Hog heaven.

• Author: Williams, Allison
• Position: TOWN SQUARE - River Landing services for customers

Duplin County's first family of pork built a golfing showplace 20 years ago. Now, the Murphys hope Wallace can attract homebuyers looking to the coast.

When hog titan Wendell Murphy discovered that his top executives were commuting as much as 30 miles to their jobs in Duplin County the Murphy family built them a neighborhood in 1996. Since then, their River Landing development has added two golf courses, a three-story clubhouse and a fitness center. Golfers soon needed gas and sandwiches. Newlyweds marrying at the clubhouse wanted a hotel for their guests. So the Murphys kept building: a convenience store with a sub shop, a fine-dining restaurant called the Mad Boar and a Holiday Inn.

Now, as River Landing marks its 20th anniversary with 850 residents near Wallace, Murphy Family Ventures has inked a deal with Intracoastal Realty, one of Wilmington's largest real-estate companies. The plan is to market the subdivision to second-home buyers and retirees looking toward the coast. It is an interesting proposition given that River Landing is 45 miles from Wilmington. The Murphys turned a textile town of 4,000 into a retiree destination. Empty farmland adjacent to Interstate 40 about 90 miles southeast of Raleigh is now a bustling exit with a Super Wal-Mart and a Vidant Health clinic. But can Wallace compete with the beach?

Dozens of golf developments filled largely with Northeasterners drawn to warmer winters and a slower pace dot rural North Carolina. About 40% of River Landing's residents migrated from the Washington, D.C., area. Growth always has its detractors: One farmer took to calling the gated neighborhood of Yankees the "gates of hell." He could be the sole curmudgeon in genteel Wallace, which has enthusiastically embraced outsiders. After its population barely budged for a half century, Duplin County added 20,000 people in the last 25 years. And there's room for more at

River Landing; out of an available 1,000 lots, the development has 433 completed homes.

Jan Zoesch recently pedaled her hot-blue bike to the River Landing clubhouse, grand as a Swiss chalet rising out of what once was flat farmland. The retired upstate New York teacher never fretted about fitting in--"Seven traffic lights sounded great," she says--and immediately joined the Rose Hill Baptist Church choir though she was raised Roman Catholic. Members dubbed her the Catholic-Baptist. She found Wallace-Rose Hill Friends of the Arts, a group led by New Jersey retiree...