NO. 4 · SATURDAY, AUGUST 8
THE HIGHLANDS-CASHIERS PLATEAU
Three Saturdays ago we spent the day on Keowee's water. Two weeks back we went where the horses are. Last week we traded the fence lines for the marsh. This one we climb. They call Highlands the Aspen of the East, and once you are up here in August the nickname earns it. The air thins, the temperature drops ten degrees, and the water turns cold and clear the way it only does at altitude. This is the coolest corner of the Carolinas in August, and it plans a Saturday around waterfalls, a cliff walk, and a lake most people never learn is the highest one east of the Mississippi. One plateau, two villages, laid out the way a friend who summers up here would lay it out for you.
Damian Hall
CHIEF RELOCATION OFFICER, SOUTHERN ESCAPES
T H E S H A P E O F T H E D A Y
A Saturday Where the Water Runs Cold
Early. The plateau earns its mornings. At more than 3,500 feet the day starts cool enough for a jacket even in August, so take coffee on the porch and let the mist burn off the ridgelines before you move. The move is Whiteside Mountain while the trail is still empty. The loop runs about two miles to a summit where the rock falls away in sheer cliffs and the view opens south across the gorges and the ridgelines beyond. Go early, because the small trailhead lot off Whiteside Cove Road fills by mid-morning.
Morning. Come down into Highlands for the market. The Highlands Farmers Market fills Kelsey-Hutchinson Founders Park on Pine Street on Saturday mornings, eight to half past noon, mountain-grown and small. Then walk Main Street while the shops are still quiet. The Bascom, the plateau's own art center, sits just off it with galleries and a covered bridge, and Old Edwards Inn anchors the block. Buy something for a picnic. The waterfalls are next, and they go better with lunch in the car.
Afternoon. This is waterfall country, and the plateau makes it easy. Dry Falls, in the Cullasaja Gorge west of town, drops 120 feet, and a paved path walks you behind the sheet of water without getting more than misted. Bridal Veil Falls is minutes on, right beside Highway 64, the rare fall you can nearly drive under. Then point the car toward Lake Glenville, eight miles north of Cashiers and the highest lake east of the Mississippi at 3,494 feet. The water is cold and green and quiet, and three of its waterfalls can only be reached by boat. Rent one at the marina and go find them.
Evening. Dinner is the plateau's quiet flex. For the occasion, book Canyon Kitchen at Lonesome Valley, a few miles east in Sapphire, where a low stone dining room sits open to a ring of granite cliffs and the kitchen cooks what the season and the farm hand it. It runs Wednesday through Sunday, May to October, and it books out, so reserve before you drive up. For the easier version of the same evening, Madison's at Old Edwards Inn in Highlands does farm-to-table under stone and beam, with a wine garden when the night is warm. Either way you eat as the light leaves the ridgelines and the temperature slides into sweater weather. In August, that alone is worth the climb.
Up here the air thins, the temperature drops ten degrees, and the water turns cold and clear the way it only does at altitude.
Lake Glenville, at 3,494 feet
W O R T H K N O W I N G B E F O R E Y O U V I S I T
The Highlands-Cashiers plateau is really two villages ten miles apart, joined by Highway 64 and a shared way of life. Highlands is the walkable one, with the inn, the shops, and The Bascom. Cashiers is the crossroads, greener and quieter, built around its Village Green. Both sit high enough that summer here runs ten to fifteen degrees cooler than the Piedmont below, which is the whole reason the plateau exists as a summer address. Two notes for the drive: the waterfalls sit in the Nantahala National Forest, so the parking areas fill by mid-morning on a fair-weather Saturday, and Whiteside Mountain is best before the crowds and the afternoon storms that build over the ridges in August. Check the forecast, start early, and keep a jacket in the car even when the valley is sweating.
T H E W E E K E N D , A W A R D E D
Where to stay. Old Edwards Inn & Spa, a 2026 Forbes Four Star and the rare resort that reads better in person than in the brochure. The spa alone justifies the weekend. Does not allow your four legged child.
Where to eat. Oak Steakhouse at Skyline Lodge. The view, the charm, and a kitchen that shows up. My personal go-to up here, and I do not hand those out lightly.
Where to play. Wade Hampton, outside Cashiers. Tom Fazio in the mountains, member-owned, invitation only. If you have to ask the rate, that is rather the point.
T H I S W E E K E N D I N T H E C A R O L I N A S
Cashiers, Friday evening · Groovin' on the Green brings a free concert to The Village Green Commons from 6:30 PM, part of the Friday series that runs from late May into early September. Bring a blanket and a picnic.
Highlands, Saturday morning · The Highlands Farmers Market fills Kelsey-Hutchinson Founders Park on Pine Street, 8 AM to 12:30 PM, with mountain produce, bread, and flowers.
The plateau, through Sunday · The Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival closes its 45th season on August 9, with concerts staged across both villages. Confirm the closing-weekend program at h-cmusicfestival.org before you drive.
Greenville, Saturday morning · Down off the mountain, the TD Saturday Market runs Main Street, 8 AM to noon, if the drive home routes you through the Upstate.
THE HOME THAT FITS THE WEEKEND
Up here the house is the easy part. The scarce thing is the door it opens. Initiation across the private clubs in Cashiers averages around $175,000 before a dollar of dues, which is why two homes with the same square footage can trade a world apart.
One comes with the Sunday tee time. One does not.
"From our early planning days in 1982, the fond memories of its creation and maturity as one of the finest places to live and play golf, Wade Hampton has been and always will be a special place for me and my family."
Tom Fazio
Wade Hampton
Median Home Price - $3,350,000
The Address That Comes With the Tee Time
The plateau's trophy address wraps a Tom Fazio course that continuously ranks in Golf Digest’s one hundred top golf courses in the country and one of the best residential golf courses by Golfweek. Set inside thousands of acres of national forest and minutes from the lakes, the waterfalls, and Main Street. The Wade Hampton Clubhouse consists of 14,300 square feet of rustic charm. There are several dining options within the Club including The Tavern, The Porch and The Pavilion.
It is member-owned and invitation only. No application, no day pass. You get in through a member, which is another way of saying you get in through a relationship.
That is the part we handle, from the village cottage to the ridgeline estate behind the gates.
If a cool-summer Saturday up here has you doing the math, the next step is a conversation, not a listing sheet.
D A M I A N ' S RECS · O N E I B O O K E D M Y S E L F
The Treehouse I Could Not Stop Looking At
I came across this one while I was supposed to be doing something else, and I booked it for October before I finished reading the listing. A glass cabin on stilts, cantilevered out over the gorge, black steel windows on every side so the forest is basically in the room with you.
There is a cedar sauna and a hot tub on the deck under the canopy, which in October up here is the correct order of operations: sauna, cold air, tub, repeat. I will report back with the honest version once I have stayed. For now my expectations are unreasonably high and I do not care.
Booked for October. Want the link before the review runs? Reply, and it goes to the people who ask first.
S E N D S O M E O N E A S A T U R D A Y
Every Weekend Escape is built to be forwarded. Send this one to the person you would actually spend it with: the friend who wilts every August and needs ten cooler degrees, the parents who have been threatening to find a summer place, the couple whose Saturdays need rescuing.
If a friend sent you this one, welcome. The Escape lands every Saturday at 8 AM.
That is the plateau Saturday. Next week we come back down to the water, warmer and wider. If there is a market you want a Saturday planned for, reply and name it. The most-requested one gets written.
Damian Hall
Chief Relocation Officer
The intelligence layer between where you are and where you belong.
Southern Escapes is the market intelligence platform of Damian Hall Group, the principal-led luxury team operating under Blackstream | Christie's International Real Estate. The Weekend Escape is for informational purposes; verify event dates with venues before traveling.
Know someone who needs a better Saturday? Forward this to them.