In clash between TV 'Mountain Man' and local officials, real world and 'reality' not so clear

TRIPLETT, N.C. — The way Eustace Conway sees it, there's the natural world, as exemplified by his Turtle Island Preserve in the Blue Ridge Mountains. And then there's the "plastic, imitation" one that most other humans inhabit.

But the border between the two has always been a porous one.

When he bought his first 107 acres in 1987, Conway's vision for Turtle Island was as "a tiny bowl in the earth, intact and natural, surrounded by pavement and highways." People peering inside from nearby ridges would see "a pristine and green example of what the whole world once looked like."

Since leaving his parents' suburban home at 17 and moving into the woods, Conway has been preaching the gospel of sustainable, "primitive" living. But over the past three decades, those notions have clearly evolved.

Conway has traded his trademark buckskins for jeans and T-shirts. Visitors to Turtle Island are as likely to hear the buzz of a chain saw as the call of an eagle, and interns learn that "Dumpster diving" is as important a skill as hunting or fishing.

And then there are the television cameras.

For the past two seasons, Conway has brought his message of simpler living to the History Channel reality show, "Mountain Men" — a role he concedes is inherently oxymoronic.

But it's all part of a complex dance. For Conway and Turtle Island, sustainability has come to depend on interns and apprentices, and on tax-exempt status from a regulatory system this self-styled "true old-time mountain man" openly despises.

It also depends, increasingly, on a steady stream of paying campers. And that is where Conway's peaceful coexistence with the "modern world" broke down.

Acting on a complaint about alleged illegal building, officials from the Watauga County Planning and Inspection Department raided Turtle Island last fall and found dozens of structures for which no permits were ever pulled. Citing numerous health and safety code violations, the county attorney gave Conway three options: Bring the buildings up to minimum state standards, have an expert certify that they already met code and obtain proper permits, or tear them down.

What ensued was more than just a battle of government versus the individual. It was also very much about the lines between what is real and what is "reality."

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Unlike some of his fellow TV "Mountain Men," who toil high in the Rockies or far out in the Alaskan wilderness, Conway is hardly cut off from civilization.

Turtle Island lies near the Tennessee border, just a few miles east of Boone — a county seat of 17,000 residents whose population doubles when Appalachian State University, Conway's alma mater, is in session. Just beyond the gravel road that leads into the 1,000-acre preserve, spacious, modern homes nestle on wooded lots within sight of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Once through the gates, everything changes.

After crossing a dancing stream, the road opens onto a meadow ringed by a blacksmith shop, open-air kitchen and dining room, a corn crib and assorted other outbuildings. Dominating the scene is a massive cantilevered barn, constructed of dovetailed logs and roofed with 5,000 hand-hewn, moss-covered shingles.

The name comes from an American Indian creation myth about a great turtle that saved the world's creatures from a cataclysmic flood by supporting them on its shell. "In the figurative sense," Conway's website explains, "we are an island of wilderness in a sea of development and destruction."

After a cursory inspection, Furman says talks between his office and Conway broke down. So on Sept. 19, Furman came back with a warrant and sheriff's deputies.

Beginning with Conway's own home, inspectors found the building lacked the minimum water and sewer connections. All of the buildings were constructed of wood milled on site, not the marked, graded lumber required in the building codes.

Solar panels run the equipment in Conway's little office, and a micro-hydroelectric plant installed by students from ASU's Appropriate Technology Program powers a small workshop. Inspectors say they found wiring and junction boxes that were not up to code.

The team noted a wood stove whose chimney was vented beneath a building's metal roof, not through it, and unpermitted outhouses intended for public use. Several buildings were not connected to the stacked-stone foundations supporting them.

In his 78-page report, consultant W.O. Whaley concluded that many of the buildings were "not structurally sound."

Conway and his supporters argued that Furman's office was missing the point. How, he asked, can he teach primitive living in modern, cookie-cutter structures?

"Human beings have built their own houses for thousands and thousands, and actually millions of years," Conway says. "And now we can't even build our own house with our own material that grows on our own land? That's not some regulation that's just a county problem. That's a human rights issue."

To counter Whaley's report, Conway posted a series of interviews with certified building inspector Drew Kelly on YouTube. Kelly said most of the buildings were constructed "at bare minimum, above what they're wanting regular houses to be built at."

"Do they fit modern-day building codes?" Kelly said. "No. Because they're not modern-day structures."

Conway doubts there ever was a complaint. He believes it's no coincidence that his trouble with the planning department began during the first season of "Mountain Men."

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"What do I do for a living?" Conway says in the premiere episode. "I live for a living."

The show is mostly about man's struggle against nature. But in Conway's story line, a frequent adversary is "the government."

In season one's second episode, titled "Mayhem," Conway opens his mailbox to find an official-looking letter inside. He slits it open with his pocketknife.

"Motion to claim exempt property?" he reads from the court document in his hand. "This is crazy. Damn attorney is paying the sheriff to serve me. Going to take all my land? .. Basically, I just got a letter saying, 'Your life is over.'"

"Eustace has always been able to survive living off his land," the man growls ominously. "But he always struggles to pay the tax man."

For the remainder of the season, Conway and his interns split firewood and fence rails to raise the cash needed to lift the lien from his "sacred" mountain. In the climactic final episode, titled "This is the End," Conway and a friend make a dramatic ride on horseback into Boone — rather than taking one of the many vehicles that dot the property.

He arrives at the courthouse just in time "to make his final stand."

But Conway's true nemesis is not "the courts" or some heartless "tax man." It's a 28-year-old woman who was injured during a visit to Turtle Island.

In August 2005, Kimberly Baker of Wilmington came to the preserve on a retreat as part of the North Carolina Teaching Fellows program. She and the others were taking part in an orientation at Turtle Island's entrance when one of Conway's staffers pulled out a sling and began demonstrating how to hurl stones.

Baker settled with two of Conway's staff for a combined $400,000. In September 2009, Conway entered into a mediated settlement agreement to pay Baker $75,000, and to mortgage some of his land within a year to cover the amount.

When the deadline passed without payment, Baker filed a lawsuit for breach of contract. Finally, in April 2012 — around the time those episodes were filmed — Conway paid up.

Conway says his contract with the History Channel prevents him from commenting "about the correctness of that" depiction of events. But he avers that reality shows are about building suspense and drama, "And a lot of the life out here is not as dramatic as they want it or need it to be."

He expressed much the same sentiment when he spoke with writer Elizabeth Gilbert for her 2002 Conway biography, "The Last American Man."

"When I go out in public, I deliberately try to present myself as this wild guy who just came down off the mountain, and I'm aware that it's largely an act," the "Eat, Pray, Love" author quoted him as saying. "I know I'm a showman. I know I present people with an image of how I wish I were living. But what else can I do? I have to put on that act for the benefit of the people."

As word of Conway's bureaucratic problems spread, a flood of hate mail inundated Furman's office. In a petition posted on www.northcarolinanaconservative.net, author Vicky Kaseorg made allusions to Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.

"Are government officials upset that someone can survive without them?" she asked.

As the state officials worked to resolve the issues with Turtle Island, the Republican-dominated legislature introduced a bill to exempting "primitive" camps and farms — including "sheds, barns, outhouses, doghouses" and other structures — from the building codes. GOP Gov. Pat McCrory signed the bill into law on June 12.

By month's end, Conway was back in business.

On a recent sultry day, a dozen or so campers and interns listened intently as Conway held court in the breezeway of the main horse barn. The smell of woodsmoke, stewing cabbage, manure and sweat mingle in the steamy air as speckled chickens scratch for food in the dirt around the teacher's feet.

"My problem with the government is they see that I'm teaching people about simple, natural living, and that doesn't jive with their corporate sponsors, you know?" Conway says. "So it's real important to realize that the model is something that we need to keep alive. And what I want you guys to do is go out and teach the rest of the world how to do it. Because it's our birthright as a human being."

If Conway was a folk hero before, this incident has only increased his stock. Nick Rosen, who runs the site www.off-grid.net and included a chapter about Conway in a book about the movement, says what happened at Turtle Island "is part of a national trend to create obstacles in the way of people wanting to carve out their own freedom."

But while many feel the government went too far, some think Conway is trying to have it both ways.

Boone contractor Douglas McGuire grew up in these hills. Standing beside a stone fireplace in the modern log home that serves as his office, he says he understands the traditions of rugged independence and mistrust of government interference.

But McGuire says this was a question of public safety, not private property rights.

Former Turtle Island apprentice Christian Kaltreider can see both sides.

Now an engineer specializing in energy efficiency and renewables, Kaltreider is dismayed — if not exactly mystified — by Conway's decision to take part in a reality show. "I think it's ego and a drive to teach the world," the Asheville man says.

Conway once told Kaltreider that his dream was that he touched would go home and create "hundreds of little Turtle Islands everywhere." Most have fallen far short of Conway's goals, Kaltreider says.