By Allston McCrady | July/August 08 | Features

Southern Dream Towns

Whether you're looking for a place to tie up your flats skiff, stable your horse, or even put down some roots, we've found the twenty sweetest small towns south of the Mason-Dixon Line

 

BEST ART TOWN

Marfa, Texas

When Hollywood is looking for middle-of-nowhere, it heads for Marfa, Texas. There in the highland plains of the Chihuahuan Desert, the largest desert in North America, you can turn 360 degrees without seeing a Burger King or a freeway. In 1955, Marfa hit the map when James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor stayed at the historic Paisano Hotel during the filming of the oil epic Giant. The Coen brothers arrived more recently to work on their Oscar-winning film No Country for Old Men. As did the makers of fellow Oscar contender There Will Be Blood. Locals were cast in minor, often ill-fated, roles and played their parts seamlessly, indifferent to concepts of fame or pretense. Not everyone shared the opinion of the drifter who greeted the Coen brothers with the handmade sign that read “Repent, Hollywood Scum.”

With wide open skies, starkly beautiful terrain, and pastel light dancing off the distant mountain ranges, Marfa is a blank slate for the creative mind. And so it was for artist Donald Judd, who bought property there in the 1970s for his minimalist sculpture installations, eventually transforming Marfa into one of the hippest art communities in the country. Now ranchers sit elbow-to-elbow with yoga buffs at the local diner, reading Livestock Weekly and the New York Times.

A Typical Day:

Fill up on pancakes at the Brown Recluse, then head over to the Chinati Foundation, a contemporary art museum on 340 acres of a former military base (chinati.org) where you can view permanent sculpture installations and meet artists-in-residence. Grab a freshly made Marfalafel from the Food Shark mobile café. Take an afternoon scenic drive through the Davis Mountains, or go rafting in the biosphere preserve of nearby Big Bend National Park, or opt for a glider ride and soar high above the plateau on Marfa’s legendary currents (flygliders.com). Try the pistachio-encrusted steak with jalapeño cream gravy at Jett’s Grill (named after Dean’s character in Giant) in the beautifully restored Spanish Colonial Paisano Hotel. Then park yourself on the edge of the desert looking east toward the Chinati Mountains to view the mysterious Marfa Lights—ghostly flashes of unknown origin on the horizon, attributed to everything from Indian spirits and swamp gas to witches, UFOs, and luminescent jackrabbits. Invent your own theory.

Plant Your Roots:

Art may be the strongest draw for creative types, but for many city dwellers Marfa’s appeal is land. County records show sixty-four acres for each cow. The well-heeled are flying in from Houston, Dallas, and New York to buy up raw land on which to build sleek modern homes with views of the azure skies. Some create vineyards just outside of town, or choose to renovate vacant downtown buildings and adobe structures. Prices are climbing due to the recent Oscar buzz, but keep in mind that the cost of living in Marfa is 31.87 percent lower than the national average. One-hundred-year-old cottages in town average $300,000, or you can splurge on a new adobe compound equipped with its own wine cellar for $595,000 (marfarealestate.com).

RUNNER-UP

Easton, MD

Artists and art lovers converge in this scenic water town every November for the Waterfowl Festival. Roughly twenty thousand people head to Easton’s historic downtown district to view and purchase some of the best wildlife art in the world (waterfowlfestival.org).

BEST GARDEN TOWN

Natchez, Mississippi

It happens every year: A couple of Huck Finn wannabes wash up on the shores of Natchez after taking a beating on the Mississippi River and sharing sandbars with bugs and gators. No surprise, they think they’ve landed in heaven.

For the same feelings of rapture but with less hassle, try arriving in a car. At forty miles from the nearest freeway, and one hundred miles from the nearest airport, Natchez is off the beaten path.

But in the antebellum South, when cotton was king and the port was bustling, Natchez boasted more millionaires per capita than any city in America. Then came the Civil War, an economy in ruins, the deadly boll weevil crop destruction of 1908, and the Great Depression. Natchez sat in a time warp, an antebellum museum of a town.

In the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, two garden clubs decided to open to the public the town’s stately antebellum homes and gardens. The tours were a hit and continue to draw thousands every year. Visitors can ogle original Italian marble, French china hand-painted by John James Audubon, and silver retrieved from Civil War hiding places in the garden. This fall, Mary Louise Shields, age 101, will take her usual place on the front porch of her 1855 home to welcome visitors and share family stories (natchezpilgrimage.com).

The majority of Natchez sits on 200-foot cliffs high above the river and boasts more antebellum structures than anywhere in the nation. Its streets are lined with Natchez crape myrtles, its gardens bursting with roses, sweet olive, and heirloom camellias. But even the most prim and proper socialite can indulge a whim, saunter down the steep grade to the river landing below, climb up on a bar stool with the riffraff at the Under-the-Hill Saloon, order a shot of whiskey, and toast Mark Twain.

A Typical Day:

Fuel up on beignets and specialty coffees at the Marketplace Café, then take a leisurely drive (or bike ride) along the Natchez Trace Parkway, a 444-mile ancient route connecting Natchez to Nashville, now operated as a national park. Return to town for an old-fashioned lunch at the Carriage House at Stanton Hall, famous for its fried chicken, flaky catfish, tomato aspic, silver-dollar-size biscuits, and above all, its mint juleps. Spend the afternoon touring local plantations and their extensive gardens. Go antiquing, then stroll along the bluff overlooking the Louisiana lowcountry across the river. The Castle at Dunleith Plantation, a restored 1790s carriage house, offers an elegant meal with an award-winning wine list; try the “Castle-let” with shrimp, scallops, and lump crabmeat tossed with artichoke hearts and a vodka cream sauce. Then head to the crowded Biscuits & Blues for an evening of Mississippi blues music.

Plant Your Roots:

You get a lot of bang for your buck in Natchez compared with many other Southern towns. Of the more than five hundred structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places, you can typically find two or three historic plantation homes for sale at any given time, listed at around $1.5 million, with sweeping lawns and centuries-old live oaks (sothebysrealty.com). Historic townhouses and period commercial buildings are also being rescued and transformed into antique shops or reproduction furniture stores downtown.

RUNNER-UP

Madison, GA

An hour east of Atlanta sits the antebellum town of Madison, home to beautiful homes and exquisite gardens, old and new. Famed local gardener Jane Symmes hybridized a Southern favorite, the ‘Madison confederate jasmine.’