It’s unlikely that the first thing you’ll notice as you approach Etowah Valley Golf & Resort will be the street signs indicating you’re on Brickyard Road - more likely you’ll be admiring the greenery of the 27 holes of the golf courses on the property, especially if that’s why you’re headed there. But if you have an eye for detail you might wonder, umm… where’s the brickyard?
“Even those of us who don’t play golf and don’t need a place to stay have been to Zeke’s Tavern, the restaurant attached to the club house which has both indoor and outdoor seating overlooking the course."
The answer is, you’re standing on it, or where it used to be. Up until the 1950’s, the resort site was home to the Moland-Drysdale Corporation, which produced millions of bricks there in the first half of the 20th century. The brickyard later moved to Fletcher, and the owner eventually turned the former site into a championship golf course in part to benefit the plant’s loyal employees, many of whom owned surrounding properties. They say you’ll still find plenty of bricks on the property today - pretty much any time you try to dig a post hole.
The resort helped the town of Etowah, which is about midway between Hendersonville and
Brevard, navigate the entire region’s ongoing economic transformation from heavy industry to tourism and recreation, and its current owners have poured millions of dollars into the property over the past several years refurbishing rooms, upgrading the restaurant and renovating the golf and tennis facilities. The hotel facilities are spread around the property, and every room overlooks the golf course. There’s a heated pool on site too.
Even those of us who don’t play golf and don’t need a place to stay have been to Zeke’s Tavern, the restaurant attached to the club house which has both indoor and outdoor seating overlooking the course. The menu has a good selection of standard lunch and dinner fare plus some interesting specialties. The lunch I had there also included some yummy house-made pastries.
I don’t know anything about golf beyond the “miniature” variety so I can’t tell you much about that. If you’re interested in a lot of detail about how the resort has improved its course over the past several years, Club & Resort Business magazine did a full write-up on the facility in 2018 that talks about all the renovations. In a nutshell, while Etowah Valley was a pioneering course when it opened in 1967 (the first in the region to have complete irrigation and all paved cart paths, for example), it was showing its age by the time the current owners took over but it’s come a long way since. The resort is finishing up a 5-year improvement plan that has ranged from a new fleet of golf carts to reseeded greens.
Etowah Valley Golf & Resort was envisioned as the “Pinehurst of the mountains” when it opened more than 50 years ago, and it’s looking closer to that goal than ever before today.
How to Find It
Etowah Valley Golf & Resort is located at 470 Brickyard Road in Etowah, about 20 minutes from downtown Hendersonville .
Google Map: https://goo.gl/maps/moqKaA4yeJ1p4ksb6
Web site: https://www.etowahvalley.com/