North Mecklenburg & the Lake

Thirty years ago, Lake Norman – 25 miles to the north of Charlotte – was primarily a weekend retreat, its shores dotted with tin-roofed boathouses, mobile homes and fishing cabins.

That began to change, however, with the completion of Interstate 77 in 1976. Suddenly it was possible to live like you were on vacation all year round only a quick 20-minute drive from work, shopping and entertainment in the big city.

Lake Norman, like Lake Wylie, its sister lake to the south, is a “working” lake, created by Duke Energy for the generation of hydroelectric power. Both are part of the Catawba River system. Norman is the larger of the two lakes though, with 520 miles of shoreline in four counties - Mecklenburg, Iredell, Lincoln and Catawba. At nearly 34 miles long and 8 miles across at its widest point, it is larger than the Sea of Galilee and often referred to as “The Inland Sea.”

As any developer will tell you, retail follows rooftops and the Lake Norman area is no exception. Lake shoppers can now browse unique boutiques, quaint village shops, upscale specialty stores or national chains. In the town centers, entrepreneurs are converting homes, warehouses, old mills and train depots into craft, consignment, antiques and clothing shops. Restaurants, which used to look at Lake Norman as a secondary location, are now opening here first, then branching out to Uptown and other parts of Charlotte.

There are nearly a dozen marinas that offer wet or dry boat storage starting at $1,000 annually. If you’re putting your own boat into the water, public access ramps are available at Jetton Park, Blythe Landing and Ramsey Creek Park in the Cornelius/Huntersville area. Iredell County public access areas include Hager Creek Access at Exit 33 and McCrary Creek Access, Pinnacle Access and Stumpy Creek Access off N.C. 150. In the Denver area on Lake Norman’s west shore, head to Little Creek Access Area on Webb’s Chapel Road or the Beatties Ford Access Area on Unity Church Road. Catawba County boaters can choose from several marinas on lower Lake Norman south of the N.C. 150 bridge or Long Island Marina on Burton Drive.

Unless you’re on a boat or have access to private land, 1,600-acre Lake Norman State Park in Troutman is the only place swimming is allowed from Lake Norman shores. The park also offers boat ramps, picnic shelters, campsites, mountain biking and hiking trails.

North Mecklenburg

When Charlotteans refer to the Lake Norman area, they usually mean the area north of the Harris Boulevard/I-77 interchange, which includes Huntersville, Cornelius and Davidson in Mecklenburg County. In less than 20 years, the three towns have been transformed from sleepy rural hamlets into thriving towns with all the amenities of city life, from business parks to bistros, housing to health care. Now Lake Norman’s eastern shore towns grapple with the same issues that drove their residents here in the first place. 

In 1990, 3,000 people called Huntersville home. But proximity between the Queen City and the lake, lower home prices, less traffic and quiet communities has catapulted Huntersville’s population to more than 30,000 today.
Two-lane country roads once woven through pastoral farmland are now clogged with cars, and the wide-open space is becoming increasingly filled with new housing, offices and retail development.

Although much of the retail and residential areas in Huntersville are new, the town also has numerous historic sites within a five-mile drive of Beatties Ford Road. Hopewell Presbyterian Church, for instance, dates to the 1740s and features 200-year-old stone walls around its cemetery. The Hugh Torance House and Store, started in the 1770s, is the oldest surviving store site in North Carolina. The two-room log cabin also sat on a cotton plantation and was used as a school for young ladies, slave quarters and an overseer’s house.

Each April, the Loch Norman Highland Games celebrate the area’s Scots-Irish heritage with athletic competitions, bagpipe music, dancing, tartan parades and historical demonstrations.

Another pocket of preserved Huntersville is Latta Plantation Nature Preserve, the county’s largest green space with hiking trails, picnic shelters, a nature center, an equestrian center, boating and fishing on Mountain Island Lake and the Carolina Raptor Center, which rehabilitates and releases injured birds of prey.

Huntersville also has a new family fitness center and outdoor fun park where kids can slide through tubes, spray water cannons and climb sprinkler-filled jungle gyms set inside a pool.

Cornelius also has felt Lake Norman’s growth spurt, climbing from 2,500 residents in 1990 to more than 15,000 today. The catalyst to growth in Cornelius was a town-financed water-sewer project along West Catawba Avenue in the late 1980s. Large, upscale developments such as The Peninsula arrived, adding hundreds of homes to the area.

Services and shops followed, and Cornelius embraced the population boom by welcoming commercial development. Upscale shopping centers line West Catawba Avenue off Exit 28. Shoppers flock to Jetton Village, Shops on the Green, SouthLake Shopping Center and strip after strip of boutiques and eateries on West Catawba Avenue. Now the shops have overflowed to East Catawba, where old bungalows and stately brick homes have been converted into funky, fun downtown boutiques.

New subdivisions, office parks and retail shops in Cornelius have brought prosperity, but along with it, crowded schools, roads and public services.

Lake Norman residents already enjoy two top-notch county parks in Cornelius – the 105-acre Jetton Park with lake access, tennis, bike rentals, walking trails, picnic shelters, playground and a beach; and Ramsey Creek Park, a 43-acre waterfront park with two large picnic shelters, a playground, volleyball courts, picnic facilities, fishing and boat slips. The brand-new, 18-acre, town-owned Torrence Chapel Park features ball fields, tennis courts, jogging trails, basketball and picnic shelters.

Of the three North Meck towns, Davidson has been most resistant to Lake Norman growth.
The town is named for Gen. William Lee Davidson, a local Revolutionary War hero who died in the battle of Cowans Ford in 1781 and the namesake of Davidson College, the town’s small liberal arts school founded in 1837 by the Presbyterians.

Still a college town that locals often call a village, Davidson embraces a Main Street, know-your-neighbors way of life. Many folks have lived here for decades, while others have moved here for the small-town atmosphere, tranquility and easygoing pace.

While Huntersville and Cornelius experienced massive growth in the 1990s, Davidson grew by just over 3,000 residents. Today the small college town has just over 7,500 residents.

Across the three-town area in North Mecklenburg, planners have struggled to manage growth and provide services while preserving the warmth and small-town charm that attracts new citizens.

Area residents can now take advantage of the $56 million Presbyterian Hospital Huntersville, on N.C 73 at I-77.
The boom in population has been music to the ears of homebuilders and real estate agents. Newcomers can choose from a broad range of home styles and prices in gated communities, family-friendly neighborhoods with sidewalks and bike trails, waterfront condominium communities with boat slips or spacious luxury apartments.

Many neighborhoods offer private golf facilities and amenities such as a residents’ club or country club that offers swimming, tennis and dining facilities. These include The Peninsula Club in Cornelius, River Run Country Club in Davidson, and NorthStone Club in Huntersville.

Neotraditional neighborhoods sometimes referred to as “new urban design,” have recently become a trend in the Huntersville/Cornelius area. By combining homes, shops, service businesses and restaurants in a self-contained community linked by sidewalks and open green space, they offer a new twist on the village concept.

Birkdale Village on Sam Furr Road in Huntersville includes apartments and offices above boutiques, restaurants and national retailers such as Williams Sonoma, Gap, Talbot’s and Ann Taylor Loft. Live bands play on warm-weather weekend evenings, and parents from around the lake bring children to splash and play in the village square fountain. The Nantucket-style shopping center’s quaint Main Street is lined with locally owned stores, a pizza parlor, ice cream shop, wine room, a 16-screen stadium-seating movie theater, bookstores and clothing shops.

Above the retailers, The Apartments at Birkdale Village feature 45 different floor plans among 320 units, with everything from a loft to a three-bedroom with garage.

Birkdale Golf Club, part of a 600-home master-planned community in Huntersville that includes a residents’ club, has one of the best public courses in the state.