Press & Archive

Devotion in the News

For ninety years the estate has drawn the attention of newspaper writers, researchers, and eventually a Hollywood film crew. Two stories stand out: the scientists who lived here, and the summer Devotion appeared on screen.

From the Archive

Devotion in the papers

"The road winds alongside the Mitchell River. Fields of dry rye are along one side with pastureland on the other. A doe streaks through the undergrowth between the road and the river, two fawns trailing as best they can."
The Reynolds' Farm: Solitude, Sufficient
Winston-Salem Journal, September 24, 1976

"It is a scale model of Boulder Dam, and was designed and built by federal engineers to test out new theories about suspension dams and synchronous generators. John describes it as probably the biggest dam ever for the smallest lake."
Devotion Summons Up Memories of the Past
Winston-Salem Journal, August 20, 1972

Autumn view across the lake at Devotion, with the dam wall at left and the foothill ridgelines beyond — The view across the lake — the dam wall at left, autumn ridges and the Blue Ridge mountains mirrored in still water.

In the News — The Scientists

"It was here Reynolds came to think and read... The people who still live at Devotion joke that they are "mad scientists." They say they loved and respected Reynolds, and that he invited them to this rugged, isolated land in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains."
The Millionaire and the 'Mad Scientists'
The Charlotte Observer, January 15, 1995

Andrija Puharich at Devotion

After the deaths of Dick and Blitz Reynolds in 1964, the eldest son — Richard Joshua "Josh" Reynolds III, himself a scientist, philosopher, and poet — opened his portion of the estate to independent researchers. The best known was the physician and parapsychology researcher Andrija Puharich, who lived and worked at Devotion at Josh Reynolds' invitation until his death in 1995.^[6]

In January 1995, The Charlotte Observer devoted a Sunday feature to the arrangement under the headline "The Millionaire and the 'Mad Scientists'." The article described a remote mountain property where a tobacco heir funded unconventional inquiry, and the researchers who stayed on long after him.^[1]

A fuller account of the research years, including physicist Dr. Elizabeth Rauscher and William Van Bise, appears on the History of the Estate page.

Front page of The Charlotte Observer, January 15, 1995, featuring the article 'The Millionaire and the Mad Scientists' about Devotion — The Charlotte Observer, January 15, 1995 — Andrija Puharich Jr. pours his father's ashes into the Mitchell River at Devotion.

Josh Reynolds III and Andrija Puharich standing together outdoors at the Devotion estate — Josh Reynolds III (left) and Andrija Puharich at Josh's home on the estate.

Andrija Puharich standing on the wooden stairs of a rustic lodge at Devotion — Puharich on the lodge stairs.

Andrija Puharich standing on a plank bridge over a forest stream at Devotion — On a plank bridge over one of the estate's streams.

In the News — Movie Location

Devotion on screen: The Longest Ride

In the summer of 2014, the R. J. Reynolds Devotion estate served as a filming location for The Longest Ride, the Twentieth Century Fox adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel, directed by George Tillman Jr. and starring Scott Eastwood and Britt Robertson. The film opened nationwide on April 10, 2015.^[4]

Production crews worked across the Piedmont Triad and the northwestern foothills, and the Mitchell River valley at Devotion — its pastures, gravel roads, and weathered farm buildings — supplied the rural North Carolina landscape at the heart of the story. Scenes were shot at a restored farm on the estate, and a number of area residents appeared as background extras.^[5]

The following spring, the Foothills Arts Council marked the release with an "On Location" celebration in Dobson honoring the local farms, families, and extras who took part — a reminder that Devotion's working landscape, built to last in the 1930s, still reads on film eighty years later.^[5]

Film: The Longest Ride (2015)
Studio: Twentieth Century Fox
Director: George Tillman Jr.
Starring: Scott Eastwood, Britt Robertson
Source: Novel by Nicholas Sparks
Filmed: Summer 2014, Mitchell River valley

A still from The Longest Ride showing two characters at a lantern-lit table beside a mountain lake — A lakeside scene from the film — the still water and layered foothill mountains that made the valley a natural stand-in for the novel's setting.

A green and black Ford Model A parked beside a chestnut-sided, stone-footed estate building — Period automobiles staged against Devotion's original chestnut siding and fieldstone — the estate's 1930s buildings needed no set dressing.

A cream-colored vintage coupe framed through the open double doors of a Devotion outbuilding — Framed through the doors of one of the farm buildings during production days on the estate.

Cover of the Nicholas Sparks novel The Longest Ride — The 2013 Nicholas Sparks novel the film adapts — two love stories set in the rural North Carolina the estate provided.

References

Sources and citations

[1]"The Millionaire and the 'Mad Scientists'," The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, North Carolina — Sunday, January 15, 1995, page 8.
[2]"Devotion Summons Up Memories of the Past," Winston-Salem Journal, August 20, 1972.
[3]"The Reynolds' Farm: Solitude, Sufficient," Winston-Salem Journal, "The Home Place" section, September 24, 1976.
[4]"Parts of 'The Longest Ride' Filmed in the Triad," WFMY News 2, April 2015. wfmynews2.com
[5]"On Location party set at Dobson farm for The Longest Ride actors & background extras," Foothills Arts Council / Ray Publishing, April 10, 2015. raypublishing.wordpress.com
[6]"Andrija Puharich," Wikipedia. wikipedia.org