It seems there is an almost inexhaustible amount of Blue Ridge Mountain property available.  Hardly a month goes by without the debut of some new large community promising unparalleled mountain views, "signature" golf and enough other amenities to fill up the week of the most active retiree.
    The Coves at Round Mountain in Lenoir, NC, is but one of the latest, although the development has been quietly selling lots in Phase I for a year.  Comprising more than 3,600 acres about an hour from Asheville and Winston-Salem, and just north of Hickory, The Coves boasts four miles of frontage on the Johns River and
The Coves has four miles of frontage on the Johns River and reaches a top elevation of 4,500 feet.

promises to be a haven for those who canoe, kayak, fish or simply enjoy the water views.  An equestrian center with stables and mountain trails is also on the drawing board.  The Coves' marketing materials promise as well "unlimited hiking and mountain biking," although "unlimited" hiking is more than even the most robust among us require.
    Only a few Phase I properties remain, with prices starting at around $50,000 for an acre.  Phase II will offer a number of lake and golf views beginning at slightly higher price points.  Count on some impressive mountain views as well; the community begins at an elevation of 1,700 feet and tops out at 4,500 feet.
    The marketing materials are somewhat coy about the 18-hole "signature" golf course that will be built on the property.  I called the sales office and was told that an architect was walking the property today and could be given the job in the next few days.  Although we will respect the request to embargo the information until an announcement is made, the leading candidate is a former U.S. Open champion.  As soon as they make the decision, we'll report on it here.  Other details will follow as well.
    Click here for a location map.

    This week, I have been thinking about great magazine covers of the past that pushed the boundaries of good taste and sense. Unless you have been sleeping in a cave or playing golf in Nepal, you know that Kelly Tilghman of the Golf Channel made an insensitive on-air comment that PGA tour players might consider lynching Tiger Woods in a back alley as the only way to keep him from winning.  After understandable outrage, Golf Channel suspended Ms. Tilghman for two weeks.  It should be noted that Tiger, who is a friend of Tilghman's, left word that it was no big deal as far as he was concerned.  Tiger was the only winner of theshootthisdogcover.jpg week.
    GolfWeek Editor Dave Seanor and his staff figured that a noose on the cover of their magazine would get attention and capture, in a most graphic way, the gist of the story.  Seanor must have missed the class on being careful what you wish for.  His skittish bosses fired him, sending a message that squirting a little kerosene on a fire is a more punishable offense than setting it in the first place.
    The controversy about the GolfWeek cover sent me back decades.  The two best magazine covers in my lifetime were both politically incorrect, if not racially insensitive.  One, for the now defunct National Lampoon in 1973, showed the face of a cute dog with a gun pointed at its head.  The tagline read:  "If you don't buy this magazine, we'll shoot this dog."  Rabid dog owners hated it, but no one was fired.  Such excess was expected of a magazine with "lampoon" in its name ("GolfWeek" doesn't have that same edgy ring.) 

    The other memorable cover was a photograph in a 1968 Esquire magazine showing alicover.jpgMuhammad Ali, who had refused induction into the military weeks earlier, pierced by six arrows and in the pose of the martyred St. Sebastian, the patron saint of athletes.  A noose around his neck might have made a similar point, but the Esquire editors chose wisely and well.
    Two years ago, the American Society of Magazine Editors included these two images on its list of 40 most memorable covers of all time.  Most of the covers are edgy and politically incorrect.  There isn't a noose among them, but the next time ASME compiles a memorable list, there will be.