7 am Friday; crystal clear skies and 25 degrees in the valley, the barely waned full moon sets over the Blacks.
Now, three weeks since the storm, some normalcy has crept into corners of Celo Community. Power has returned for about 80% of residents, many people are getting decent cell service (not me), and there are enough satellite hotspots for most people to communicate in a modern fashion. It’s also given us time to take stock of our losses. No one individual owns land in Celo Community, Incorporated. It’s a nearly 90-year-old 501c4 land trust; we collectively steward the land, and only sort of own our homes (it’s complicated). Of about 50 homes in Celo, 4 sustained flood damage, and another was severely damaged by a tree. 4 of the 5 will be recoverable; the initial demo/clean-up has been done, and they can be renovated back to varying degrees of habitability (one of them, “Winterstar,” was alway a fairly marginal living space, and it will likely be converted from medium-sized rooming house to temporary tiny home).
Like many riverfront settlements, Celo’s “business district” was hit hardest. This is the area in Celo that fronts the highway and is in the floodplain: the Bernstein glass studio, Toe River Crafts, Ten Thousand Things food co-op (including the “Rummage Room”), and the Celo Inn. The first three are total losses (damaged beyond repair, or swept away by the floodwaters). The craft shop (an artist’s cooperative) had just celebrated its 50th year. The TTT, a hardscrabble 3 days/week food coop, had really come into its own in the past few years as a nourishing hub of community activity, with a couple hundred members volunteering and shopping. Small food-based businesses were drawn to this hub: Goldfinch Gardens distributed produce here, Gus Trout of Heater House Bakery sold loaves of sourdough on Thursdays, and most recently the pop-up Matchbox Cafe on Saturday mornings featured some of the best coffee and baked goods in the county. Now, the site of the craft shop and the TTT is a desert of shifting sand and jumbled cinderblocks. The buildings themselves lie in a crumpled heap on the opposite side of the highway, 100 yards downstream from their original home.
The loss of the Celo Inn is deeply heartbreaking. For 40+ years the beautiful Inn served as a front door to the community, welcoming visitors from the outside world to get a (delicious) taste of life by the South Toe River. It was also the only building in the flood-prone business district that was a family home. Nick and Kavita and their 3 kids lived there up until 9 am on Friday morning, Sept 27. They had spent the previous 36 hours preparing for the storm, first moving the cottage’s furniture upstairs, and in the final hours placing everything in the main building’s first floor onto tables. At 9 am, with the river ready to spill into the inn and still rising rapidly, they fled by foot, in pouring rain and hurricane winds, up the hill to the shelter at South Toe Elementary. The river continued to rise another 7’ over the next 2 hours, and destroyed the first floor of the Inn and Nick and Kavita’s family home.
The Celo Inn was a business and a home, but it was much more than that – it was an aesthetic and a philosophy. The Inn was designed and built over the course of several years in the late 1970s by Charles and Susannah Jones. The Jones’ came up with the idea, built the infrastructure, and established the business; but it was Randy and Nancy Raskin who realized the vision over the course of 35 years. The Raskins cultivated a unique hospitality ethic
marked by: a rotary phone in the foyer; hot scones emerging from the wood-fired cookstove in the dining room; a strict “no gadgets at the breakfast table” rule. Even into the 2020s there were no online reservations – rooms were booked by stopping by or calling the Inn’s landline and speaking to one of the innkeepers; credit cards were not accepted. The affordability of the room rates was deeply ingrained into their hospitality ethic. The Raskins made a modest living as innkeepers, but were insistent that it never become a lucrative business. Thousands of visitors stayed at the Inn. Many fell in love with it and came back every year for decades.
Nearly three years ago, Nick and Kavita stepped into the role of innkeepers. Their teenage sons pitched in with dishwashing, and their toddler daughter was the ultimate maitre-de. They embraced the Inn’s culture of simple hospitality, but made a few modern and progressive upgrades: Online reservations! Credit cards and sliding scale fees! Most recently, merely a month before the storm, they paved an ramp to make the front door more accessible.
Snakeroot Ecotours began hosting Chasing Spring nature retreats at the Inn in 2017. The Inn was a perfect match for these retreats – both in scale and atmosphere. The simple amenities, intimate architecture, and the wholesome and delicious breakfasts, were perfect for these groups of 8-10 guests. I hosted a few retreats each year, featuring wildflowers and fireflies in the spring, and mushrooms and headwaters creeks in the late summer; they quickly became one of the core components of my business, and were a deeply rewarding experience for participants.
Last week a structural engineer came out to evaluate the building and was impressed that it had withstood the force of the water. We decided at Wednesday’s community meeting to go ahead and spend the tens of thousands it will cost to salvage the structure (gutting the downstairs to the studs). It’s unlikely anyone will want to make it livable again, but if the community wants to repurpose the building (perhaps to reconstitute the Craft Shop and/or TTT?), we will need to spend tens of thousands more dollars, and countless hours manifesting its next iteration.
Family members established a gofundme for Nick and Kavita, who lost both their home and their business in the flood.
Portions of this fundraiser will go to rebuilding efforts in Celo that may include a repurposing and revisioning of the beautiful Inn building, one of the largest and most intricate structures in the community. The remaining funds will support families in need throughout the valley as they seek to regain stability in their lives.
As for Snakeroot, I will also be re-imagining how to conduct a version of Chasing Spring and other nature retreats for visitors who want an immersive experience in these astounding mountain ecosystems.
