Ghost Stories & Unspoken Wishes

As we’ve said before, the greatest part of Serenbe is ultimately the people who live, work, play and visit our community. We love highlighting the incredible work our residents do, so this week Serenbe Stories featured our neighbor Gemmie Dayrit, who has worked with traveling museum exhibitions throughout Asia and the U.S., including iconic shows RMS Titanic and Bodies: The Exhibition. Her specialty is curating museum gift shops, and she recently launched Wild Tribe Productions that is also creating pop-up retail experiences. How cool, right?

You’re probably wondering how Gemmie made her way from working and traveling around the world to settling down in Georgia. During her interview, she explains how she was visiting New York for a work trip and was staying in a hotel, that later she finds out might be haunted. Gemmie was in her room preparing for a night out taking a quick nap, when the TV in her room suddenly turned on. Trying to add logical explanation, she assumed she sat on the remote but looked up to find it sitting on top of the TV. She then thought she saw a shadow figure walk by and even experienced the TV turning on again! Feeling very uneasy, Gemmie called the front desk and requested a new room on a different floor. To help calm her nerves, she retreated to the hotel bar and befriended the bartender, who was raving about this place called Serenbe that was in the New York Times. This struck her curiosity, and later when a friend mentioned moving to Serenbe, her interest led her to a visit, which eventually led to a full-time move. Isn’t it funny where life takes you!

Gemmie has lived in Serenbe for almost 5 years now. She expresses how she is a naturally shy, introverted person but was immediately welcomed into the community. One of her first experiences was at an Art Farm event with spoken word poet (and 10th Poet Laureate of Oregon) Anis Mojgani, who’s words truly touched Gemmie’s heart. She had never heard spoken word before and expressed how this event was the seed of falling in love with Serenbe. “I just remember not even listening to the words he was saying and how he was saying them, but just looking at the faces of the people with the reflection of the bonfire. It was just like ‘God, I like these people. I like it here.’ It's different, you know? It felt really sincere. And it felt really real to me. And it was exactly I think, at the time, what I needed. And of course like life, it tumbled through, and got more and more awesome, and I made friends. And it was, not to sound too dramatic, but absolutely being sincere, it was a new awakening for me to find this place, in so many ways,” says Gemmie.

From that moment on, Gemmie continued to open her to heart to the community and made long-lasting friendships. She and resident Kristin Genet worked together this past year to run a pop up shop at Serenbe, and together launched their Wild Tribe pop-up retail company. She says, “it was fascinating to work with someone so creative and see it come to fruition”. They became really good friends through Gemmie’s passion for history and Kristin’s German background. For Gemmie, being a part of Serenbe means being part of a deep connection of people, or “finding your tribe”, and this was the inspiration behind Wild Tribe Productions.

Gemmie expressed that she has definitely found her people since moving to Serenbe, so much so that she has even been named Godparent for Garnie Nygren’s oldest son, Stevie. She said when Garnie first mentioned it to her, she wasn’t sure how formal the role was, and see’s it as a huge honor. Gemmie says, “these roots that are being planted for me here at Serenbe. I feel like I’ve fallen into a different dimension in many ways”. We love that you’ve joined us on your journey.

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