The mountain man: a developer takes the high road, treading the fine line between promotion and preservation.

• Author: Bedwell, Don
• Position: Hugh Morton, North Carolina; includes related article

THE MOUNTAIN MAN

A developer takes the high road, treading the fine line between promotion and preservation

Trees were dying in the North Carolina mountains, and Hugh Morton wanted to know why. Two old friends of his, C.D. Spangler Jr. and Gen. William Westmoreland, had sent him clips from The New York Times in July 1988 about a scientist who might have the answer. Morton called him and asked if he could drop by.

"He expressed a tremendous amount of interest and concern, and we became friends," says Robert Bruck, an associate professor of plant pathology and forestry at N.C. State well-known for his research on the death of trees at the top of Mount Mitchell.

Morton kept visiting Bruck to talk about the problems plaguing the trees: acid rain and other sources of pollution, as well as an infestation of balsam woolly aphids. "Instead of simply trying to grasp a few bits of sensational information, he was very interested in educating himself in the facts," Bruck says.

A little over a year ago, Bruck was in his Raleigh office when Morton phoned. He had come up with a slide show about the trees, and he wanted Bruck to critique it. Bruck agreed, but with the fear that he would have to waste the afternoon correcting a layman's off-base ideas about air pollution.

"I sat back with a pad and pen, and he began," Bruck recalls. "I did not interrupt him a single time." With a couple of minor corrections, that's the same slide show Morton has presented more than a hundred times since to North Carolina organizations.

"Hugh Morton is part of the have-made-it crowd, those who've arrived," Bruck says. "He commands a certain type of respect in terms of where he is coming from as compared to a university type, if you know what I'm saying. As a professor I can speak and I'm respected for my science, but many people in the business community would look at a professor and see him as somewhat detached from business.

"Hugh Morton is part of that world."

That's exactly what some more-radical environmentalists don't like about Morton. But even people who oppose his development plans don't find much to criticize.

"You won't find people having bad things to say about Mr. Morton up here," says Martha Stephenson, who's a member of a group you might expect to have bad things to say about him. Friends of Grandfather Mountain was formed two years ago after word got out that Morton and a partner, Tulsa, Okla., oilman John H. Williams, were considering selling 900 acres on the northwest side of the mountain for a resort development.

The organizers feared "we were going to head down the road to becoming another Pigeon Forge, [Tenn., the home of Dollywood]," Stephenson says. "It is not likely to happen. Mr. Morton and Mr. Williams didn't have that intent when they drew up their development plans."

Friends of Grandfather raised money to hire a land-preservation consultant. The tract and an adjacent 300 acres are home to several rare animal and plant species, the consultant's report says, and shouldn't be developed, no matter how tastefully. Morton has met with members of the group, Stephenson says, even advising them on how to raise money and...