Rex Farrior photograph by Tim Robison
Rex Farrior looks out at the lawn of his restaurant, Happs Place Barn and Grill in Glenville. The sun shines above diners as they sip cocktails and eat Neapolitan-style pizzas covered with local mushrooms and tomatoes. Families play cornhole by an old red barn with a tin roof. One of the many bands that frequent the lawn’s stage welcomes the crowd.
Before Farrior purchased the old Happs building and reopened the restaurant in 2021, he was a patron just like the people he now serves. He remembers coming to this spot in the early ’80s, when it was a restaurant called The Brown Skillet. His family would travel from Tampa, Florida, to their summer house in nearby Cashiers, where Farrior would golf at the Wade Hampton Golf Club and take a boat out on Lake Glenville.
In 1997, after The Brown Skillet’s 20-year run, Mimi and Daryl Happ opened Happs in the same location. “It was a 40-seat, meat-and-three diner with a huge menu,” Farrior says. “You felt like you were back in the country in the ’50s — red plastic cups and off-white plastic plates.” As the only restaurant that catered to the small lake community of 100 or so year-round residents and summering second homeowners, The Brown Skillet, and later Happs, was always packed. But when Happs closed in 2017, the place where everyone had come together stood empty.
Before their wood-fired pizzas or entrées arrive, diners enjoy a round of cornhole by the circa-1950s red barn that now serves as a private dining space. photograph by Tim Robison
When Farrior purchased his own house here five years ago, he couldn’t shake the feeling of loss. “I would drive down my driveway to the road, and my headlights would hit the old Happs Place,” he says. He hoped that someone would revive it, but he grew tired of waiting, so he bought the 1960s cinder-block building himself.
Creating its new chapter was no small feat. Farrior built an expansive porch with radiant-heat floors, retractable walls, and an impressive fireplace, and added a lawn area with a putting green and an outdoor stage. He even imported a 900-degree Italian pizza oven and installed a climate-controlled wine cellar.
Modernizing the restaurant was a massive endeavor, but it was important to Farrior to pay homage to the restaurant’s past and its local significance. The historic 1899 homestead that stood next to the restaurant “was full of 2-by-8 timbers of hickory, heart pine, American chestnut — all these wonderful woods,” Farrior says. “I felt I had one of the oldest pieces of history in Glenville.” A red cabin and barn from the 1950s sat on his own property. After consulting with the Glenville Area Historical Society and the previous property owners, he took the buildings apart, board by board, and repurposed them.
Elements of its mountainous surroundings play into the design of the cozy dining room at Happs Place Barn and Grill. photograph by Tim Robison
Throughout the current space, the past lives anew. The tin roof from the 1899 homestead clads the ceiling in the bar area and covers the outdoor stage. The red barn is now a private dining space. The old Happs kitchen hood hangs over the outdoor wood pile. And the rest of the reclaimed wood was turned into tables and wall decor.
Farrior and his team spent two years creating something that was greater than the sum of its parts to restore the town hub. Now, Farrior can give back to Lake Glenville what it gave to him: good food and good company.
Happs Place Barn and Grill
5914 NC Highway 107 North
Glenville, NC 28736
(828) 743-5700
happsplace.com
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