issue feature

Places You've Never Been
Steve Masterson’s passion is undeniable. That’s easy to say about a music fan so ardent that he hosts an annual music festival in his front yard. It’s a fervor that spills over onto others; festival attendees are said to come the first time for the music and return for the community.

“It’s just a little family that’s developed up here,” Masterson says. The 12-year-old festival evolved from a series of parties Masterson and his then-wife threw after building a home on 41 acres in rural Hayden. At first Masterson and friends played the music themselves. After several gatherings, he asked if they’d purchase tickets, were he to hire someone to perform for them.
He brought in Grammy-nominated bluegrass musician Norman Blake that spring and “just never could quit, people liked it so much,” Masterson says.

About 110 people attended the first show. 2007’s crowd was the largest yet, with 1,000 people turning out to see headliner Doc Watson— and Masterson expected just as big a turnout for the Tony Rice Unit in 2008.

Accommodating that many people in his front yard isn’t a task he could achieve alone. A staff of volunteers helps coordinate campers’ loading and unloading. Three neighbors allow festival goers to park on their property. The Alabama Environmental Council helps with garbage and recycling.

But what is this music that draws so many people to one man’s front yard?

“You say what kind of music? Just good music,” Masterson explains. “What I try to get generally is real intense music, people who can just play the stew out of instruments.”

Dread Clampitt, a bluegrass outfit out of Florida and Masterson’s favorite band, returns annually and a number of other acts—mostly bluegrass—fill out the schedule.

The music begins Friday evening, this year with three bands on the main stage. It continues throughout Saturday, with bands also playing on a side stage and in an area Masterson has dubbed the Stone Henge Theater. That little niche in the woods offers seating on massive rocks, and in 2006 the space was filled with 344 people, “being quiet enough that they could hear a string band playing with no microphones,” Masterson recalls. “They hang on every note.”

After years of shows, that’s only one of the tales Masterson tells. He can recount the time songwriter John Hartford played a three-hour set inside Masterson’s one-room house. He’ll explain to you how the painted floor from Dread Clampitt’s old trailer became the backdrop for their Acoustic Café performances. He’ll share stories about each of the primitive campsites, or how much his crowd respects his property.

What it all comes down to, though, is Acoustic Café is the kind of place where memories are made.


It's Tuscaloosa County that Hale County butts up against, but students from Auburn University have been changing the face of the land since 1993. In that year, the Auburn University Rural Studio was born. 
 
Second-year, thesis and outreach architecture students relocate to tiny Newbern, 145 miles away from the campus they know and the culture to which they’re accustomed. They become temporary members of the community and are challenged to put their book learning to work, meeting community needs by working with the people within it.

Students have designed and built houses, churches, parks and public buildings, all relying on non-traditional materials and a bit of ingenuity. You can read all about the studio’s projects—and you may have already—in books, on the current students’ blogs, in the news. But the best way to get a sense of how the students’ work interacts within the context of Hale County and nearby areas is to visit.

The studio’s completed projects are scattered throughout the county, meaning you could spend a few hours or a few days visiting properties to discover how Auburn students are gently changing the face of life in Hale County.

Read up on the projects beforehand to determine what’s on your must-see list. (If you’re curious about the houses of Mason’s Bend, for example, you may not have time to see them and the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church relocation in one day’s trip.) Or work your way through the projects in increments, as some visitors do, returning time and again to discover the studio’s many treasures.

But if you arrive without a particular plan in mind, the Rural Studio office staff can highlight a few recommendations on the map, suggesting places you can’t miss but can manage to get to in the time you’ve allotted.

Regardless of the day’s itinerary, begin your visit by walking through the Supershed and Pods that house the program’s male students. Nine small structures are clustered together beneath a covered walkway that leads to a bathhouse, including one shower that’s roofless and exposed to the elements.

All of the structures are composed of unusual, recycled elements: bales of corrugated cardboard, license plates, sheets of metal. Together, they evoke an image of cabins at a summer camp—a quirkier camp than any you’ve attended.

As you drive out of Newbern and toward other projects, you’ll begin to identify Rural Studio projects without consulting the map. The Newbern Fire Station is easily recognizable as a fire station, but its translucent walls create a more modern aesthetic than most public buildings.

With an awning of stainless chain metal, the Hale Empowerment Revitalization Organization storefront stands out from other buildings in historic downtown Greensboro.

Behind it, just off the town’s main thoroughfare, are the organization’s strikingly contemporary playground and children’s center, also Rural Studio projects.

If you’re at all interested in architecture or design, this is a trip you’ve got to make—one worth revisiting time and again as Rural Studio students continue to impact their temporary home.

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