Reeling it in: former homebuilder casts a new career through the rising popularity of fly fishing.

AuthorPace, Lee
PositionPROFILE

For two and a half hours on a July afternoon, Alan Burchell has been instructing, philosophizing and otherwise immersing himself in the sport of fly fishing on an idyllic stretch of the Linville River in Avery County. "It's exactly like cleaning a paint brush, shaking the water off your brush," he tells a novice angler, mimicking a quick forward whisking motion with his right forearm. "Nice and slow, elbow high, pause at the end of your lift--that's very important--then accelerate to a stop. Feel the lever do all the work."

Teaching the art of fishing is a brave new world for Burchell, who ran a homebuilding company in Boone for more than a decade before hitting the skids during the 2007-09 recession. Since then, he's remade himself, landing a dream job as the outdoor programs director at Linville's historic Eseeola Lodge.

A 1988 graduate of Appalachian State University with a bachelor's degree in outdoor recreation management, Burchell bounced around after college in a variety of jobs, including a year in Idaho as a fishing guide. In 1995, he joined Eseeola as an assistant tennis pro. The resort, owned by Linville Resorts Inc., dates to 1892 and is adjacent to the Linville Golf Club, ranked 22nd best in the state this year by a panel of golf pros and journalists. Sensing money to be made in mountain living, he started Burchell Construction Inc. in Banner Elk and by the mid-2000s was building about three new homes a year, priced at $1 million to $2 million, mostly in Boone and Blowing Rock, and employing as many as 17 people. "We got in at the beginning of the wave and rode it hard for 15 years," he says. "We used good architects and good artisans and built custom homes, a few spec houses. I loved having my own business and being an entrepreneur. I had great rapport with my clients and little turnover in my staff."

It wasn't enough to avert the recession, which slammed purchases of second homes. "We had a lot of older craftsmen who were paid well because they were worth it. But now younger guys were coming along doing production work," Burchell says. "The numbers didn't work anymore." He finished his company's jobs, paid his bills and closed the business in 2011.

In March 2011, he saw an article in Garden & Gun magazine about the outdoor recreation director at Blackberry Farm, a luxury hotel in Walland, Term. "That's the perfect job for me," he told his wife, Sonya. "I would love to find a job like that. That's what I've been doing all my...

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