Raising the bar
Flat Creek Lodge, a sporting club and resort for the 21st century

BY JANE F. GARVEY

Manmade ponds are among the environmentally friendly amenities at Flat Creek Lodge, in Southeast Georgia near Swainsboro. (Photo by Frank Fortune.)

Canoochee Road, just outside Swainsboro, leads to Bishop Chapel Church Road, an orange-tinged thread of sand that wends its way through a tall pine forest and slides straight as the pines themselves through a community of simple homes. Suddenly on the left, an imaginatively crafted gate signals arrival: a metal-sculpted largemouth bass leaps from metal reeds; facing it is a similarly massive metal duck.

Welcome to Flat Creek Lodge near Swainsboro in Emanuel County.

Atlanta residents Caroline and Steve Harless developed Flat Creek Lodge as a private “right-to-use” membership facility offering hunting, fishing and clay shooting, fine dining and unique accommodations. Members come for a variety of purposes, and may choose full memberships, entitling them to dining as well as sporting activities. Some opt for just a dining membership, just a spa membership, or a sporting membership. Corporations and local residents are the backbone of the membership.

Running their dream establishment isn’t the only thing keeping this energetic couple on the go. Steve, a native of Virginia, has a thriving tax business in Buckhead, and Caroline, the native Georgian, is a financial planner.

Caroline has roots in this part of Georgia, where her family goes back many generations. It’s here that her grandmother taught her to fish. When she and Steve bought this land about eight years ago, she told him she had been there before, and she wasn’t kidding. Not too long afterward, she found the family cemetery nearby.

When the couple bought the nearly 2,000-acre parcel in the mid-1990s, it was wild land, completely cut over with no timber remaining. What could they do with it? Slowly, a vision developed, and continues to evolve. Besides hosting couples for romantic weekends, the lodge is a popular venue for corporate and private events. Memberships are not required for corporations to host events at Flat Creek Lodge.

One of the contented dining members of Flat Creek Lodge is Larry “Butch” Parrish, also the state representative for House District 157, which includes the lodge. What drew Parrish to the facility were first and foremost Steve and Caroline Harless. “They shared their vision with me about what they were trying to do there,” he recalls. “I became more and more impressed, and saw they were really doing something special.”

There are a lot of hunting lodges in the area, Parrish points out. So if this one was going to succeed, he felt, it would have to go above and beyond the norm. He says the Harlesses have raised the bar at Flat Creek. “They’re really dedicated to the details, to make sure it’s done properly,” he says. When one corporate executive asked Parrish if the lodge had a heliport, Steve’s response was, “Not this week, but it will,” Parrish reports. And now it does.

Charles Bostwick and his assiciate Rip Williams craft the fine dining, paired with fine wines, which appeals to members and guests at Flat Creek Lodge. (Photo by Frank Fortune)

For Steve, the project is about respect for nature. Not a hands-off type, he dons a straw hat and works the land as much as any of his staffers. Caroline adopts the same uniform worn by the lodge’s 20 employees as she conducts property tours.

Hunting, fishing and sporting clays are the main draws, although one could simply make a lovely afternoon with a glass of iced tea and a good book while sitting on one of the decks that extends across the back of the lodge over the pond. This vantage point is also the place to be when a dramatic thunderstorm appears, as the lightning backlights the large cypress at the pond’s edge. Visitors who don’t care for hunting, fishing or clay shooting might want to pile onto one of the Mercedes Benz Unimog vehicles that plow their way along trails around the property. The Unimog offers a great way to view the myriad animals. And for guests who want to learn how to shoot, but just don’t know how, Flat Creek offers shooting clinics.

Throughout the property, dioramas depict things such as a Florida panther surveying his domain. “They’re out there,” says Caroline; they’ve seen them. In the conference room, fully equipped with teleconferencing capability and audiovisual resources, a mural depicts the local industries—lumber and turpentine production and, yes, moonshine. Conferences and small-group meetings are comfortable in this space, although it’s easy for large groups to break into smaller ones and hold sessions at different points within the property. Corporations with private aircraft will want to note that the Swainsboro airport is convenient to the lodge.

As much as possible, local artisans and local materials have shaped this unique enterprise. Jody Sheppard, a veritable genius with metal, built the gate, the wine buckets and host stand in the restaurant. Swainsboro artist Jan Nordine crafted extraordinary lamps, many from found objects and materials. Linda Parrish, also from Swainsboro, provided exquisite framed photographs, some of botanicals and some hand-colored.

Also from the community, fishing guide and instructor Ann Hood has a deft touch with rod and reel. Devoted to fishing since childhood, she holds fishing clinics at the facility.

Emphasizing local products, artisans and culture extends to the dining experience, now under the guidance of Charles Bostwick, a native Georgian and highly regarded textile artist. His associate, and the man in charge of pastry, Rip Williams, was born in Emanuel County. Charles is excited about the emphasis on local, organic and natural foodstuffs for the dishes he prepares daily.

“We’ve already been enjoying the lettuce,” says Caroline of the hydroponically grown lettuces being produced. Steve looks forward to developing a dairy herd; the first cows should arrive in April, he says. Approvals have been obtained for processing the milk, which should also lead to producing cheese. He wants pastures and every garden to be organic. Eventually, the entire facility will be self-sustaining.

Flat Creek will soon not only have its own cheeses, and already has its own catfish, bream and bass, and hydroponically grown lettuce on the tables, but also eggs from the flock of Rhode Island Red hens. Other foods include wild boar, pen-raised turkeys, ducks, quail and pheasant. Guests will be able to have Charles prepare the results of their hunting and fishing expeditions for dinner. Notwithstanding all that, the man also does a perfectly delicious steak.

Parrish believes Flat Creek will have an important impact on the local economy, more than from the 20 or so jobs it generates. “He (Steve) has put a lot of money into the local economy,” says Parrish, adding that executives from around Georgia have been impressed and have relayed the message out to colleagues not only within the state but also from other states.

A unique enterprise to Georgia, Flat Creek Lodge provides substantial economic benefits and also serves as a source of justifiable local pride. It respects the land, protecting it and the resources it nurtures. It also shows how development can abide within the environment without damaging it. Flat Creek Lodge should serve as a model for other resorts to emulate, not copying themes so much as processes and philosophy.

Always intrigued by the unique landscape of Southeast Georgia, Jane F. Garvey, a freelance writer based in Decatur, enjoys visiting and writing about this part of the state.