if you look here, you'll see this exposed brick.

These bricks were laid when John Adams was the president.

- [Deborah] What?

- And this room is a perfect example of how we've got the old and the new.

Our bathroom mirror here has LED adjustable lights.

You can get any color to best suit your complexion.

[uplifting music continues] - [Deborah] Oh, I love that.

And what's that one for?

- When you hit that button, it heats the mirror from behind, so the mirror never fogs, no matter how long you spend the shower.

- Thank you.

You've thought of everything.

So when I'm putting my makeup on, the mirror's not fogging up.

[Deborah speaking faintly] - Four of our guest rooms have private balconies.

It's the perfect place to sit outside with your morning cup of coffee or a cocktail in the evening and just watch the sunset here in New Bern.

- Well, it looks like it.

And Charles, you and your team have done a just beautiful job here at The Harvey.

Thank you so much for hosting us.

- Thanks so much for coming.

- The Harvey is at 221 South Front Street in New Bern.

To make your reservation go online to harveync.com.

Lake Fontana was a community built for workers constructing the dam on Lake Fontana back in the 1940s.

Once the dam was complete, the village was transformed into Fontana Village Resort, and we are excited to report that it survived Hurricane Helene and is ready to welcome visitors.

Let's take a look.

[uplifting music] - Fontana Village was created in 1942 as the village that housed all the workers that built Fontana Dam.

At one time it housed over 5,000 workers here at the dam, with their families.

And after the dam was built, it became a resort, and it was a Mecca for visitors in Western Carolina.

[gentle music] It's 386 acres.

It's quite large for a resort.

In addition to that, we have 125 cabins, and cabins are from anywhere from one bedrooms to four bedrooms.

And then we have a 60-slip marina that has a covered marina space, plus the moorings for over 22 houseboats.

Then we have the general store, the ice cream parlor, two restaurants, and then we have our own post office and our own zip code.

So a very large property.

[uplifting music] - We are nestled against the Smokies on TVA land, and then back up against the Nantahala National Forest, so it is a playground for anything outdoors.

You can do lots on site with the hiking trails, as well as all the activities that we have going on, as well as offsite.

There's plenty of places to go see the lake, relax, just about any speed you want.

[uplifting music continues] Our outdoor programs building has a whole rental fleet of field game and court games.

So everything from tennis to pickleball, volleyball, tetherball.

We have an 18-hole mini golf course.

We have an 18-hole disc golf course.

In addition, we have the lazy river in the pool.

That's a big highlight of a lot of people's vacation here when the weather's warm.

We also offer educational programs where we bring in local experts to come and lead programs on everything from astronomy, bats, wild crafting and foraging.

We also have a marina.

There's around 20 miles of trails that are available, you can take your bike on.

And one of the great things about Fontana Village and the activities we offer is that you don't have to stay here to enjoy them.

If you're staying somewhere else locally, or you are a local, you're welcome to come and participate in what we have to offer.

[uplifting music] - So Captain Carl took us out on the historic lake tour on Miss Hazel, and that was amazing, giving us all the cool tidbits of history.

The marina was fun too.

They've got so many different things to do.

It has a lot to offer.

[gentle music] - We're the only access points to the south side of the National Park, so in order to get to Hazel Creek and Eagle Creek, you have to get to it by boat, and we're the only marina that services the national park sites over there, and we run the hiker shuttles.

And so it's like your own private national park when you get there, very uncrowded, and, you know, you get to enjoy it to yourself.

[upbeat music] - At the horse stables at Fontana Village, there are a couple different rides.

We have a shorter one-hour ride, and then we also have a two-hour ride that takes you through the same forest, but just a little bit extended, and you will get views of the Fontana Dam.

You know, one of the coolest parts about it is you get to go with experienced Appalachian horse folks.

So you know, they've been riding horses around these mountains for a long time.

So you'll hear stories, a little bit of history, but really get a good feel for what it was like back in the day, riding horses around the mountains here.

[upbeat music continues] - It was in 2008, as I came here the first time as a guest.

I was looking for a really peaceful place where I could just disconnect and wind down.

And, you know, knowing Fontana Village, I figured this would be a perfect location for me to do that.

Sky is the limit here, and, you know, because of the environment here, this is really the main reason we love to come back here.

- And there's something really for everyone.

It's a unique vacation where you just kind of get away from it all.

[uplifting music] - We truly are a very remote place, but it does provide that tranquil setting that a lot of people are looking for.

It's a really magic place.

[uplifting music] - Fontana Village Resort and Marina is at 300 Woods Road in Fontana Dam.

The resort is open, but check their website for the latest travel information at fontanavillage.com, or give them a call at [800] 849-2258.

We have had a wonderful time exploring The Harvey.

It is a lovely place to stay if you're spending the night in New Bern, or the weekend.

And if you've missed anything in tonight's show, just remember you can always watch us again online at pbsnc.org, or find us on our YouTube channel.

Have a great "North Carolina Weekend" everyone.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music ends] - [Announcer] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont, to 300 miles of barrier island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[dramatic music]