Totally Awesome

It all started with a picture. Last August, friends Dorne Pentes and Jim McGuire, along with their wives and kids, were vacationing in the mountains of western North Carolina when Pentes saw it. “Wow, check this out,” he said, pointing to a picture in a real estate magazine. Pentes was often on the lookout for promising real estate deals, and the rest of the group looked at each other knowingly. Here he goes again, they thought. But then McGuire scanned the picture and immediately understood why his friend was so excited.

“Let’s go look at it,” McGuire said.

The Charlotteans all piled into the car and drove to nearby Lansing, NC, a miniscule town near the Virginia border with a population of less than 200. As they pulled up in front of the structure they saw in the magazine, they all felt instinctively drawn to it. Looming above them, situated high atop a grassy hill, stood a massive, two-story, 20,000-square-foot building made of granite and stone. It was the old Lansing High School. It had been built in 1937 as part of the Works Project Administration, a federal program started by President Franklin Roosevelt to employ blue-collar workers during the Depression. And there was more. Adjacent to the main school was an additional two-story, 8,000-square-foot school building built in the 1970s.

Pentes and McGuire looked at each other. They would have to be crazy to tackle such a monumental undertaking. This wasn’t some cozy little mountain cabin in a trendy resort town that needed a fresh coat of paint and some light carpentry work. These were two huge structures located in a run-down mill town in the middle of nowhere that needed major renovations. Besides, they were both married, had kids, and were self-employed. Money and time were relatively limited commodities in their lives. It was, of course, absurd to even consider the idea. Preposterous.

They put in a bid.

“It seemed completely overwhelming and irrational, but it was also like ‘Wow, what if we actually got this thing,'” McGuire said.

“Yes, it’s located in an old mill town with an aging population and not a lot of growth,” Pentes said. “But it’s all surrounded by massive beauty. We had to go for it.”

Two months later, after several offers and counteroffers, the two families, somewhat to their surprise, found themselves the proud new owners of a pair of giant, aging and dilapidated buildings in Lansing.

Um, OK. Now what?

Birth of The Fort Awesome School of Rock

Now that the buildings were actually theirs, it was time to get busy. But there was just one problem: No one was really sure what to do with them. “Festivals, artist studios, a hippie hangout, who knows,” Pentes said back in February, when things were just getting underway. “We’re trying to let it be what it becomes, if that makes any sense.”

“We didn’t really think that far ahead,” McGuire said. “We kind of said let’s just get it, and we’ll figure it out later. Our rational side wanted to have a specific game plan, but it was too overwhelming, so we just took it one step at a time.”

If there’s anyone capable of turning some old school buildings in the middle of nowhere into a hip mountain retreat, the McGuire and Pentes families probably have as good a shot at making it work as anyone.

Pentes, 43, is an independent filmmaker and co-president of WonderWorld Film/Video, a Charlotte film and video production company. He and his wife, Wendy Fishman, curator of film and video at the Light Factory, live in NoDa with their two children, Elias, 6, and Eden Blue, 3.

McGuire, 46, is president of Jim McGuire Photography. The long-time Plaza-Midwood resident co-hosts the annual Eat, Drink & Be Scary “carnEVIL” Halloween parties. He also helped create the Transformus festival in Deerfield, NC, a three-day event that celebrates art and self-expression, and this past May — the festival’s third year — it drew close to 1,500 people. McGuire and his wife, Laura, have two kids: Noah, 6, and Finnegan, 3.

The two families started driving up to Lansing on the weekends once or twice a month. While they still didn’t have a specific game plan, things slowly started to take shape. They decided they would rent out space in the main school building, ideally to a restaurant or winery, or perhaps a few retail stores and maybe an art gallery — something to drum up interest in the area and keep visitors entertained. The smaller, second building would serve as a kind of communal housing facility, where friends and family could stay. “Basically, it’s a more private, less formal place where we can hang out, party and create art,” McGuire said.

McGuire and Pentes started fixing the roof, plumbing, electricity and other big structural stuff. Laura and Wendy focused on renovating the smaller building’s interior, converting the classrooms into bedrooms and adding other homey touches. “It was fun, decorating and making the place livable and comfortable,” Laura said.

They also came up with a name for their burgeoning creation. Given that the outside of the main school building was made of stone and granite, they deemed it, appropriately enough, the School of Rock. The second, smaller building was named Fort Awesome (inspired by the local band Alternative Champs’ new release, “Welcome To Fort Awesome”). They put the two names together and hence, the Fort Awesome School of Rock was born.

As they continued to fix things up, the group hosted a few informal parties over the summer with live music and fire performers. These were dress rehearsals for their first big official public event, the Ola Belle Reed Homecoming Festival, which took place in Lansing Aug. 18–20. The festival featured dozens of country and bluegrass bands and helped celebrate the life and music of Ola Belle Reed, who was born in Lansing in 1916. Reed, who passed away in 2002, formed a band called the New River Boys with her brother, Alex, and a few others, and they performed around the country. Reed wrote hundreds of songs about her Appalachian roots and her commitment to traditional values and social justice. She is the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Award, and was recently inducted into the Washington Area Music Awards Hall of Fame.

The Fort Awesome School of Rock helped co-host the festival, setting up a side stage on the property and holding banjo contests and music workshops inside the School of Rock. They also housed several of the musicians who played during the festival and set up a little snack bar and place to get your face painted.

Loafing in Lansing

We arrived at the festival Saturday afternoon. Driving through Lansing is a bit like going into a time warp. There’s a single traffic light and the downtown consists of one square block of storefronts, many of them shut down. Progress has bypassed this once thriving mill town. According to the US Census Bureau, Lansing’s population in 2000 was 151, and both the median household income and median house value were well below the state average. Yet as Pentes mentioned earlier, the area is rich and vast in its beauty, marked by pastoral landscapes, lush forest and unspoiled mountainsides. Moreover, the little town, which is located in Ashe County about 30 miles from Boone, is near all kinds of outdoor recreation, including the New River (ideal for paddling or tubing) and the Virginia Creeper Trail (a favorite among mountain bikers). The Appalachian Trail is also close by.

Once you’re in Lansing, there’s no missing the Fort Awesome School of Rock. As we passed through the little downtown area and then around a bend in the road, its massive stone façade came into view. And just so there was no mistaking it, a big hand-painted sign had been posted out front, emblazoned with “Fort Awesome” in giant green letters. There were dozens of people stretched out in lawn chairs in front of the School of Rock watching the bands perform. Across the street is an athletic field where the main stage was situated, along with booths where local vendors sold crafts, snacks and T-shirts. A cool little underground tunnel runs beneath the road connecting the athletic field to Fort Awesome.

Somehow, the inside of the School of Rock building feels even bigger than its castle-like exterior. It’s huge and cavernous, with oak wood floors and two-foot thick walls. The interior has been gutted, and all the studs and framework are visible, making it feel even more open and spacey. As we wandered around inside, a banjo workshop was taking place in one of the building’s enormous rooms, and the sounds were swallowed up inside the vast building.

Next door, inside Fort Awesome, musicians and guests milled about inside the downstairs “hospitality room,” which the group outfitted with a bar and big dining room table, along with a few pieces of mismatched furniture. They also took advantage of all the old school desks and bookshelves that were left behind, slapping on fresh coats of paint and turning them into tables or little cabinets. They painted the walls blue and orange, depicting both a seascape and a mountainside, and hung Christmas lights and elk horns from the walls and the bar. It all has a very eclectic, artsy and bohemian vibe to it.

Upstairs, they converted several classrooms into communal bedrooms, each with its own theme and look. Although the building is typical of a ’70s-era school building — concrete block walls, cement floors, drop ceilings — they managed to make each room look cozy and unique. In the kids’ room, the white walls have been painted with vibrant splashes of red, orange and black and adorned with homemade pictures. Yellow draperies, fabric and Christmas lights hang from the ceiling, and the odd chair and ratty couch serve as furniture. In a second guest room, oriental rugs cover the floor. One wall has been painted green, and the others are covered with bright tapestries. A giant, billowing sheet of white fabric covers the ceiling. The main adult guest room, which they deemed “Heaven,” has eight single beds grouped together in pairs and cordoned off with white bed sheets held in place with paper binders. Small, old-fashioned school desks serve as nightstand tables.

Back outside, Pentes and McGuire watch over their kids and chitchat with the locals, all of whom seem to have accepted this alternative and artsy addition to Lansing with open arms. In fact, the group has already landed its first tenant: the New River Winery, which recently located to Lansing and plans to move its operation to the School of Rock sometime in the spring. Pentes, McGuire and the others are hoping the winery will help spur additional development, like a tasting parlor for the winery and a restaurant.

Whatever the Fort Awesome School of Rock becomes, it’s hard not to get caught up with the idea and spirit of it all. At a time in their lives when many folks have formed a comfy butt-groove in the couch and the biggest projects they tackle are cutting the grass or maybe building a backyard deck, the McGuire and Pentes clans have taken on a truly unique — and risky — project. There’s certainly no guarantee the project will take off. In fact, at various times over the years, the old school building has served as home to a craft store and condos, but they all went under. Of course, the gamble and adventure of trying to create something from nothing is part of the allure and appeal that hooked the group in the first place.

“We love this property and see its potential,” said McGuire. “It’s got such a history and a presence — you can feel it. It’s almost like the building has us. We’re more like stewards of a unique and amazing historical entity that’s going to continue to bring about great things.”

This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2006.