Upgrades Underway at Carrabelle Beach

Phase I Construction Project has begun at the Carrabelle Beach (the west side of the resort).  Heavy earth moving equipment moved in last week and now the earth looks like a go-cart track!!!  Today I see that new sewer pipes are being installed.  We’re excited that it has begun and can’t wait until all is finished.  

- Linda San Filippo

Callaway is FREE in January!!!

Callaway is open to the public during January for free, check the bloom chart for what you will see! We're all stocked up on firewood and ready to serve you during your stay.

-Pine Mountain staff

Pine Mountain RV Resort. A Video

An easy one-hour drive from Atlanta and just minutes from beautiful Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain RV Resort brings you closer to nature without taking you out of your comfort zone. The Resort has been thoroughly designed to accommodate rigs of any size and shape. Navigating is a breeze. Don't have an RV? Stay in our furnished, heated Yurts or fully furnished Cottages.

Finishing Touches

The NEW Pine Mountain RV Resort construction and expansion is now Complete!!!.  Our brand new, concrete, pull-through sites, feature free WiFi and Cable as well as 50amps. We have a new Activities Building ready for your enjoyment, as are the new Pool with Hot Tub and Wet-Play area for the kids (or the kid in you).  Our Welcome Lodge has recently been completed and the spa/ fitness center are waiting for you.  Enjoy a great workout and then relax in our multi-head steam shower.  We will also be offering professional massages in the near future.  After this, settle down by the fireplace and have a hot cup of coffee or a refreshing glass of wine from our coffee and wine bar.   Our new Game Room is equipped with the new  Nintendo Wii and the Wii Fit.   All of our new features have been designed especially for you and we eagerly await your arrival in Pine Mountain.

-Pine Mountain staff

Glad I went back

I just left your new park and it is Very Nice!! Clean and friendly. Good luck with your new resort idea.

Feedback from some guests

“Nice owners. Pine Mountain RV Resort was great. The staff was very friendly and helpful.”
“The new facilities and buildings are state of the art. We’re looking forward to returning.”
“Pine Mountain RV Resort is excellent.  If you want to get out of Atlanta for a long weekend, this is the place.”
“The areas is pretty and has nice shaded spots.”
“Pine Mountain RV Resort is kept very neat and clean”
“A very well maintained RV Resort”
“An excellent resort for an extended stay”
“Lots of trees”
“Pretty RV Resort”
“Located Pine Mountain RV Resort looking for a good park in Woodall’s directory”
“We were treated very well”
“Help literature about amperage”
“Washrooms kept spotless”
“The Activity Building is wonderful”
“I will visit again”

Spring is coming!!

Hello,
My name is Warren. I have been working at front desk for about a year. Yesterday was a beautiful day here at the resort. I think the weather is finaly starting to feel like spring. We are very excited about the new things we have going on here. All of the major construction is finally over and the landscape is starting to look great. I try to sneak in our new gameroom and play the wii every chance i get and can’t wait until the pool is open again (Memorial day weekend). We are all looking forward to seeing you guys soon and if you have any questions or just want some information give us a call. We would be more than happy to help.

-Warren at front desk.

ART WORKSHOPS NOW AVAILABLE AT PINE MOUNTAIN RV RESORT

Join us for Art, jewelry making, and other art related workshops now available for adults and children. These special classes and workshops will be facilitated by the very talanted team of artists, Featuring: 
Patricia Varnon: an award winning artisan, certified instructor, and designer, is  bringing workshops in Precious Metal Clay, to Pine Mtn. RV. Her work is currently on loan to galleries and placed in many private collections.
 
          Sarah West: a gallery owner, award winning artist, and instructor, is bringing workshops for children to Pine Mtn. RV. Her work is in many private collections and on display in her gallery-The Sarah West Gallery of Fine Art.
 
          Michele West: award winning artist specializing in photo realism in graphite and oil, is bring the experience of painting in acrylic to Pine Mtn. RV. Her work is in The Sarah West Gallery of Fine Art. Michele is a commissioned artist with may works in private collections.
 
 Call our office for details.

Responses:

1.Michele West says:
July 13, 2009 at 9:28 am
Hello Paul, Linda, and everyone at Pine Mtn. RV Resort,
Just wanted to let you know we had a wonderful time. Really enjoyed our stay over the 4th of July. The yurt was just perfect. You all have done a wonderful job there.
Thanks for having us present our artwork and workshops. It was a nice day to meet and enjoy visiting with people from far and near. We look forward to visiting often.
See you soon,
Michele and Sarah West
The Sarah West Gallery of Fine Art
334-480-2008/sarahwestgallery@att.net
thesarahwestgalleryoffineart.com

2.Realism Oil Painting says:
August 20, 2009 at 5:03 am
CheckOut For More Artwork !

3.Steve Noel Sr. says:
September 21, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Steve Noel Sr….
Your topic ART WORKSHOPS NOW AVAILABLE AT PINE MOUNTAIN RV RESORT ” Pine Mountain … was interesting when I found it on Monday searching for rv painting. Good Reading! Steve Noel Sr….

What the New York Times said about Pine Mountain

Havens | Pine Mountain, Ga.
A Retreat for Roosevelt and More Recent Arrivals
By JOE SAMUEL STARNES

HE came for the water but fell in love with the land. Franklin Delano Roosevelt first traveled to the piney woods of western Georgia in 1924, seeking to treat his polio with the curative powers of the mineral-rich springs at the Meriwether Inn at Warm Springs.

Two years later, Roosevelt bought the hotel and 1,200 acres and converted it into a polio treatment center. In 1932, running for president in the depths of the Great Depression, he built a refuge a mile away that would become known as the Little White House. He died there on April 12, 1945, during his fourth term, on what one report called a pleasant spring day.
The rural and relaxing pace that attracted Roosevelt has also drawn vacation-home owners and retirees — and even with the nation in the sharpest economic decline since the 1930s, the area is poised for more growth.
F. D. Roosevelt State Park, the largest in Georgia, now stretches more than 9,000 acres from Warm Springs west to Pine Mountain, home to Callaway Gardens, a 13,000-acre resort with gardens, golf and other activities, and planned communities aimed primarily at second-home buyers. The terrain in this part of the Piedmont is far from flat, with Pine Mountain rising 1,395 feet above sea level, overlooking the village of Pine Mountain Valley to the south and edging the town of Pine Mountain to the west.

Home choices include cabins on the mountain, houses with large tracts of land in the valley, and new communities inside the heavily wooded Callaway Gardens, lush this month with blooming azaleas and dogwoods.

“We love to see the azaleas,” said Bob Bonner, a semiretired landscape architect from Ypsilanti, Mich., who with his wife, Nancy, bought a newly built vacation home here in 2004. “It’s a season you can’t duplicate anywhere.”

The Bonners paid $350,000 for their two-bedroom house with a screened back porch and a two-car garage in the Longleaf development in Callaway Gardens.
Their home was built to be environmentally sensitive, including landscaping with a mat of pine needles, which don’t use the water and fertilization that grass needs. “With the pine straw, there’s no turf to manage,” Mr. Bonner said. “It makes it very nice for a part-time resident.”

Roosevelt was not only one of the first part-time residents of the area, but he was also behind one of its earliest developments — the Pine Mountain Valley Resettlement Project, a New Deal program begun in 1934 that built 210 homes for unemployed workers in the valley as well as a diversified farming operation that provided jobs for them.
David and Katherine Johnson, who retired to Pine Mountain Valley eight years ago from nearby Columbus, Ga., see themselves as part of a second wave of settlement. In 1989, they bought 17 rural, hilly acres with a creek for $1,100 an acre, and over the years expanded their property to 33 acres.

In 2001 they finished a replica of an 1840s farmhouse at a cost of about $185,000 and moved there permanently.

Mr. Johnson, a poet and former professor of English at Columbus State University, is producing a video about the resettlement project. He says he has found much in common with the current recession and the Great Depression. “There is a feeling of déjà vu doing the research,” he said.

The Scene

Pine Mountain town, known until 1958 as Chipley, has a population of 1,263 according to 2007 census estimates and lies along an abandoned rail line that runs from Columbus to Atlanta that is being turned into a bicycle trail.
A downtown plaza is similar to those of many small Southern towns, but the influx of tourists and vacation-home owners supports some urbane spots. The Rose Cottage tea room at 111 East Broad Street has dark hardwood floors and solid wood furniture and is known for tasty muffins, desserts and a broad selection of tea. Around the corner at 149 North Main Street is Sweet Home Antiques, one of about a dozen antiques shops and arts and crafts stores in the town center.

Most outdoor activities revolve around the verdant grounds of Callaway Gardens, founded in 1952 by Virginia and Cason Callaway, and now owned and operated as part of the nonprofit Ida Cason Callaway Foundation.

Inside Callaway Gardens, there are 13 lakes, a wide beach, two golf courses, a tennis center, a spa, 10 miles of bike paths and 7.3 miles of walking paths. The resort also has 11 dining spots, with the Friday night seafood buffet ($24.95, $12.50 children 6 to 12) in the Plant Room restaurant a favorite of many.

Most second home owners here are from Georgia, Florida and Alabama, although some come from the Midwest and the Northeast.

Howard and Mary Busbee of Richmond, Va., discovered Pine Mountain in the ’70s when they lived in Atlanta and Ms. Busbee clipped a newspaper coupon for a discount on a weekend getaway at Callaway Gardens. They returned often and soon bought a cottage. In 1984 they sold the cottage and upgraded to a three-bedroom villa for $215,000 that they still own and often rent out.

When Callaway Gardens began developing new homes, the Busbees paid $375,000 in 2004 for a two-bedroom home with a large loft on a wooded half acre. They visit regularly, often with some or all of their children and nine grandchildren, spending their time bicycling, golfing, shopping, visiting Warm Springs and enjoying meals together. “We came for a weekend and have stayed for generations,” said Mr. Busbee, a retired accountant who is a visiting professor at the College of William & Mary in Virginia.
Not all second homes here are in Callaway Gardens. In 2007 David and Debra King bought three acres and a 2,200-square-foot, 30-year-old ranch home for $253,000 less than half a mile from the Callaway Gardens entrance on Route 18. They invested about $45,000 and much of their own labor into renovating what will be their retirement home. The yard includes a swimming pool and a dozen blueberry bushes.

Pros

Atlanta is slightly more than an hour’s drive away, and Birmingham is about two hours’ drive. The terrain is unexpectedly steep and hilly for being so far south. Callaway Gardens and the Roosevelt historic sites can occupy visitors for days.

Cons

The only grocery store in Pine Mountain is a smallish IGA that is closed on Sundays.

The Real Estate Market

Sales have slowed said Dickie Fogal, owner of Pineland Properties in Pine Mountain.
In 2007, there were 397 homes in Pine Mountain and surrounding Harris County sold for an average price of $255,524, local multiple listing statistics that Mr. Fogal provided show. That dropped to 281 sales in 2008 at an average of $250,669, and through March 18 of this year, 30 homes had sold at an average of $231,578. Mr. Fogal, however, is optimistic about the area, particularly because of Callaway Gardens’ long-term growth plans. “This is really a place that is setting itself up to be discovered by a lot of people,” he said.

Callaway Gardens agents said they had seen a drop in sales but had experienced a recent uptick, selling four homesites during the last 30 days and scheduling two more closings.

Plans for construction in Callaway Gardens accommodate up to 1,400 new homes, but thus far only 131 have been built or are under construction, with all but eight in the six-year-old Longleaf community, where prices begin at $360,000. Three developments broke ground in the fall and a fourth is expected to be announced this spring. There are 212 older cottages and villas in Callaway Gardens, most built in the 1980s. Prices start in the $190,000s for the oldest of the two-bedroom cottages.
Outside Callaway Gardens, homes can be significantly cheaper, and larger tracts are available. At the highest elevation of Pine Mountain, the Mountain Top Inn and Resort has 30 modern log cabin vacation homes and room for 100 more on privately owned land surrounded by the Roosevelt State Park. An acre lot runs from $28,000 to $35,000, and building a new cabin costs about $175,000.

What was a favorite spot of Roosevelt’s is only about two miles away from the log-cabin community. He last visited Dowdell’s Knob, a scenic overlook where he often picnicked, two days before he died. In 2007 the state dedicated at the site a bronze statue of Roosevelt sitting on his removable car seat, wearing leg braces for polio, gazing at the wide, green valley.

Fall Colors are just about here!!!!

Yes, Pine Mountain is where you will find the roadsides bursting with color and you really don’t want to miss the only Cascading Mums in the world at Callaway Gardens. These special Mums have been cultivated by the Expert horticulturists and will be in full bloom during the last two weeks of October and the first week or so in November. Given the economy, this is a great way to relax and unwind for only a few bucks…

One Response to “Fall Colors are just about here!!!!”

1. Jamaica Johnson says:

October 13, 2009 at 7:54 am

Callaway Gardens does have the gorgeous cascading mums this time of year, but my personal favorite is the Day Butterfly Center. This time of year, the Blue Morpho butterflies are coming out of their coccoons and displaying the magnificent colors that make them so unique in the insect world. Dull and brown on the outsides of their wings, they appear to be an average, although large, moth… but don’t be fooled by their outer appearance! When they alight on a plant or fixture, they spread their wings to display a stunning electric blue wingspan. Words just can’t describe the vivacity of the color.

Also, this time of year is ideal for hiking the Pine Mountain Trail, as the changing colors and brisk breezes are only part of the breathtaking experience. Pack a picnic lunch, chill a bottle of wine, and take off on your own expedition across some of Georgia’s most beautiful scenery….. it is my very favorite way to spend a lovely autumn day!

Callaway Gardens is re-opening the historic Boat House on Mountain Creek Lake after the first major refurbishment since the Gardens opening in 1952.

Improvements include:

• New landscape design to the interior island featuring a circular, stone fire pit; two Old Charleston joggling benches and three Adirondack swings
• Refurbished boat dock featuring special lighting for early-morning and late-evening fishing outings
• New storage facility for lifejackets and other boating accessories
• New cedar shake shingle roof
• Refurbished Boat House attendant office
• New kayaks, now available for rent, with an accompanying kayak storage facility

Built in 1951, the Boat House is one of the original structures at Callaway Gardens and one that Gardens founder Cason J. Callaway was involved in its design.

This joint venture between Callaway Gardens and Cousins Properties Inc., in partnership with Pine Mountain Builders, is responsible for developing new community living opportunities at Callaway Gardens. Following the great success of Longleaf at Callaway, which began in 2003, four new neighborhoods are now being offered at Callaway Gardens: Highland Park, made up of just 41 sites for custom homes; the Mountain View Cottages on the golf course; and the water oriented Cabins of Camp Callaway. The newest offering that just became available in September 2009 is Sky View Meadows, nestled along the 17th fairway of the Mountain View golf course. Continuing the focus of environmental stewardship, all of the new homes, cottages and cabins at Callaway Gardens will be EarthCraft House™ Certified. The new real estate sales center is now open seven days a week.

Another focus of this partnership is to provide new and improved facilities, such as this Boat House refurbishment, for providing amenities to residents of these communities; members of the Callaway Gardens Connection; overnight guests and day guests. In addition to this project, the partnership also has created the Twin Oaks Golf Practice Facility, a 26-acre area featuring 12 target greens, a 9,000 square foot putting green and an 11,000 square foot chipping complex.

Best Camping recipes

What is your favorite easy recipe for camping? Many of our guests have shared them with us and this blog will give all a place to share with the world!

bluenote says:

August 12, 2009 at 8:46 pm

Alabama Lima Bean Salad. Delicious and easy to make.

2 cans lima beans drained
1 can shoepeg corn drained
1 bunch green onions – sliced into quarter inch slices
mayonnaise to taste

Place lima beans, shoepeg corn, and sliced scallions (green onions) into mixing bowl. Add salt and pepper, and mayonnaise to taste. Mix well and chill. This is a great camping salad that takes five minutes to prepare.

Wanda Blackwell says:

August 15, 2009 at 10:51 am

True -it is a nice RV park, but we were very disappointed about a couple of things that are important to campers. First of all, the pool closed too early. I think 8 PM is too early on a hot summer day, the hours weren’t posted . We (two 21 ft RVs camping together ,were not able to park with our awnings opened on the same side, for convenience at mealtimes, but were told we couldn’t park “buddy style”. One of us was recovering from knee surgery, so it wasn’t convenient. We couldn’t figure out the reson for this rule. We thought the price was steep , may explain why so few RVs were there. The new, hot, shadeless addition was practically empty Thurs-Sat while we were there. We will not go back.

yalesp says:

September 1, 2009 at 8:31 am

Thanks, for your comments Wanda,
We have contracted new lighting for our pool to allow for longer hours. Safety is our first concern, however you are right the pool should be open later and we are making adjustments to accomodate this. Our lanscaping plan is underway asl well, we hope you will reconsider and join us next year, as we plan to continue to improve.

Respectfully,
Yale Spina
VP of operations RVCUSA

Towing Tips

Share your “lessons learned” here…. All of us have encountered the hard way to learn something, please tell us your funniest or your hardest learned……

yalesp says:

August 3, 2009 at 9:48 am

When towing anything, it is very important to establish a list of hook-up procedures that is completed in the same order every time… All of us that have towed a traler, have at one time or another, forgot to attach something or close the latch on the hitch… I have been very lucky, but know others have have not… Take time to review the proper hook up steps, write them down and even have a check-off list to ensure that you don’t end up with a repair situation on your vacation time…
Yale



yalesp says:

August 3, 2009 at 9:59 am

Load Leveling products… These products are designed to shift the load of the Tongue weight to the front wheels.. In my oppinion, this is the best money spent as it relates to safty and road handling. I see many trailers being towed with the hitch and Tongue almost dragging on the ground. I can not imagine how they go in and out of driveways and over un-even ground. These hitch systems consist of a special hitch that has holes on the bottom and two steel “L” shped bars with chains on them. These bars are inserted into the hitch and then the chain is connected to the Tailer hitch triangle by means of some sort of pressure loading system. That is to say that these chains and Bars are put under tension lifting the hitch up and shifting the weight to the front tires of the two vehicle. This sytem can elimiate the dangerous trailer wag and also helps with steering, not to mention the hitch drag mentioned above. I hope this helps those that are noew to towing, this is the one thing that has given me more confidence than any other one thing I’ve tried.. Visit Camping World or your local U-haul for details and advice, it will surely be worth it.
Yale



Clemento says:

September 29, 2009 at 5:07 am

Are you a professional journalist? You write very well.



yalesp says:

September 29, 2009 at 9:31 am

No I am not a professional, but thank-you for the compliment. I am hoping others will write about their experiences, in hopes that we all can learn more about traveling safe and thus enjoying our leisure time. I often contemplate the value of my limited leisure time and it is during these deep thoughts, that I realize that I do not have nearly enough of it, making it my most valued commodity… Yale