Come back kid: Stephen Hill has an audacious plan for his hometown--nothing less than turning Kinston into the Asheville of the east.

• Author: Williams, Allison
• Position: KINSTON

Stephen Hill walks a downtown Kinston neighborhood on a muggy summer afternoon, much to the bemusement of neighbors sitting as still as possible in the shade of their front porches. A woman grilling pork chops calls out--Hill is a familiar face in this predominantly African-American precinct now called the Arts and Cultural District. He's hard to miss, the man with a moustache, psychedelic shirt and skinny pants and the bouncy energy of a teenager, though he's 56.

Hill has purchased and renovated 60 nearby houses with plans to pick up 14 more. His houses are instantly recognizable by their bright paint and white picket fence. In some cases, he owns an entire rainbow-colored block, while other houses are dotted between homes gray and neglected. His vision: a place where more than 100 artists will live, work and sell their art.

By comparison, Asheville's burgeoning River Arts District has about 200 studios, an economic engine driving new apartments, breweries and restaurants. Drawing creatives to Kinston, though, is a different challenge compared with the internationally recognized North Carolina mountain city. While Kinston's population has declined by almost 5,000 to 21,000 in the last 25 years, Asheville has grown by 23,000 people, or 35%.

With little to lose, Kinston is making a strong pitch, offering relocation grants from a local foundation, the smART Kinston City Project, that provide artists up to $3,000 for moving expenses and art supplies. That can go a long way with rents starting at $200 a month.

Can art revive this town? Hill is banking on it.

He has invested about $12 million in downtown Kinston, not including the commission for one of its most dramatic sights, artist Thomas Sayre's "Flue," seven sculptures stretching up to 28 feet tall. Sayre is one of the state's most prolific artists, perhaps best known for his red clay "ring" installations at the North Carolina Museum of Art and along busy Randolph Road in south Charlotte. Charlotte commissioned Sayre to design and fabricate "Furrow" at one of its light-rail stations for $142,500.

There was some head-scratching at City Auto Parts, the Kinston store Ray Beard has operated since 1969, when Sayre's sculpture was delivered last year. "It's not something that I can go looking forward to," says Beard, whose shop is across the street, "but a lot of people do." If it helps Kinston, though, he's for it. "It's on the way to recovery I think. Downtown Kinston is thriving right this minute. Somebody's doing something right down here."

FOOD AS ART

To be sure, no one is doing more right than Vivian Howard. It's thanks to her Chef and the Farmer restaurant that tourists pay good money to learn how to make biscuits and crane their necks for a chance to be on A Chefs Life, her nationally broadcast public-television series that premieres its fifth season in October. But if Howard is Kinston's most famous daughter, Stephen Hill is the behind-the-scenes wheeler-dealer. It was a conversation with him that sealed the deal when a Raleigh businessman decided to open a new vodka distillery, and a quiet word of encouragement when an elected official debated another run. It's the combined weight of Howard and Hill that make up Kinston's center of gravity.

Visitors might drive two hours for dinner at C&TF, but they'll stay at The O'Neil, the former Farmer & Merchants Bank that is now a boutique hotel, or the Mother Earth Motor Lodge. Hill renovated both inns. Farmer & Merchants...