Editor’s Note: Jessica Sands is the first of two 2021 New River Gorge Creatives in Residence at Lafayette Flats. Jessica was born in WV and raised in Southern Pennsylvania.  She received degrees from Bethany College and West Virginia University, and she is currently working as Senior Lecturer, Multilingual Writing at Cornell University.  This is Jessica’s […]

We are thrilled to be able to continue the New River Gorge Creative Residency in such a turbulent year. We know that now, more than ever, everyone needs creative writers and artists to lift our spirits and inspire our minds, to remind us of the beauty and talent in West Virginia and throughout the country. […]

One of the positive responses that many people have felt as a result of this global pandemic is a stronger desire to check-in on people we care about. That’s why we sent a message to all the past New River Gorge Creatives-in-Residence to find out how they are doing and what they’ve been up to […]

Editor’s Note: Matt Browning was the New River Gorge Creative-in-Residence at Lafayette Flats during December 2019. In this blog post, Matt reflects on his time in Fayetteville and the start of his career as a published author.  That Fayetteville magic. It’s a phrase that was said to me very early on during my New River […]

Since 2015 the New River Gorge Creative Residency has afforded writers and artists the unique opportunity to live and work at Lafayette Flats Boutique Vacation Rentals in Fayetteville, WV. In years past, a singular resident has been chosen but this winter, THREE creatives have been awarded the residency. By tripling the number of residency recipients, […]

The art-filled environment inside Lafayette Flats fosters creativity and inspires visionary thinking. Our guests have affectionately compared it to sleeping in an art museum. This comparison makes us very happy. And we know it makes our art benefactors, Mark Tobin Moore and Donna Whitten, happy too! When the director of Moment Makers, a series of […]

Promoting art and artists from our home state is not only our passion, it’s in our business plan. Each year we dedicate a portion of our vacation rental income to the purchase of West Virginia art to add to our collection at Lafayette Flats. For this year’s art purchase, we decided to commission a watercolor […]

We purchased the building that now houses Lafayette Flats in June of 2014 and worked on its renovation for the rest of the summer, fall and through the winter. By the time we opened to guests in April of 2015, we had learned a lot about the rhythms of the seasons in Fayetteville. Mostly we […]

Editor’s Note: Wendy Welch is the 2018 New River Gorge Winter Writer-in-Residence at Lafayette Flats. She will be living and writing in Fayetteville through the end of March. This is her third contribution to the Lafayette Flats blog. Wendy is the author of The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap, and Fall or Fly: the […]

Editor’s Note: Wendy Welch is the 2018 New River Gorge Winter Writer-in-Residence at Lafayette Flats. She will be living and writing in Fayetteville through the end of March. This is her second contribution to the Lafayette Flats blog. Wendy is the author of The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap, and Fall or Fly: the […]