Carolinas, Georgia & South Trips (Lonely Planet, 1st Edition) - Alex Leviton [60]
Take I-40 to Hwy 147, which deposits you in downtown Durham. Take Duke St north to the Historic Durham Bulls Athletic Park, located in the tobacco warehouse district, where loft dwellers have replaced drying tobacco. These days, the crowds gather here mostly for the popular Durham Bulls Festival in late September and the World Beer Festival in early October. Continue north on Duke, turn right on Trinity St and continue a half mile until you reach the Manning House, at 911 N Mangum St. A private home, movie fans will recognize the exterior as the home of Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon), but architecture buffs will appreciate the preservation done in the 1990s. If you’d like to bed down for the night, the Old North Durham Inn across the street offers Bulls ticket packages for the new Durham Bulls Athletic Park, one mile to the south. Minor league baseball saw a nationwide upswing in popularity from Bull Durham and, granted, few activities are as enjoyably American as eating a hot dog in the stands on a warm summer night, watching mascot Wool E Bull referee fans in inflatable sumo wrestler costumes. Above the left-field wall is a replica of the “Hit Bull, Win Steak; Hit Grass, Win Salad” sign from the film.
The next stop on Hwy 70E past Raleigh is in Smithfield, home of the Ava Gardner Museum, a tribute to a local girl who made very, very good in Hollywood. The museum was founded by a local psychologist who had received a kiss on the cheek from Ava when he was 12; as soon as she made it big with MGM Studios, he began his collection. Continuing on to the tiny town of Faison, those who loved Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) will recognize Buckner Hill Plantation as the film’s Pecan Grove, supposedly set in Louisiana but filmed at this impeccably preserved Antebellum mansion. Visits are by advanced reservation only.
The historic port city of Wilmington has hundreds of film and television credits with enough sites to fill several days. Every self-respecting film junkie should take a guided tour of EUE Screen Gems Studios, which is a real working studio. Recently, visitors have caught glimpses of several local films in production, including Nights in Rodanthe (2008), The Secret Life of Bees (2009) and Bolden! (2008), plus the sets for One Tree Hill, also filmed here. If you find yourself lacking background information on the filming of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or where Katie Holmes liked to eat breakfast, look no further than the Hollywood Location Walk, a delightfully campy tour of dozens of film sites and star spottings in Wilmington. Dawson’s Creek - the Warner Bros TV show that helped turn Wilmington into Hollywood East - was supposedly set in Massachusetts, but was shot at Screen Gems Studio. Dozens of Wilmington locations starred in the series, including Water Street Restaurant as Leery’s Fresh Fish, the Dawson family’s restaurant. It’s also a great location for a meal with a prime spot overlooking Cape Fear River, a breezy patio and a constant stream of live entertainment. Or, grab a late-night snack or beer at Hell’s Kitchen, which was rented by Dawson’s Creek producers to be a set where Katie Holmes’ character worked. When the show finished its sixth and final season, a local restaurateur purchased the building and turned it into a real restaurant, keeping the name and retaining 80% of the set props, including posters, tables, chairs and the bar.
Finish your journey at Orton Plantation Gardens. Soon after Dino De Laurentiis discovered Orton Plantation in Southern Accents magazine, he cast the 18th-century mansion in Stephen King’s Firestarter (1984). With 50-plus film and TV credits, the former rice plantation overlooking Cape Fear River is now among North Carolina’s most prolific locations. Orton’s grounds staged weddings in A Walk to Remember (2002) and One Tree Hill (2003-8); funerals in Dawson’s Creek (1998-2003) and Idlewild (2006); crime scenes in Crimes of the Heart (1986) and Matlock (1992-1995); and a hoedown in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002).
Alex Leviton with