A New Beginning

Field Notes — October 2025

There’s a certain clarity that strikes before you begin something again.

For me, it came after years of running. I was on a hamster wheel—moving from thing to thing, job to job, side hustle to side hustle—trying to prove to myself that I was enough. I’d never finished college, and though I told myself it didn’t matter, something deep down knew I was circling the thing I most needed to face.

The Roots

Before all that, I had gone to college. I left because of family sickness. Not long after, Pappy—my grandfather—passed away.

He was a builder. A Renaissance man. A weapons appraiser who made his living as a homebuilder. An author, historian, and teacher of things you couldn’t find in books. He introduced me to Foxfire and planted seeds I’m only now tending—seeds of curiosity, craft, and care.

He built a living archive. Maybe, in some way, I’m doing the same.

The Return

After losing him, I went to what I call a “heart school”—a season of reclaiming my inner life, my faith, and what mattered most. But somewhere after that, I started running again.

Doing what I was told I was good at instead of what I actually wanted to do.

Until one day, I broke. Exhausted from avoiding the one thing that had been calling me back: finishing what I started.

So I went back to school.
Not for a degree that made me employable—but one that made me come alive.
Fine art. Visual language.

It was there that the water began to settle.

The Dream

Then came the dream.

I was running through the woods—thorns and brambles slicing at my arms. I didn’t know what I was running from. Through the trees, I saw the faint outline of a cabin. The windows glowed soft yellow, and as I drew closer, I heard laughter and music—an old piano, the kind you’d find in an 1800s saloon. The sound grew louder, warmer, more alive.

The cabin had no road, no path—just a porch in the middle of the woods.

As I reached the steps, a kind woman opened the door, smiled, and said,
“Nic… we’ve been waiting for you for a long time. Welcome to Hotel Appalachia.”

And then I woke up.

The Becoming

That dream became the basis for everything that followed.

In the summer of 2021, I began making small cowboy block prints. In a post-COVID world, I needed something to put my hands to—something to recalibrate. But I wasn’t a cowboy or a rancher. Why all the cowboy imagery?

Someone told me, “You’re grieving your grandfather.”

It made sense. Those prints were my way of remembering him—honoring what he taught me about grit, craft, and curiosity.

Pappy was a builder of homes, but also of memory. Hotel Appalachia became a home for remembrance.

At first, it was simply a container for my art. But through markets, conversations, dinners, and kind messages, I realized it wasn’t just mine. It was ours.

Hotel Appalachia had a heartbeat.
It resonated with people who felt that same pull—to slow down, to remember, to belong.

The Relaunch

That brings us here.

I never could’ve imagined that Hotel Appalachia would become something I’d fall in love with enough to pursue wholeheartedly. What began as a vessel for my creative work has grown into its own living thing.

It deserves space to breathe—and so does my fine art.

This is why we’re relaunching.

Hotel Appalachia is now a brand built on remembrance, grit, heritage, and beauty—a Southern revival company rooted in community, storytelling, and craft. A place that over-serves through sincerity, not scale.

Fewer things. Made better. Stories told slower. Work that lasts.

The Invitation

Hotel Appalachia is an invitation—
to remember the hands that shaped us,
to come home to the world that raised us,
to dust off the practices of days gone by and baptize ourselves in remembrance,
to let our present be shaped by our past,
to lean into the hollers and find peace in the hills.

Before there was noise, there was silence.
Before there were machines, there were hands.
Before fast fashion, there was time-tested craft.
Before social media, there was a neighbor.

This is a revival.
You belong.

Written from the shed — early fall light, sawdust in the air, dogs asleep at my feet.