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In this episode, Steve shares about his family’s life in Atlanta and the value shift that brought them to the country full time.
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Steve’s early career was in hospitality and in 1972, he opened the Pleasant Peasant, which became a restaurant corporation that grew to 34 restaurants in eight states by the time he departed in 1994. Steve and his wife, Marie, retired to a farm just outside Atlanta with their three daughters and six years later, he became concerned about urban sprawl invading their adopted country paradise.
Sometimes the groove we’re in is actually a rut. That’s how Steve Nygren describes his feelings when he decided to step off the corporate treadmill and make the move to Chattahoochee Hill Country. Before Serenbe’s homes, shops, restaurants and events, there was the discovery of open, rolling hills and a 1904 farmhouse. In this episode, Steve shares about his family’s life in Atlanta and the value shift that brought them to the country full time. Steve also discusses opening a bed & breakfast during the 1996 Olympics, now known as The Inn at Serenbe.
What did a typical day, week, or month look like for you and your family living in the heart of the city in Atlanta, Georgia?
What made you move to Serenbe full time?
What are your days like in Serenbe?
What influenced you to turn the farmhouse into a bed and breakfast?
What did Richard Louv’s book “Last Child In The Woods” mean to you?
Georgia Preservation Newsletter, Historic Register
Marie Nygren
Margaret Lupo
Monica Olsen (1s): Hey guys, it's Monica here. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast that I've started with my very good friend, Jennifer Walsh called Biophilic Solutions. Our last season of Serenbe Stories, Building a Biophilic Movement, was so popular that we decided to dedicate an entire podcast to it every other week. Jennifer and I will sit down with leaders in the growing field of biophilia. We'll talk about local and global solutions to help nurture their living social and economic systems that we all need to sustain future generations more often than not. Nature has the answers. You can find Biophilic Solutions on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and follow us today so you don't miss an episode.
Monica Olsen (41s): All right, now let's get back to Serenbe Stories. Serenbe is a place where people live, work, learn, and play in celebration of life's beauty And we're here to share the stories that connect residents and guests to each other and to nature. This is Serenbe Stories.
Intro Music (1m 17s): <Intro music>
Monica Olsen (1m 22s): Steve, welcome back.
Steve Nygren (1m 24s): Thank you.
Monica Olsen (1m 24s): This is our second episode. And last time we talked about what is Serenbe today and you were great. You shared about sort of what we can do here, what we could see, the general experience, how you can stay at Serenbe. And I felt like it was a really great overview and an invitation for people to sort of come and experience it themselves.
Steve Nygren (1m 42s): I love remembering some of the stories.
Monica Olsen (1m 44s): So Steve, take me back. It's 1994. Is that when you bought the farm?
Steve Nygren (1m 50s): No, it was 1991.Monica Olsen (1m 51s):Okay, so let's start here back in 1991. Steve, tell me about your life in Atlanta. What did a typical sort of day or week or month look like for you and your family living in the heart of the city of Atlanta, Georgia?
Steve Nygren (2m 6s): So in 1991, I was the active hospitality guy in Atlanta. I had moved to Atlanta in 1969, initially Stouffer's food corporation moved me here. I had started with Stouffer's while in college and went into their corporate training and then management and I was part of their hotel opening team. And I came here to open a hotel, fell in love with Atlanta, decided to step off the corporate treadmill and opened my own restaurant in 73. At that time, we were real leaders in fresh food, in casual atmosphere.
Steve Nygren (2m 48s): And so I had built that. And in 1991, I was in that continued path of building that as a restaurant company in various states, we'd become known as the people that would come into areas that were, had seen their heyday at, at other times or progressing areas. So we were the first restaurant in several of the old downtowns that had had white flight in the sixties and were sort of boarded up. When they renovated or decided to bring back Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol we were one of the first five restaurants that they got to open there.
Steve Nygren (3m 30s): And, and that was the place you couldn't walk. So we were, we were really doing great fun, progressive things. Life was, was very fulfilling. We were, we were recognized as a leader in the food industry. We were a company that were giving women and gays equal pay and equal rights at a time that that was not a focus in the seventies and eighties. And so we were held up as a, is a really thoughtful company in my last years I was around. Around that time we had 6,000 W2's in a year.
Steve Nygren (4m 13s) :So we, we were running a major restaurant corporation. We had a beautiful house in Ansley Park. Ansley is one of the in-town neighborhoods that was built in the early 19 hundreds, and then had sort of after World War II had gone down and it was coming back up and we were part of that. And in restoring a house that during the war had been turned into seven apartments and we brought it back to its original single family home. We put in one of the most gorgeous pools and gardens designed by Ryan Gainey and he put various trees and things that would mature in time for our daughter's wedding. And when you consider two of the girls were born in the house, so this was, you know, this was our house forever.
Steve Nygren (5m 3s): If you will. Th th that we had, I could walk to restaurants and the high museum and symphony hall on one side, which was two blocks. We were three blocks away from the botanical garden and Piedmont park where I met people in jog every morning. Life was about as perfect as I thought it could be. And my wife saw on the back of the Georgia preservation newsletter, that there was a historic farm for sale just south of the airport and having children three, five, and seven. It's always nice to find fun things to do. And the idea of taking them to the country to see farm animals would be fun.
Steve Nygren (5m 46s): And, and I was curious if there was open land, really 20 minutes Southwest of the airport, because being very urban people this point, I couldn't imagine that there was open land. I opened a, the first restaurant in Roswell in 75. And there was a lot of open land between Atlanta and Roswell in 75. And by 1991, all that land was urban Atlanta. And so I was very curious that, that there was land Southwest of the city. It was still open. And were they just saying that? So I called the owner and clarified that we weren't interested in buying anything but shared with him that we had the children and ask about if they had animals in their barnyard.
Steve Nygren (6m 41s): And so anyone with something for sale of course has come on, right? And so we arrived that Saturday and they had the Shetland pony set and we bought the farm. Now I had no idea while I was doing it, but this is one of the first things about following your emotions rather than your logical mind. Now, number one of them emotionally, I was pleasing the four females in my life. So, you know, that th th th that was enough to, to, to prod me on. And my logical mind said, well, Hey, it's in the past, is this close to Atlanta is going to have higher value. It's, you know, prime for development one day.
Steve Nygren (7m 22s): And I imagined that we might come down a couple Saturday afternoons, and I imagined that we would buy a little pony for the kids. In fact, I tried buying the pony along with the farm, and they, they had a grandchild at that time, so they weren't willing to negotiate that. And so it was just one of those, those things we'd literally did on a whim. And they knew someone that wanted to rent the main house out. So I is, I was looking to that afternoon, all the logical reasons why we shouldn't buy it, they were helping us come up with all the solutions to those problems that I saw.
Monica Olsen (8m 4s): As a good seller would.
Steve Nygren (8m 5s): So, so we rented the main house out, and there was a shack that had been built in 1940 for farm laborers. It was in disrepair. And my wife said she would fix that in case we ever wanted to spend the night on one of those Saturdays that we were down. Well, she fixed it. And to my surprise, the family, I wanted to come every weekend to squeeze into this little two bedroom, one bath house, where we had no toys except a puzzle for rainy days. And they chose to come to the farm for a week instead of going to Disney world. And so doing that every weekend for three years was a real value shift for me.
Steve Nygren (8m 49s): What was really important? We had, what I thought was the ideal life. We were making changes in the inner city. We were regardless as a very responsible company, we had tremendous culture. I had employees that had been with me since the first restaurant. And so life seemed about as perfect as it could get. I was on various boards locally and nationally. I was on doing all the right things for the arts and for the balls for diseases. And, and, you know, we, my wife had, you know, the gallons to go to these parties and we had it just, I can't think of anything that from the lens that we had o success that we were missing, and yet where we found that really wonderful thing that really fed our souls rather than our ego, as I look back at it, it was the time here in the nature.
Steve Nygren (9m 51s): And it was during those times that Marie named the farm, because we found when we could slow down to simply be, we were finding that serenity. We were finding that thing I think that we're all searching for, even if we can't name it. And so this land and became Serenbe before there was anything other than the land and our shack and, and the old 1904 farm.
Monica Olsen (10m 22s): Right. So tell me a little bit about that. So it was 1904 farm. You saw it on the historic register, it became yours. So for three years you came down on weekends, but what made you come down full time?
Steve Nygren (10m 36s): So as a kid who grew up on the farm, I could hardly wait to run away from it as far as I could and get into what I thought was successful, whatever the profession was. And then when I had that successful company and that successful career, and we brought our kids out, I watched them connect to nature, but more importantly, it pulled me back into the real values of that connection to nature. And that was part of that value shift. It wasn't just the importance of nature, but in the city, we had literally everything money could buy and it wasn't, we were unhappy with it, but there was just a difference in what we were experiencing as a family union and what I was experiencing as an individual, when we connected to nature without any organized plan or schedule.
Steve Nygren (11m 35s): And thinking about that over the three years, initially, not consciously. And it, I found that I was increasingly irritated on the Sunday nights that stretched to Monday mornings, that I was returning to this lifestyle that I had perceived as total success.
Monica Olsen (12m 1s): Right.
Steve Nygren (12m 2s): And it was that slow drip of three years, 900, and some days that one day at a time, I can't remember just exactly, but there was that build until there was a Monday morning that we were driving back into the city and to set things, I had sold part of my company to finance the growth. And there was an option on the table to sell the balance of it because they were going public covered on public.
Steve Nygren (12m 42s): Ah, this was a January following a big political season that November. And we'd had a lot of political parties, especially for the mayor of Atlanta. My candidate had not won. And I was feeling bruised on that. You can have different political opinions, but there were some real moral issues on that race and friends and business associates were divided. And I was having trouble resolving that in my mind. And just several things, both business-wise, I was not enjoying. Suddenly I realized the running a big company, the travel schedule we were in, you know, while a lot of times, because we were on the east coast, I could fly out early in the morning and be back to at least tuck the kids in for bed.
Steve Nygren (13m 38s): But I just wasn't getting that much enjoyment. And, and I was serving on boards, but it felt like I was just putting in my time and we weren't doing anything. So all of this was kind of stirring at me, different levels. And then on Monday morning, after having just this wonderful, peaceful walking in the woods, sitting by the stream, just our family, we were driving back and I was a little irritated about going back. Maybe not really admitting it to myself, but I could feel that irritation. And suddenly, as we were driving down, I 85 into the city, there was this cloud cover that was worse than I remembered it being.
Steve Nygren (14m 19s): It was one of those mornings that I think there was high alert you had to do there. I said, why I don't have to do this, right. I have an opportunity to sell the company. I know I could sell the house because there were a lot of political people said, if you ever want to sell that over at these parties, let me know. And you know, w why am I spending all this time going to boards? Right? And so I went back and we started making the calls. That was a January. By May I had completed this sale, the balance of the company. We had sold the house to someone who had been at one of those political fundraisers. I turned resignations into most of the boards, except like for the Midtown Alliance, which I was, you know, a sort of key piece of making it, what it was, I'll be on that, I think for life.
Steve Nygren (15m 8s): But, but it was, it was just such a freeing. And I hadn't even realized I was burdened. And, but by doing that, it was just freeing for me. And, and, and that was, that opened my eyes to some times, sometimes the groove that we think we're in is actually a rut. And it was that jarring Monday morning that I was able to identify the rut I was in. And so that really changed. And I had no intention of doing anything except retiring.
Monica Olsen (15m 46s): Right. Which you did.
Steve Nygren (15m 49s): Yeah, just totally retired. And, and luckily at a young enough age, I was successful enough that I was able to do that. And I was, I believe I was 49. And to retire in still, even on the last year of your forties, you know, I felt great success. And at that point, because of the sale of the company, I had no debt on anything.
Monica Olsen (16m 14s): It's incredible.
Steve Nygren (16m 15s): We still had investments because I didn't sell the land in, in Midtown that w how some of our restaurants in the corporate office building and all that. So not only were we successful in selling it, we had a steady, real estate income coming in. And I was about as perfect a life as you could have.
Monica Olsen (16m 33s): So what was that like? So you came down and what were your days like at that point you're hugely successful, 35 restaurants flying all over and serving on boards. And now it's the woods in you and your kids and your family.
Steve Nygren (16m 49s): Well, I think most people find that time is like a bucket of water. Your time is absorbed. It's the quality of what that time is. Now that first year was very involved because suddenly we had a construction project. We were restoring the 1904 home for our permanent house. And the three years that we, this was weekends, we had fixed the 1940s barn into a three bedroom, four bath guest house for all of our city friends that wanted to spend the night when they came down for dinner. And I tried hard to figure out how to connect to the old farmhouse to that barn, maybe 75 feet from the house.
Steve Nygren (17m 35s): And I just, we just couldn't find working with an architect, a logical connection that worked. And so we started actively renovating the house to, to, to fit some of the things that we wanted. And so, you know, it was, it was the big summer living room with screen porch. And, and we had these wonderful daybeds the, that hung under the fan and on the screen porch. And that, that those two rooms are now what is the Farmhouse Restaurant. But that was one of our first additions. And then we added three bedrooms for the girls because we had squeezed in to the farmhouse. And Garnie our oldest daughter, her bedroom was a closet literally.
Steve Nygren (18m 17s): And Kara, our middle daughter had a little lean to, and the three of them had decided to give Quinn the one bedroom, but they had a reason for it. She could have all the toys. So they each had private private spaces, even. Yeah. So there were small, but Quinn Quinn being the youngest, didn't quite realize the bonus. She got also meant that she didn't have it. She was the playroom, it was the playgroup. And, and so our first task was, or the next task then was to add an addition. And if, if, if you visit the end that's rooms, two, three, and four, and they are the exact footprint.
Steve Nygren (19m 1s): And so the girls then got to design it, but it was the exact closet, the exact bathroom. And then they made decisions like who had bookshelves and where they were and built a desk or thing it was, that was, that was great. And then we, of course, didn't have a pool anymore. And so then Ryan Gainey,
Monica Olsen (19m 22s):It's hot in Atlanta.
Steve Nygren (19m 24s): We just did. So we were trying to do it to, to replace some of the key things that we really had in the city. Some of the, you know, basic, you know, th this wasn't a restricted lifestyle. Sure. That wasn't what it was, it was the connection to nature. So we were putting some of these things back. And so Ryan Gainey, who had built our, or designed our gardens in the city was very upset that we were leaving. But finally, we coached in men to designing gardens for us here. And so we put in the retaining walls, you see today for the big pool, of course, the pool in those days had a diving board slide. It, it w we've had to calm it down now that it is a facility for the Inn. And so we, we put the pool in and we put the garden in, and Ryan had had hand sketched, interestingly, the person who was interning with him or following him to Europe was Keith Summerour before Keith was the famous architect that he is today.
Monica Olsen (20m 20s): I didn't know that.
Steve Nygren (20m 20s): So he hand sketched Ryan's ideas on the garden, and you'll see that sketch is framed and hanging at the end now of Keith Summerour colored by Ryan Gainey. And of course it was a free hand and as I, with a helper was putting this garden in, we staked it and had to figure out all these angles. I cussed Ryan and Keith because he hand drawing that you're trying to bring back to an extra garden garden is something else. So it was manual labor. I was out here manual labor, if you see pictures of me then I was in great shape.
Steve Nygren (21m 1s): I was tan and my days were occupied. So those first two years we were, you know, overseeing the construction of the house, putting in the pools. And in that time period, my mother-in-law sold Mary Mac's. A lot of people don't realize that she owned Mary Mac's and decided to come down. And so we built her the four bedroom house because she had was the primary caregiver for an older sister. And so we had the two of them and a caregiver. And that is today, the lake house that you see as the lake house. So those first years were very occupied with projects, right? To, to create our own world down here in, in this, this area we'd found.
Steve Nygren (21m 45s): And, and then, you know, the next year is we're cutting trails. And w we, we bought the additional land and it was figuring out how to connect those trails. And I had a Massey Ferguson.
Monica Olsen (21m 58s): And what is that? A Massey Ferguson?
Steve Nygren (21m 60s): A Massey Ferguson is a tractor, a big, heavy duty. And it was a used tractor when I went down and had a big steel plate. And it was just, you could do anything with it. And so I would, I would go out and I would cut crawl trees and tie red ribbons on it. So I could see where it was. Cause he would just dance. You couldn't walk through the briars and everything. And so I would get out there. And so then a lot of the paths we have today, or paths that I made while I was out on my Massey Ferguson. And if I would, you know, you get to the streams, there was no way out sometimes. And so I would just take off all my clothes time and the ball walked down the stream. It was so remote. You didn't worry about running into anybody. So this was a very different lifestyle and place.
Steve Nygren (22m 41s): You know, this is almost 30 years ago.
Monica Olsen (22m 43s): The next time I run Cedar Creek, I've got that image.
Steve Nygren (22m 48s): And so life, life was, was pretty great. And then as we had the garden, we, you know, that was, that occupies your time in, especially in the spring and the, and, and the fall and, and, and the girls who are used to going out and harvesting things for dinner. And, and it,
Monica Olsen (23m 5s): It sounds lovely.
Steve Nygren (23m 7s): You know, we, we, we had the chicken coop, so you collected the eggs. We, we started populating with the farm animals, my ideas, and we were going to grow our own protein. And it was been our be organic, but of course the girls started naming the animals. So we have yet to send them to the dinner plate, but that was a great idea.
Monica Olsen (23m 27s): I feel better about the animal village, knowing they're just pets.
Steve Nygren (23m 31s): So we have all these, these pets down there by name, stuff like that. That life was, was I gone from this perfect corporate engaged city life to then what was this wonderful life in the country? And I'm thoroughly enjoying that. So I was looking for not a change. So, so the, these 90 degree turns that I've had in my life have not been things that I've sought out. It's, it's, it's not, and I'm just going to say opportunity, but really they weren't even opportunities. It, it was obvious a change in direction.
Steve Nygren (24m 13s): And luckily I had the courage each time to step into that unknown period. And, you know, if I had been a person that, that diverted from fear or change course, because of fear, I probably wouldn't have done any of those things. I would have still been working for Stouffer's opening hotels and restaurant, of course, then they sold it and became strictly the frozen food folks. So where would I be? I'd be working for some sold lock companies, so you know.
Monica Olsen (24m 39s): I guess you could have been the frozen food king. But I want to go back to the farmhouse and I want to find out what influenced you to sort of consider an actually turning it into a bed and breakfast. 96 Atlanta had the Olympics. And I, and I believe like in about 20 minutes here, which I think is the boot cart farm now was where they did. Is that right? Or is it somewhere else that they did all the Olympics equestrian? Is that correct? Or
Steve Nygren (25m 5s): So 96 was, was big time. No, the, the Canadian team and one or two divisions from the American team, equestrian team trained at Chappaquasic, what was then Chappaquasic. And it's now a private farm, but Chappaquasic, it has one of the most beautiful stables right on the Chattahoochee river and it is a gorgeous horse farm. And so they were there. And because Atlanta was just so excited about the Olympics and it was great fun because that, of course I was head of the convention bureau about the time all this lead up was dating.
Steve Nygren (25m 46s): And so, so I really felt connected to that, but here I stepped away by the time the Olympics actually came, but we decided this was a great time to have a bed and breakfast. Now, here again, there was a logical time to it because I, I mentioned the, the, the shack that we fixed for our weekends and, and then the 1940s barn for, for friends. So when we had moved into the main house, we had these two great cottages and I found we had more friends than I realized. We, we, we, we had an artist in New York who called and wanted to come out for a week. It was the garbage strike in New York, and she I'd love to paint the farm animals.
Steve Nygren (26m 27s): And four months later, she was still in, in the guest house and a cousin was the midst of a divorce. And so I suggested she come walk the trails and calm down and I imagined that should be there for a week or two and three months later, she was still walking the trails, in the cottage. So when they had both left, I realized we had to control this somehow. And a friend said, well, why don't you post bed breakfast rates? And then people will get the idea. They're going to get a bill if they stay over the invitation. And I decided it was a great idea. And so we posted bed and breakfast rates and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution did a whole story that they had found where the Nygrens had disappeared to.
Steve Nygren (27m 8s): We were running a bed and breakfast on the edge of Atlanta. And so people would call and, you know, we only had the two buildings and, and it was just Friday and Saturday nights maybe. And they would come into our main screen porch, never come into the main house for breakfast. Then they had to bring their food to cook, or we told them restaurants in Newnan that they could go to. And, and so it was, it was very, you know, compared to today, it was, it was what I call a hobby business. If you were here in the summer chances, you know, Marie would cook breakfast and I might serve it in my bare feet or, or the girls would serve. And one summer they decided that they could make money by offering dinner.
Steve Nygren (27m 49s): And so they started and that, that whole summer, and it was their total business. And, and they did very well. In fact, I believe Garnie used that money as a down payment for first car in college. And so there's lots of stories. And I think Kara, you know, had that money until just after she was married and, and use that. So they made good money that summer by serving a restaurant. So it was a, again, we, it was a fun time we were having.
Monica Olsen (28m 20s): Wow. That's great. It's giving me some good ideas. Maybe I can inspire my kids to take a job at the farmhouse one summer. So there's a book by a gentleman and author Richard Louv called Last Child in the Woods that we talk about a lot here. But before you knew who he was, I heard that there was a story that either you or Marie, your wife had read a review in the New York times book review. And can you sort of tell me a little bit about that and what that sort of meant to you?
Steve Nygren (28m 49s): Yes, it was when we moved out here, our circle of friends, people, parents at the school thought we were absolutely crazy. They could not understand why we were picking up our family from what appeared to be a, an ideal life convenient to so many things that we think we worry about. And we were coming out here to what they considered the sticks. And I mean, they really questioned our parenting skills or our decisions. And we were just confident that this is what we were doing. I just felt it. And so when Richard Lou wrote the book, and now this is 11 years ago, so let's see, that was, I forget how many years after we had moved here, we had three different people who mentioned it.
Steve Nygren (29m 42s): Someone sent us the book. And so suddenly they were understanding why we had made the decision. Now, I had never been able to put our decision into logical words. It just was something I felt. And so I sent Richard a note and said, thank you for giving voice in word to what we intuitively knew and shared with him, our story of having moved the family full-time in 94 to raise them in connecting to nature and what a difference that I could see it had made, and that they were at that point in high school and launching, you know, and they, they, they had a self-confidence that part of that I identified with that logical mind development that Richard talks about by being able to connect to natural nature without a hovering parent.
Steve Nygren (30m 40s): And so Richard responded back and thanking me and suggested that I might want to come to one of their nature connections. And so I attended, and I was a unique person because at that point we'd started Serenbe. And I was a developer showing up in a group of primarily parent teachers, camp leaders, nature advocates. And so there was a curiosity as to why I was there and gradually, you know, I think that first I was, I was invited to sit with rich at lunch table one day.
Steve Nygren (31m 24s): He wanted to know why I was there and that started a friendship that lasts to this day. It was about the point that they decided to make these gatherings more formal and to start actual conferences. And they were moving forward with a lot of things with the group, their natural leaders program, which had been a piece of it. And so rather than just a gathering, it started becoming more formal. And they were bringing on a different executive director.
Steve Nygren (32m 3s): And the group asked me to then go on the board. And so I became quite involved in, in all the incredible things dealing with, with connecting children primarily to nature, but how important it is, no matter what your age is to connect to nature and the benefits for it. And I have just completed two years as chairman of the board. It's now an international organization. And so one never knows where a little note of appreciation will lead, but that's the relationship with Richard Louv and Last Child in the Woods. His second book, the Nature Principal actually talks about Serenbe as being one of those examples to where children can live in nature.
Steve Nygren (32m 49s): And some of the things we can do. Today, we're in our second round of grants, working with the league of cities to actually create examples within our urban cities that can change policy so that we're creating places for people, especially in the inner city to connect in a more natural way to the natural environment.
Monica Olsen (33m 16s): That's great. So here you are, you bought the farmhouse, never thinking you would move full time, let alone build Serenbe, but we're going to have to save that story for another episode. So thank you, Steve.
Steve Nygren (33m 28s): And it shows you, if you just have the courage to go through the unknown door, it can lead to incredible richness that you would never guess. Not to say there are few pits of mud between you and the other place when you look through that threshold, but this has been a great story and love sharing it.
Monica Olsen (33m 55s): Thank you for listening to Serenbe Stories. New episodes are available on Mondays. You can subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts. For more details, visit our website, serenbestories.com.
Outro Music (34m 4s): <Outro Music>.
CREDITS:
Host & Executive Producer: Monica Olsen
Managing Editor: Janet Marie Gunnels
Producer: Stevie Seay
Associate Producer: Caleb Britt
Logo Artwork: Alycia Griesi
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Steve’s early career was in hospitality and in 1972, he opened the Pleasant Peasant, which became a restaurant corporation that grew to 34 restaurants in eight states by the time he departed in 1994. Steve and his wife, Marie, retired to a farm just outside Atlanta with their three daughters and six years later, he became concerned about urban sprawl invading their adopted country paradise.
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