01/02/2025
Happy new year from Lazy Otter Outfitters! We hope you had a good holiday season, and some relief from the stressful and, for many, tragic fall following the storm. Our family was fortunate to be unharmed, and we’re very grateful.
However, we have news to share about the future of Lazy Otter Outfitters. We (meaning Matt and Leslie, the founders of Lazy Otter) will not be opening the outfitter for the 2025 season or beyond. This is not related to the storm, which while doing some minor damage and flooding to our property, actually left us relatively unscathed compared to some of our fellow riverside outfitters. Instead, an unexpected professional opportunity that we have accepted will make it impossible for us to run the outfitters ourselves as we have in the past. We had been hoping that Henderson County would want to purchase our property for the public to provide much-needed Ecusta Trail parking and continued river access, but unfortunately county commissioners seem uninterested in pursuing that opportunity.
That could be great news for someone, though! We are hoping to find a new operator to continue providing access for the public to what we think is one of the prettiest stretches of the river. That could be someone who wants to purchase Lazy Otter Outfitters itself and continue with its existing operation while leasing the property from us, or an established outfitter that would buy our kayaks and such and then lease the property while operating under their own name. We’re open to suggestions and other ideas!
Lazy Otter is located in Horse Shoe, NC, in an excellent location sandwiched between the French Broad River and the new Ecusta Trail greenway, with about ⅓ of a mile of frontage on each. The stretch of the greenway passing by us is the prettiest of the whole 20 miles, we dare say, where the pavement will run far away from any roads and right alongside the river. We think it will make a popular destination for trail users coming from both the Hendersonville and Brevard ends, and we have lots of ideas for how to capitalize on that traffic when it arrives. Based on the current timeline for construction, we would expect it to be a few years before the Ecusta Trail is complete by our location. That will give a new operator time to get going in the paddle business before the trail business begins to pick up.
Specific terms are negotiable of course, but we would take into account both the trail timeline and the need for some cleanup and minor repairs at the property before it would be ready for customers again. So for someone willing to put in some elbow grease, it would be a great opportunity to get started in an exciting and fun business with a minimal financial investment.
Anyone interested in talking about the opportunity with us can email [email protected]. If you know someone who might be interested, please share this post with them or put them in touch with us. We hope to have an idea of the likelihood of finding an appropriate tenant in plenty of time for them to get ready for a hopefully great 2025 season!
And to the paddlers we’ve hosted since 2016, some of whom come back year after year to enjoy a special part of the river, we thank you! We’re hopeful that everyone will be able to continue enjoying the Undiscovered French Broad with Lazy Otter for years to come!
