LaBastide, closed

By Dick Hughes  

APRIL 6, 2011 10:04 a.m. (0)

La Bastide, the French-inspired inn and restaurant in the Blue Ridge foothills that was open to the public and used to fete wealthy potential residents to the gated Cliffs Communities, is closed and likely will reopen as a wellness retreat.

Jim Anthony, president and founder of The Cliffs Communities, said La Bastide was closed Jan. 3 to take advantage of the winter months to make repairs and to consider other uses for the inn designed to look like a villa in Provence, France, with a vineyard on the grounds.

He said the villa, which is about 13 years old, needed interior painting, floor work and some exterior refurbishing.

Greenville County values La Bastide and its 42 acres at $1.67 million, but that does not include its luxurious amenities, French antiques and kitchen equipment.  Each bed in the 14 guest rooms has a 19-inch handmade mattress said to have cost $5,000.

Fireplaces, the breakfast room’s walls and a staircase were constructed of granite quarried from Winnsboro and left unused when a strike closed the quarry in 1932.  The red roofing tiles came from Tulane University’s original administration building.

Anthony was a minority partner with Raymond D. Stamm, who built La Bastide and the adjoining Crescent Mountain Vineyards subdivision in the mid- to late-1990s. When Stamm got into financial difficulties, Anthony acquired La Bastide for The Cliffs in 2001.

Anthony said he is talking to companies about reopening the villa as “more of a wellness center than a spa.”

That could include conducting classes in cooking and other healthy activities “to help people change their lifestyle.”

He said the idea is to create a place where people will want to “come back on a regular basis” to learn and relearn ways to enhance a healthy “whole mind, body spirit.”

Another possibility, he said, is to convert the villa into a special occasion restaurant.  A “couple of folks” have approached him about that possibility.

Whatever transformation takes place will not happen until mid to late summer, Anthony said.

Making La Bastide a wellness retreat is a better fit for the healthy lifestyle amenities promoted as an attraction for the 1,200 property owners of the Cliffs Communities and makes more business sense for The Cliffs as an additional attraction to sell lots, Anthony said.

A neighbor who lives in the adjoining Crescent Mountain Vineyard development said in pre-recessionary times it was not unusual for La Bastide to serve 50 tables a night, but that business dribbled off to a crawl in the past three years.

La Bastide is off Highway 25 about midway between Greenville and Asheville.   The vineyard has proven more attractive as a horticultural exhibit than a source of table wine.  Close by is a helicopter pad to land prospects for visits to The Cliffs.

It is a few minutes to an hour away from any of the eight Cliffs Communities with their custom-built homes on large-lot mountain and lake settings that cost under $300,000 for fractional ownership of a vacation house to several million for a luxury home.

Each subdivision has a private championship golf course, some incomplete, designed by golf legends Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tom Fazio and Tiger Woods, as well as golf analyst Ben Wright and course architect Tom Jackson.

The initiation fee for the country clubs is $150,000, according to a report in Golf World.  Only property owners can join.

Stamm, a former chief executive officer of a company that sold paperclips, envisioned the inn as centerpiece of a French-styled village of shops to make it a tourist stop.  That did not materialize, but he succeeded in creating a villa and a vineyard in the Provençal Style.

With the help of a Clemson horticulturist, Stamm planted seyval blanc grapes, a hybrid of Old World and American vines thought to have the best chance of survival in the short growing season caused by South Carolina’s hot summers.

The ridges along the Blue Ridge Mountains with its cooling breezes are considered the most ideal in South Carolina for wine grapes.

In 2000, James Catts and his wife Joyce were the second family to move into a home in Crescent Mountain Vineyards, attracted by Stamm’s vision.

Their daughter, who had lived in France and was an artist, had worked with Stamm as a consultant in the furnishing of La Bastide.

“She was sort of the French authenticator,” said Catts.  “She helped buy some of the furniture and pick out some of the fixtures.”

Stamm envisioned a French village with La Bastide and a winery as the focal points, said Catts and Shirley Lanya Littlefield, a ReMax Realtor who moved to the Crescent Mountain subdivision from Michigan.

“They were going to have a winery, and they thought it was going to be a tour-bus stop to come to and see the French village and buy the wine,” said Catts.  “None of that happened.”

“They never produced any wine,” he said.   “They couldn’t sell the grapes and just made jelly out of it.  They used it at the inn, but only did that one time.”

Catts produced wine, though, growing his own vineyard on the ridge leading to his home overlooking the inn.  Catts, 85, pulled his vines recently because it had become too difficult to maintain them.

“He produced some very good wine over the years,” said Littlefield.  “I am an authority on that.”

Littlefield said 10 homes have been built in Crescent Mountain Vineyards of 54 lots.  There are 46 owners, some owning more than one lot.  Nine are on the market, eight of which are her listings.

In keeping with Stamm’s Francophilia, all roads in the subdivision are named for areas in grape-growing regions of France.

Catts said Stamm had creative vision “but just got carried away and spent more money than he had.  I guess he just wasn’t a very good businessman.”

Stamm died a couple of years ago, he said.