WORKING AS A FINANCIAL consultant in Atlanta during the early 1990s, Danny Easton yearned for a change.

Tired of the city’s unbearable traffic and dissatisfied with the hustle of corporate life, Easton, who is gay, purchased a log cabin home in Blairsville, located in the north Georgia mountains about 120 miles from Atlanta.

He initially went to the home on weekends, but soon couldn’t get enough of the nature-kissed air and breathtaking views of rolling green mountains.

“It just got to the point where I would leave Friday afternoon, then Friday morning and not come back until Monday or Tuesday,” says Easton, who eventually packed his bags and moved to Blairsville full-time.

Easton and his business partner, Bill Frisbey, own Three Springs Realty, which rents mountain cabins to visitors of the area.

Gay real estate agent Danny Easton (right) and his business partner Bill Frisbey rent log cabins in the north Georgia mountains, an increasingly popular destination for gay men and lesbians looking for a getaway from city life.

Over the past 14 years, the number of Easton’s gay neighbors increased exponentially, as urbanites flock to the north Georgia areas of Blairsville, Ellijay and most notably, Blue Ridge. Some come from Atlanta for a couple of weekends each month; others stay for entire seasons or live in their mountain homes permanently.

“Atlanta’s getting so busy and so populated that people are always looking for a place to get away,” Easton says.

The serenity of the area lakes, rivers and endless swaths of national forest — along with temperatures that average 10 degrees cooler than metro Atlanta — attracted Easton to Blairsville. But he says his social life is ironically more active now than it was in Atlanta, as new gay residents cook out and dot the lakes with boats.

“Just about every other month, there’s a gathering of gay folks for a pot luck, and we’re getting between 80 to 100 people at those,” Easton says.

Born and raised in Atlanta, Jay Collins desperately wanted an alternative to city life and moved to Blue Ridge this summer.

His voice is excited as he talks about the town, not unlike that of a rural farm boy first setting foot in a big city.

“It’s tremendous — there is just a feel to this place,” says Collins, who is gay. “There’s something about here. So many new people are moving up, and the whole scene of the town is changing.”

Collins moved to Blue Ridge to operate Love Dogs and Cats Too!, a pet store in downtown Blue Ridge owned by two lesbians, Sharyn Faro and Mia Mundale.

Between five and 10 other businesses within three blocks of the pet store are gay-owned and are helping revitalize downtown Blue Ridge to make it one of the trendiest strips in the area, says Gary Kaupman, a gay Ellijay resident.

Some of the gay-owned businesses “are more visible than others,” Kaupman says. The owners of the Serenity Garden Café placed a rainbow sticker in the storefront’s window, he notes.

Gay and lesbian business owners are modest pioneers of Blue Ridge’s upscale revitalization, says Letha Hawkins, a lesbian who co-owns Black Bear Cabin Rentals.

“We are leaders of this community, but at the same time [our sexual orientation] is not a blatant thing that makes anybody feel uncomfortable,” Hawkins says. “This area seems to be very open; it’s like whatever happens behind closed doors is your business.”

Downtown Blue Ridge now features legitimate community theaters and art galleries, as well as several bohemian eateries, thanks to gay and lesbian entrepreneurs, according to Robert Levins, who is gay and owns Buckaroos Cabin Rental of Blue Ridge, which targets gay and lesbian travelers.

“I started out 15 years ago and have seen Blue Ridge go from my partner and I being one of only a few openly gay people out here, to it becoming a real hot spot,” Levins says. “I think the one thing people are looking for is to have a comfort level in being in a mountain town that is truly coming of age and accepting the diversity that is happening in Blue Ridge.”

The number of gay residents
continues to grow in mountain towns from Tennessee to North Carolina. Lesbian couple Gina Razete and Cathy Groene developed Carefree Cove, a 165-acre mountain community exclusively for gay and lesbian homeowners, in Zionville, which is located in northwestern North Carolina.

Living in a log cabin home is ...

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