News & Awards

Altitude Adjustment

Links Magazine
by Allen Allnoch
Issue Date: September - October 2004

Bill Banks is standing on a hillside lawn, pointing out the geological wonders that surround North Carolina's Mountain Air Country Club: to the north, the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee; to the east, 5,964-foot Grandfather Mountain; and fewer than 10 miles due south, Mount Mitchell, at 6,684 feet the highest peak east of the Mississippi.

"There's something about these mountains that always brings you back,"? says Banks, a timber man who has rambled around these rugged Appalachian hills for most of his life. "You stand here and look at the creation around you, the beauty of it all ? there's nothing like being on a mountaintop."

It's out of such respect for the land that this 1,000-acre community was conceived. "The canvas was already painted before we started,"? says Randy Banks, Bill's son and president of Mountain Air. "We had to make sure whatever we did to bring people into this environment didn't detract from what was already here."

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