Perched on Lookout Mountain in Northwest Georgia, McLemore is a master-planned golf and residential community with sweeping majestic views. Considered a golf treasure of the southeast, the McLemore Highlands Course is an award-winning, cliff-edge par 71 course re-imagined by Ree Jones and Bill Bergin. Ongoing construction will result in a second course, The Outpost, scheduled to open in early 2024 -- featuring five cliff-edge holes. Surrounded by numerous botanical and geological amenities, McLemore will also include a 200-plus room Curio Collection by Hilton hotel, conference center and spa. In keeping with the natural setting of the community, a selection of stone from Majestic Stone of Chattanooga, TN, was chosen for the design.
“At this point, we have supplied approximately 75,000 square feet of sawn thin veneer and an additional 800 tons of landscape stone,” said Patrick Wells, CEO of Majestic Stone. “On this project, they have used every color range of Tennessee flagstone and fieldstone we produce and supply -- from the grays and browns of our flagstone to the earthtone colors of our weathered fieldstone line.
“The importance of using natural stone was crucial to the design and feel of the community and resort,” Wells went on to say. “When you visit the resort, you feel the luxury, but you feel at home. The stone is timeless and feels like it’s always been there.”
According to Wells, the design objective was to reflect the surrounding environment. “While so much of design today is going to sleek and consistent lines, it was important to the owners and designers to marry that high-end feel with the natural stone that is produced from this area, which isn’t always perfect,” he said. “We typically try and cull out the extremes of the color ranges, but for this project, it was essential to the designers that we leave those extremes in. To them, they wanted the stone to come as it is quarried and produced.”
Among the challenges encountered were ones related to the fabrication elements of the job that Majestic Stone had never done before. “The designers wanted light boxes, electrical outlets -- all the small details on the job -- to blend with the natural stone,” explained Wells. “So they asked us to cut these. For those that have 5-axis saws, it is a simple job. But we do not. We had to rely on our existing equipment and a lot of hand labor to make these pieces. They have turned out great, and we have been pleased with the final products. This job has pushed us outside of our normal box and we are happy it did.”
Wells believes natural stone proved to be an ideal material for the project because of all the outdoor elements and geographical features on the existing site. “It would still be nice if something else was used, but I don’t think it would feel apart of the landscape like it does now,” he said.
Majestic Stone joined forces with distributor Acme Brick, Tile & Stone to supply the material for this job. “Without them, we could not have managed a job of this size,” he said. “A strong distributor is essential to navigating a project with so many moving parts and multiple projects going on within the same overall project. Right now, we are supplying stone to five different houses, while also supplying material for the hotel itself. It takes a large team to manage a project like this, and we are very thankful for the strong partnership we have with them.”
