I began to suspect I might have made a mistake moving so far into the country when making a mad dash one evening for the only FedEx office in the area open past 2:30 pm.
Unfortunately, it was 55 miles away. I was trying to get art to my publisher in San Francisco, something they just had to have the next day. It was a 50-minute drive–40 if you gunned it–and FedEx was due to close in 55 minutes. Barring any unforseen circumstances I should just make it.
But as I neared the end of our narrow road two miles into the journey I spied a acluster of flashing lights ahead. Peering through the murky dusk I could make out a large, bulky shadow. Its source would prove my undoing. Sitting squarely across the road was a fire tanker. The local arsonist had set his house aflame yet again, and this time the officials were determined to figure out how he’d done it. The volunteer fireman assigned to road duty explained all this in detail as he leaned against my car and casually took in the situation.
It never occured to them to move the truck. After all, the few people who lived in the area were there watching , too. Only a fool would want to miss the best–make that the only–entertainment around. My plan to reach FedEx disintegrated. And my infatuation with the idea of doing business in the boonies began to ebb as well. My husband and I had been lured there by the book Country Bound!, which chronicled one couple’s journey from chaotic urban living to utopia. “Come back to the good life,” they urged gullible readers. And don’t worry, doing business fromj a remote locale is a cinch.
The book was long on flowery prose and short on solid fact, but I was hooked. I’d just quit my job as a design editor in Cincinatti to go freelance, so what better time to give it a shot? Besides, I’d been raised on a farm in Kentucky and my ancestors were pioneers who accompanied Daniel Boone through the Cumberland Gap. A return to my roots should make my life come full circle.
When we came across a deal on a house with seven acres on what had once been the family farm, we figured it was karma beckoning. So we heeded the call. Fifty miles from Louisville, 60 from Cincinatti, smack dab in the middle of paradise–or so it seemed in those first halcyon days. My husband went to wrod as the local newspaper editor and I set to work freelancing.
What we hadn’t counted on was inferior phone service–which of course meant that internet, e-mail, and fax connections suffered. Add to that limited courier runs, electrical problems, frozen water pipes, and, worst of all, the nearest restaurant was 20 miles away–and it was a Cracker Barrel. Our refuge from the city seemed more like banishment every day.
I needed a change. So I tried returning to work. But the daily 100-mile roundtrip drive soon got to me–not to mention my car was the only one in the parking lot that always smelled like manure. (Our neighbor’s cows crossed the road every morning to get from the pasture to the barn.)
Six years later as we eagerly traded in our clodhoppers for wing tips, we wondered how we’d stuck it out so long. Granted all the trappings we longed for were there–peace and quiet, beautiful scenery, nice (remote) neighbors, and enough wildlife species to occupy the Crocodile Hunter for years. But we wanted our serenity mixed with a jigger of modern convenience.
We sold our country paradise and moved into Louisville, a few blocks from Churchill Downs. Now our front windows overlook a park and our rear overlooks J.D. and Irene’s backyard. The wildlife population consists mostly of birds and squirrels with an occasional deer passing through. But we love it. Our phones work, the electricity hasn’t gone off once in the six months we’ve lived here, and that FedEx office I’d set out for so long ago is now just five minutes away. This might not be my final home, but one thing’s for certain: No matter where life takes me, I’m going to heed my new rule–never locate outside a pizza parlor’s delivery area.
(Kirby was one of six rural designers interviewed)
Kirby Stephens left his hometown of Somerset, Ky (population 14,000), for the Rhode Island School of Design in the late 1970s to supplement his journalism degree with one in graphic design. He had become intrigued with the profession after interviewing design great Malcolm Grear, a fellow Somerset native, for a story for the local newspaper.
For the next four years, Stephens spent his summers working on his degree at RISD and assisting Grear at his studio in Providence. Upon graduation, Stephens fulfilled his dream to return home and open his own firm, Kirby Stephens Design, Inc. “‘The acorn never falls far from the tree’ is an especially appropriate saying for me,” he says. “I was born in Somerset, my parents have run the local bakery here for more that 50 years, and I liked the idea of starting and raising my family in this small town.”
“I held and still hold the belief that rural Kentucky and its people, places, and businesses have a story to tell, and beceause of my training in writing and design I can help tell that story.” His client list is composed of local and regional concerns, such as Bastin’s Steakhouse, Mountain Telephone, Appalachian Wireless, and the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.
“There are benefits to being a big fish (or even the only fish) in a small pond,” Stephens says. “Professionally, our diverse client relationships give the people in our studio a broad perspective on how the region works and what it has to offer.”
But at least once every two weeks there’s the inevitable call from someone wanting to bring in a vacuum cleaner for repair. [Kirby Vacuum] But, showing the humor and flexible thinking that are requisites for surviving in an out-of-the-way place, Stephens quips,” We’ve been wondering if it might not be a good idea to invite them down. From the frequency of the calls it seems the vacuum repair business might be quite profitable.”