Light in the Woods

This must be the place. The driveway opens to a flower garden popping with bright dahlias, and giant white hydrangeas frame a clapboard farmhouse. The first time Dave Dawson and his wife, Jennifer, saw the dwelling, tucked beneath a split-rail-fenced meadow in Cashiers, North Carolina, alongside fern-lined creeks, it reminded them both of childhood summers—hers spent camping with family around Northern California, and his with Grandma “Tink.”