when we were there in, er, um September 2000? it seemed the place was struggling. They were just about to shut down the smorgasbord that had been the River Forest Manor thing for decades.
One of the staff took us upstairs to the old "club" room -- long closed and basically full of junk. I remember being there in about 1979 when it was operating -- members had private lockers for their liquor (NC was a brown bag state still). Bartender would ask your name, then obtain the bottle from your locker. Don't know how my name got on a locker -- or how a bottle found its way in there. That was in the days Axson's father was alive. He set me onto the whole Lost Colony thing -- which is why we were there in 2000.
I'm very fond of that place . . .