High Hampton in Cashiers, North Carolina, celebrates the inn’s historic origins with holiday style, warming guests with a wealth of seasonal spirit.
Story By Cara Clark
Being home for the holidays is a joyful time, but it’s also an ideal time for families to venture to new destinations, enjoy a school break, and find quality together time in a wonderland setting.
A dreamy mist settles on the Blue Ridge Mountains, enshrouding the tall timber on the ridges cast in cobalt hues against the lighter skyline. Frigid temperatures have stripped the leaves from maple, oak, birch, hickory, and mountain ash, leaving the evergreen firs, spruce, mountain laurel, and rhododendron to take the stage, bringing rich dark green tones through the peaceful, hushed mountain forests. In many cultures, the velvety, deep green shades symbolize prosperity, renewal, growth, and abundance, making it especially apropos that those tones are the backdrop for a stay at historic High Hampton Resort in Cashiers, North Carolina.
During the holidays, the property is aglow with the warmth of festive lights and adorned with tasteful holiday touches in a setting that brings families together around a table with board games or for fabulous food. They’re also drawn to the outdoors for adventures in the surrounding countryside. The inn and its mountainous surroundings are especially appealing during the Yuletide season when winds from the North Pole sweep through, transforming it into a holiday showplace.
Among the team making the holiday experience memorable for guests is a husband-and-wife team plucked from Blackberry Mountain resort and planted on the High Hampton property. Executive Chef Scott Franqueza and Pastry Chef April Franqueza can be credited with the elevated seasonal dishes and show-stopping desserts guests clamor for regardless of season. It’s all part of the ambiance that adds a shimmer of holiday marvel to the experience.
“The sense of Christmas nostalgia that High Hampton brings in December lights up my inner child,” April says. “I think from children to grandparents, there is something for everyone to enjoy during the holiday season, and this property really shines in a special way during Christmas. Fires roaring in fireplaces, Christmas trees lit up all over the property, cookie decorating, holiday cocktail classes … all of it reminds me of my own childhood, when my parents would pack my grandparents, siblings, and I in the car and drive us around the neighborhood to look at Christmas lights. Pulling onto property and seeing the Inn light up feels like that for me every morning. And the stillness that falls over Cashiers in the winter is something truly special.”
Guests are eager to treat themselves to April’s beautifully decorated holiday sugar cookies, which evoke a feeling that these are the ones Santa will enjoy most when he finds refreshments waiting when he visits to drop off his presents for good girls and boys.
But the appeal of the resort isn’t simply seasonal. It’s an intangible sense of place that brings families together in the log cabin lodge.
“I think something that makes High Hampton unique as a destination, is the sense of home when you are here,” April says. “It’s not just an inn, it isn’t just a resort — it’s a place where friends and families come to gather, to spend time together, whether playing board games in the lobby, sharing a meal in the dining room, or walking the trails on property. “
The property harks back to 1855 when it was a hunting retreat for a wealthy South Carolina family, the Hamptons. The McKee family-owned High Hampton for 95 years before selling it in 2017. With the change of hands, the property was scrupulously updated, keeping a tight hold on tradition and historic features while giving it distinctive styling and amenities synonymous with the most upscale and down-to-earth hospitality.
“The history of the property and of the Inn itself is probably one of my favorite aspects about High Hampton,” says April. “Walking the hallways in the Inn and reading the old guests registries is one of my favorite things to do; the entire Inn just echoes with the memories of the people who were here before us.”
