We were both still working our day jobs, Charlene was a paralegal at a local law firm and I was a researcher in the biotech industry. Although we were just dating at the time we started, we quickly realized that we were a pretty perfect couple so….we got engaged! (South of France, castle wall…blah, blah blah) 

We planned to host weddings and events at our future resort so we decided to make our wedding the first. To this day we joke that our wedding was a publicity stunt. Hey, you need photos of a wedding for the website! It sounded so logical at the time. In hindsight, I can’t believe we thought it was a good idea. Building our wedding venue while planning our wedding definitely tested the boundaries of our relationship. In the end, it was perfect practice for the future. 

 

Charlene and I are polar opposites. I’m an artist at heart and a scientist by training (ok I may also have undiagnosed ADHD). I’m an “out of the box” thinker with my foot always on the gas pedal. Charlene is practical, logical and structured. She occasionally has to reach over and tap the brakes. From her legal work, she can calculate risk faster than any insurance actuary. She likes detailed plans while I like shooting from the hip. We learned how to work together. It made us much stronger as a couple and as business partners. It’s pretty perfect really.

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The Building of JuneBug 

We looked at dozens of properties in and around the Asheville area for our future resort. None of them seemed right. Too far away, too small, too steep, too expensive, too ugly etc. After about a year of looking, it happened! We found one that was too good to be true. It was 12 minutes north of downtown Asheville, it had 50 beautiful acres with a 1/2 mile of river flowing through it and it had a lot of flat land which is unusual for the mountains of Western NC. Unfortunately it was completely overgrown, twice the amount of money we had to spend and even though it was listed, the owner clearly didn’t want to sell it. (a whole other story) 

Through extreme persistence over about a year and some very unconventional real estate maneuvering (involving learning how to navigate South Korean business transactions), years of saving money and perhaps a little magic from the universe (stock market), we were able to buy the land in the fall of 2015. 

The first time we walked the property after closing, we had trouble believing it was really ours. Charlene nor I came from families that could afford properties like this. We were in disbelief that it was ours. We still are! 
 

We started clearing the jungle. When we began, we just had 2 chainsaws, a borrowed tractor and a lot of ambition. We also had a lot of naivety. That turned out to be our strongest attribute. We thought “How hard can this be? It’s just 10 old campers in a field!” If we had fully understood how hard it was going to be we may have not proceeded. 
 

Luckily, I had enough sense to hire an engineering firm to give us some direction. “What do we need to do to get up and running?” I asked. Thirty thousand dollars later we had a large stack of blueprint plans. I was shocked at the complexity of the project and the dizzying regulatory hurdles. This was going to be a lot more expensive than I thought. 
 

Over the next year and a half I bought, rented and operated excavators, tractors, wood chippers, skid steers, bush hogs, dump trailers, dump trucks, zero turn mowers, trenching machines, boom shoot lifts, generators, log splitters, sheep’s foot rollers and a dozen other pieces of construction equipment. 
 

I personally pulled over 20 permits with the county and learned everything about grading, erosion control, perking soil, FEMA regulations, reading blueprints, building septic systems, running electric lines, driving large trucks while towing long trailers, putting crawlers back on excavators, dropping hundreds of trees, planting a hundred trees and bushes, removing tones of invasive flora, navigating ADA compliance, building retention walls, placing boulders, planting grasses, building roads, building guardrails, picking the ideal cover crop for the farm field, determining soil compaction rates for the new road, using laser transits, placing culverts, fixing hydraulic lines, pouring footers and foundations, running water lines, sharpening chains on chainsaws, running septic lines, basic plumbing and electric work and how to ask for advice from county employees without drawing too much scrutiny to the project. Basically, I had to become the contractor and general contractor. In the end we probably saved a half million dollars by doing most of the infrastructure ourselves. YouTube helped immensely! 
 

Our wedding date was quickly approaching yet we were running into major problems. Bad weather, permitting bureaucracy, a septic contractor lying about having a license, confusion at the county office (we were the first ones to build an RV park since the 1990s). We also were trying to hold our regular lives together. Both of us still had full time jobs and we had two teenage girls at home. Looking back now, the whole thing was a blur. 
 

Charlene told me later that she cried every day leading up to our wedding. She thought for sure there was no way the property would be completed in time. Two months before the event, the property was still a muddy construction site. She didn’t want to add to my stress burden so she never said anything. I was so engrossed with the project and the daily challenges that I hadn’t asked how SHE was holding up. I was not a very thoughtful and caring future husband. I regret that. 
 

Revolutionizing the Wedding Experience 
 

On June 17th, 2017 we became the first couple to get married at JuneBug. It was purely magical and set the stage for hundreds of future weddings. 

As we had hoped, the on-site vintage campers allow couples to turn their wedding into a bit of a family reunion. Since the property is rented for a minimum of 24 hours, brides, grooms, the wedding party, family and friends got to intermingle in a beautiful relaxed setting before the event and after. They didn’t feel rushed. Many couples opted for renting the whole facility for two nights to give them even more time to enjoy the experience. 
 

We bought a 1960s Teal 23 window Volkswagen bus for photos and for delivering the bride to the ceremony area in style. It was a huge hit! That, the colorful campers and the field of flowers next to the ceremony area made for fantastic wedding photos. 
 

At this point, (2025) Charlene and I have hosted and personally run all aspects of over 250 weddings at JuneBug. As you can imagine, we have some wild stories to tell at dinner parties. We have also built a separate wedding venue on the top of the mountain in a treehouse that was featured on Good Morning America! It’s the only treehouse in the world that can host the ceremony and reception for up to 20 people high up in the tree canopy. 
 

Then there are the alpaca! What do alpaca have to do with weddings? Absolutely nothing. I just realized that I had forgotten to mention them until now. (ADHD) 
 

Anyway, Asheville is one of the most popular places for destination weddings in the US. There are over 100 weddings venues just in Western North Carolina alone. JuneBug has quickly became one of the highest rated ones. To shamelessly brag a bit, as I write this, there is not another wedding venue in the region with higher ratings or more of them than JuneBug. (5.0 rating with 377 google reviews!)

 

The property was also featured on the Travel Channel, CNN Headline news, Southern Living, Public TV and a few other publications.  

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The Secret Formula 
 

After a few dozen weddings, I began to notice a pattern. Guests loved the adorable colorful vintage campers, they liked the flower field, they went crazy over the hammocks strung across the creek, they loved the treehouse, the microbus and the airstream bar. They loved the vintage playground with merry-go-round. They were fascinated by “Shiitake Holler” where we were growing mushrooms on logs. They took thousands of photos and selfies in from of each location. It was all about sharing unique photos on Instagram and Facebook! I started calling it the “Instagrammability” of JuneBug.

​

Most other wedding venues had a pretty arbor, perhaps a river, flowers, a barn, maybe a mountain view and white wedding chairs. JuneBug all that plus at least 10 unique and thus Instagrammable areas. People were actually doing the advertising for us. 

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Revolutionizing the Outdoor Music Experience - The Creek Lounge 

In June of 2023 we opened a music venue/bar on the JuneBug property called "The Creek Lounge." We had been talking about doing it for years. Our intention was to design the ultimate outdoor music venue for locals.  
 

Outdoor music venues in the area were basically a field or a gravel lot with a stage in front. Concert attendees stand shoulder to shoulder for 2 hours or more in the hot sun (or rain) and then fight the crowds to get a beer during intermission. That is the proven model to maximize revenue. 
 

To us, it was not about maximizing profit. We wanted to reinvent the whole experience. So we designed a shady, stunningly beautiful “listening room” in the woods. Concertgoers could lay in hammocks or on blankets or sit in lawn chairs under the shade of the walnut trees listening to live music in comfort. They could bring chairs in the creek and listen as cool water flowed over their feet or they could claim grassy spots next to the flower field. Kids play in the stream just behind the stage or in our banana tree hideout. It’s not just about the music, it’s also about comfort and atmosphere. We built a “clamshell” bar out of a 1960 Airstream to add to the experience. 

Instead of simply buying a performance stage like other venues, we built one out of a beautiful 1953 Ford F500 dump truck with. We built a roof over it and put lighting on it. You can actually drive the stage and put it where you want it. It all definitely added to the listening experience. 
 

The local community has fallen in love with the Creek Lounge. We've had a “packed house” during most Thursday and Saturday music events last season mainly from word-of-mouth advertising. Patrons often pull Charlene or I aside to thank us for building The Creek Lounge. We have been pleasantly surprised by the feedback. 
 

Last year, Tyler Ramsey (local favorite and former lead guitarist from the Band of Horses) was playing on stage at the Creek Lounge. In between songs he said, “I didn’t know what to expect when I was booked out here but…. I think this is my new favorite music venue!” Charlene and I were sitting separately in the crowd. Our eyes met and we both smiled. It was surreal. We had traveled all over to see Band of Horses in years past and specifically loved listening to Tyler. After the show, he stayed overnight with his son in one of our restored campers and then came up to the house the next day for coffee. Do we really get to do this for a living?
 

Even when we are not having live music at the Creek Lounge, people love it. Sunday afternoon mimosas and crêpes are probably the favorite. Guests hang out by the flower field or in the creek and relax with their families with some chill music emanating from the speakers. It’s a completely different outdoor bar experience too! 
 

Revolutionizing the Corporate Meeting/Team Offsite 
 

If you’ve worked for a large company or corporation, you have probably experienced the off-site team meeting. They are intended to bring the team together to have brain storming meetings and have shared experiences that make the team more cohesive. Sometimes, a change in setting can help teams with creative problem solving. It’s hard to get inspired while in a small breakout room in a Marriott under fluorescent lights. 

 

If you’ve been around long enough, there is usually a meeting or two that colleagues talk about many years after the fact. I attended a meeting on a farm in California when I worked for the biotech Amgen more than 15 years ago. When I see ex-colleagues now who attended that meeting with me, we still talk fondly about it.

 

It got me thinking, what were the key elements about that meeting that made it so great? The setting was certainly unique. Biotech scientists don’t normally hold meetings outdoors on farms. One day we had a productive discussion on the dock of a pond that was on the farm. It was so relaxing. 
 

We've done several corporate events and picnics at JuneBug last year and have gotten great initial feedback. I’ve put a lot of thought into this and believe I have come up with a winning formula. In 2025 we are a going to do a lot more. Standby my friends. 
 

Major lessons learned 

 

Sometimes what seems like your greatest weakness can turn into your greatest strength. When we first embarked on this journey, we were warned by people in the business. “You can’t compete with other resorts or venues. Especially when it comes to weddings. It’s an extremely competitive business.”

 

What they described were several wedding venues in the area that had been up and running for many years. They were established and had quite a head start. Many of the owners had inherited land or had access to family land and just as important, infrastructure. Some of the land had been owned by the families for generations. One venue family actually has a local School named after them. While these families had access to it all for free, would be spending a few million dollars just to get to the starting line.

 

To be honest, I was a bit jealous. As I mentioned, neither one of us came from families with money. I had to come up with all the capital myself. 
 

How could this possibly turn into a strength? I’ll explain. As I mentioned, we looked at 100s of properties both online and in-person before finding one that was ideal. If we had inherited any one of those properties, it would have been “what it was” so to say. We would have had to make it work no matter what or where it was. By having to buy the land ourselves (yes we had to spend over $600K just for the land) we had full control over what we wound up with. 
 

The other thing is the style of venue. Most of the wedding venues in the area had a similar theme. Rustic barns and farms. People would attend a barn wedding and think “We have a barn on our grandparents farm, we can do that!” And they would. It wasn’t that hard compared to building it all from scratch. People were also buying small farms with the intention of turning them into a wedding venue. As a result, the market became flooded with these types of venues. We even considered building an event barn on the property (for about 12 minutes) but quickly noticed that tastes and styles were changing. The barn wedding had been “a thing” for a least 20 years.

 

While there were still people interested in the barn and farm theme, more and more young couples are seeking something different. Couples were telling us they were looking for a beautiful outdoor setting without the barns, hay bails, wine barrels or country music. Needless to say, the wedding side of the business at JuneBug took off like a wildfire. 
 

Another weakness turned into a strength? Our lack of any experience in the wedding industry! 
 

When couples ask Charlene how she got into running weddings, she jokes, “I had only attended two weddings before, and both of them were mine!” It’s true. Both of us were married once before but Charlene nor I had any experience in the wedding industry.

 

This enabled us to come into the business with a fresh perspective. We didn’t mimic other wedding venues or event planners. We envisioned what our perfect day would look like and started building everything with that day in mind. 
 

I also started surveying different vendors. I asked the caterers “What are some of the challenges you have experienced at other venues?” It mainly turned out to be logistics. The preparation area was too far from the serving area. Access to electricity, concrete floors, parking, cold storage, shade, fans etc.

 

I asked the DJs what the ideal set up would be. We asked a very experienced high volume wedding planner for advice. Then we customized the property to reflect what we learned. 
 

From the first wedding on, vendors would all tell us that JuneBug was their favorite place to work! Some told stories of how bad it was working at other venues. Some described being treated poorly by the venue owners, like servants. This annoyed me. I had worked in the service industry in my 20's. How hard is it to make sure that your vendors are well taken care of? If they are enjoying the experience, everyone at the event will feel it. It’s a no-brainer. 
 

From keeping the secret to spreading the word 
 

We were pretty secretive about our plans in the early days before we found all the campers and the land. A bit paranoid perhaps. We thought someone might steal our idea. After building JuneBug and going through the process and expense, we feel differently. “Who in their right mind would be dumb enough to go through all of this?” We joke. 
 

Countless people have approached us about replicating JuneBug somewhere else. Some even wanted to build one locally. Some with campers, some with domes, yurts, safari tents, tiny homes, treehouses and other artsy structures. Nowadays, we always try to help them. I like the saying “the rising tide raises all ships.” We believe that to be true. The more people that come to this area, have a great time and leave their money behind, the better it is for everybody. 
 

So now I take the time, especially in the off season, to describe to them how to navigate permitting, understand the market, generate revenue right out of the gate and discuss all of the challenges. 
 

One thing that I tell everyone that comes to me for advice is. “This is going to be 27 times harder than you think it’s going to be.” And it will be. But I also say “Don’t let the hardships discourage you.” As I mentioned earlier, be generally informed but stay a bit naive. It was one of the main things that kept us going. If you know all the challenges up front, you probably won’t proceed. 
 

The other thing….let peoples negativity and doubt fuel your drive. If you are anything like me, someone saying “That is too hard. You won’t be able to do that” is extremely motivating. So jump in and learn as you go.

 

Another favorite saying? “Good judgment comes from experience. And experience? Well, that comes from poor judgment.” 
 

COVID 
 

JuneBug has weathered two major “business killing” events since opening. Due to the restrictions in gatherings during COVID, all of our 30 planned weddings disappeared.

 

Although some other venues continued to hold events despite the restrictions, we opted to cancel or reschedule all of them. We returned all money that couples had given us. The hard part was the sheer amount of work it takes up front to tour the couples, answer questions, generate contracts and coordinate all the vendors.

 

All in all, hundreds of hours of Charlene’s hard work was erased without compensation.  Luckily, we had the best year ever for renting our campers to vacationers. It seems that we had set up the ideal accommodations for a pandemic. Individual units separated by courtyards and 50 acres to explore.

 

People were tired (and scared) of being inside. Financially, we were able to “break even” that year. That was better than some other businesses. The experience taught us to pivot our business model when things got hard. 
 

The Feast after the Famine 
 

The next year brought a lot of engaged couples to JuneBug. Charlene kept booking weddings along with those that pushed ahead from COVID. At some point she came to me and said, “At what point should we stop booking weddings?” To which I replied, “Don’t stop! Let’s redline this thing.” And we did. 
 

The year after COVID we hosted 60 weddings in 6 months! How is that even possible? Well, sometimes, we hosted 4 in one weekend! On a Saturday I would be running a wedding in the Treehouse on top of the mountain and, at the same time, Charlene would be running one down below in Walnut Cove.

 

After everyone left the next day it was “all hands on deck,” for clean up and changing over all the campers for the next crowd. Then, even though we were exhausted, would do it all again on Sunday and try to muster up just as much enthusiasm as we had the day before. We would work two back to back 16 hour days showing hundreds of people a great time!

 

By Monday, we were both catatonic. I still had to rally for my day job! Charlene and I argued a lot during those months. We both felt under appreciated and overworked. It was only natural. 
 

One day in the middle of that summer, one of my counterparts at my day job called to complain about how hard things were getting at work. (I was keeping JuneBug, my side project, a secret. My boss knew, but no one else did) I tried to be as sympathetic as possible without blurting out. “Suck it up buttercup! I’m doing everything you are doing plus running 60 weddings on the weekends!” 
 

Helene 
 

Helene was an another fatal blow to a lot of businesses in Western NC. Even if your business wasn’t on the floodplain under 20ft of water, all business stopped for months. Interstate 40 from the west was destroyed (and will probably closed for a year) and I-26 coming from the West was also destroyed. Roads were impassable, hundreds of bridges no longer existed and no one had water or power or cell coverage for weeks.

 

The storm made international news. Some meteorologists called it the 500 year storm. Others called it the 1000 year storm. The devastation in the mountains on the Blue Ridge Parkway resembled photos of Mt. Saint Helens I had seen in the 80s. The lifeblood of Asheville, tourism, was completely gone. The supermarkets and restaurants were all closed for weeks. Chinook helicopters were cruising over JuneBug for a couple of weeks, day and night, bringing supplies to towns that were destroyed. It was as close to the apocalypse as you could get without getting shot at and staying inside to avoid fallout. 
 

I would talk to friends and family outside the area and try to describe it. It was impossible for them to comprehend without seeing it. JuneBug has 1/2 mile of river going through it. Like most flat areas in the mountains, it was on a floodplain. It was all underwater.

 

We lost the bridge, the event tent and lots of trees on the river. Our 1953 Spartan office trailer got crushed by a tree. The airstream bar got moved by the water. I removed hundreds of trees from the bottomland. I stopped counting after filling our dump truck with the excavator 100 times. We put it all the debris in the farm field and burned it a few weeks later. It took months to clean up. 
 

In all, we lost about $200K in lost revenue and repair from Helene. That is not including all the clean up work that I did on the property. Based on the estimates we were hearing about, it would have cost another $100K to have the machines and operators help us if we didn’t do it ourselves. It put us, and everyone else in the area, in a depression for months.

 

People contacted us to see if they could help and urged us to start a GoFundMe. At one point, I made a video of the damage and posted it on Facebook urging everyone to donate to other people who were worse off than us. It received 180,000 views! 
 

The property is looking great these days and we are vigorously planning for robust business this year. How things go next year we have yet to see. 
 

Living at JuneBug 
 

We built our dream house in the middle of the 50 acres that make up JuneBug and moved in July of 2023. It’s a MCM style house (of course), filled with MCM furniture all surrounding a pool. From mid-April to mid-November each year, we run fast and are involved with every aspect of the property.

 

We still operate the business extremely lean. I handle all of the landscaping, maintenance, building and general beautification of the property. Charlene coordinates the wedding and creek lounge logistics and does all of the administrative functions. We both are involved with hiring, strategic direction and marketing. Luckily we have the amazing Elizabeth to help us. She has been with us for 4 years now and when not working weddings, she handles the cleaning of the campers, running the bar and is also the booking agent for the Creek Lounge. This year she is also going to run the Treehouse weddings.
 

It’s not all work. Some days in the summer we will lounge around the pool with friends and then wander down to the Creek Lounge in the evening to listen to bands we have booked and mingle with the crowd. We have a lot of regulars that have become friends. Sometimes after the Creek Lounge closes, if the vibe is right, we all head back up to the house and continue the pool party late into the night. Those days are pretty magical. 
 

One of the best features of JuneBug is that it’s only open half the year. We always joke, “Our favorite day of the year is when we put up the event tents. Our second favorite day is when we take down the event tents.” Although it takes a few weeks in the spring to get the property ready for the season and a couple of weeks in the fall to close it down and put everything away, we get a solid 5 months off each year! After hosting thousands of people on the property, the down time is needed. 
 

In the off season, we lock the gates on the property and have it to ourselves. We have hiking trails on the property and I try to use them just about every day for exercise. I work out in my shop and Charlene goes offsite to workout. We hang out with the alpaca and the cats, stream movies and various TV series and become recluses.

 

We usually take a long trip each year in the off-season. Since building JuneBug, we have traveled through Chile and Argentina, New Zealand, Japan, Central America, Spain and France in the off season. Occasionally, I’ll captain a rented sailboat in the Caribbean with friends. 
 

JuneBug has been the “wild ride” of both of our lives. We were each born to do what we are doing. We have hundreds of crazy stories from past weddings and events and have met a lot of fellow business owners, camper guests, wedding couples, neighbors and Creek Lounge attendees.

 

It’s more than just a job to us. It’s become our identity. It’s like living in the painting that we’ve created. Not a day goes by without both of us appreciating where and how we live. The struggles we have gone through make it even sweeter. 
 

Although I get a lot of credit for coming up with the concept and building it all, none of it would have happen without my beautiful wife Charlene. There is no one else on the planet who could handle so many things as well as she does. We also have finally found a great crew to help us. (Elizabeth, Greta and Amelie) We want to adopt them all and never let them leave! 

Thanks for following along. I look forward to seeing you all in the spring. Let’s have a party:) 
 

We certainly did not do this alone. There are definitely a few people that we need to thank. Although we got help from many people, these people stand out. 

Scott Whitmire - Owner of Retro Modern - We first met Scott after buying a camper from him. The quality was far better than any restoration I had seen. A few months after the purchase, I called him up and asked if he would be willing to do more work. He was a landscaper at the time and built campers on the side as a hobby.

 

He expressed his interest in restoring campers full-time. We wound up sending work his way for more than a year and he kept his work priced reasonably. We both built businesses together. Scott was also extremely knowledgeable and helpful when it came to all of the landscaping work needed on the property. We could not have built Junebug without Scott. 
 

Bob Haynes - Director Buncombe County Permits and Inspections - 
Bob is very good at his thankless job. While he insisted on everything being built to meet the specifications, he also offered subtle guidance that was extremely helpful to us. He was the first and only regulatory official that seemed to want us to be successful.

 

At one point, he insisted that we redo all of the electric on the flood plain part of our property because it was not built to code (at a cost of about $40K). In the end, it helped us weather the big flood. Bob is the perfect balance of keeping everyone safe while not suffocating progress. We will be forever thankful for his help. 
 

Micah Richardson - Micah graciously gave of her time when we first started building JuneBug. She had many years of experience planning weddings and we had none. She sat with us for hours and shared with us, her experience and knowledge. She also served as the day of planner at our wedding. Thank you so much, Micah. We could not have done it without you! 
 

Elizabeth Sorrell- our longest surviving employee (technically we haven’t killed any of our employees...yet). Working at JuneBug is really hard. It requires wearing a lot of hats and having a lot of stamina. Elizabeth does both of these things well. She is amazing. Because of this and other reasons we have basically adopted her. 
 

Paul and Roger Herron - these guys helped us a lot. They built the “shack in the back,” where our workers live in the on season and have helped immensely with many other projects on site. They are rare “can do” guys that, can, well, do everything! Plumbing, electrical, septic installation etc. I miss having projects that allow me to work with them. 

Andy Foley - Andy has saved our butts a few times now. We had a wedding cancel last year and decided to take rare trip out of the country during the on-season when Helene hit. We returned to lots of destruction and no food to eat.

 

Although he was also hit in Richmond Hill GA, he drove up with food, supplies and then stayed to help fix and clear the debris and rebuild. As mentioned, this isn’t the first time Andy has come to the rescue. He once took a wild and memorable ride from NY to NC on my behalf. We wish everyone was lucky enough to have an uncle Andy. 
 

Our couples- To all of the couples who have trusted JuneBug with one of the most important days of their lives. It has been an honor.