Loose Leaf Notes

The Old Marshall Jail’s Floyd Family Soft-Opening Take-Over weekend was a blast!

Yes, it was all fun and games (aka Joe we can see your letters).

It included a tour of the jail, repurposed into an art hotel by my son Josh and daughter-in-law Emily, complete with back stories.

“It was the oldest operational jail in the state of North Carolina when the county closed it in 2012,” Josh said. The history is recorded through-out the jail with photographs, documents and stories pressed onto bricks and embedded into the walls. HERE is a 2017 WNC magazine story on the founding of the OMJ partnership project.

The hotel is fantastic! We enjoyed total comfort in the spacious suites that were decorated with Josh’s pottery and included stocked kitchenettes. We enjoyed communal take-out gourmet meals from the Star Diner and other eateries on the deck overlooking the French Broad River.  Rowan fixed us up with his artisan coffee from his Chantal Coffee Company.  Check out the rooms HERE.

We toured downtown on our way to Emily’s Carolina Flowers Mercantile. Emily is a flower farmer who grows specialty cut flowers for weddings and other events. She’s also the founder of Zadie’s Market, a grocery delivery business which she created during the pandemic when weddings weren’t happening, and which operates out of the back of the mercantile. Zadies Market Deli is set to open soon at the OMJ hotel.

We also visited the Carolina Flowers farm (one of the sites), which was just featured in Southern Living magazine.  See HERE.

We visited The Land where Josh’s pottery compound is and, can you believe, we fit in some swimming in the River.

Baby Allister was the youngest Floyd family member and was everyone’s bright highlight.

Yes, it really was all fun and games even while visiting the Old Mill renovation site, apartments going up across the bridge from the Marshall Jail and adjacent to Blannahassett Island.

On Sunday, we had a brunch feast at Clary’s house in Asheville before the group broke up.

Josh, Joe and I went on to visit some old haunts.

And some new to us places in Asheville.

The weekend memories remain close to my heart and the tour goes on! Check out the OMJ website HERE. More from our Floyd family  take-over HERE._______________Our World Tuesday