Old Marshall Jail Hotel, Bar and Zadie's Market and Restaurant
Back in 2016 Josh Copus (talented artist and potter) told my husband and me about an old jail he planned to renovate into a boutique hotel. Josh’s wife, Emily Copus, had opened a flower business (a business her great-grandfather had once been in), Carolina Flowers and they were living in historic Marshall, NC (20 minutes north of Asheville).
Closed in 2012, the jail was the longest operating jail in NC (116 years). Josh and Emily knew that a building that old in such a tiny town (population of less than 1,000 at the last census) would have a deep and long history for his neighbors, so, as a newcomer, he knew the most important first step in his planned renovation was to first get to know his neighbors and the history of the town and the jail. So he did what a potter knew how to do. He made bricks out of clay—right there at the busiest intersection in town—and invited anyone and everyone to stop by, meet him and stamp a message on a brick that Josh would then fire in a kiln and use in renovating and repairing the jail. He did this for months (if not years!) The day Dan and I made our bricks (see my Instagram post in October 2017), a Marshall native (and former deputy at the jail) finally succumbed to curiosity and stopped by the jail. Josh took all of us on a tour (pre-renovation), telling us of his plans and listening to the man’s stories of the jail.
For 5 years Dan and I have followed Josh’s work as he has painstakingly renovated the hotel doing most of the renovation work himself—to save money but also so that he could uncover and preserve as much history as he could. Old bed frames became roof tiles, iron jail mechanisms now hide the kitchen pantries. I had never thought about how much a jail could reveal about a community—what it valued, how the community did and did not look after each other—but, clearly, Josh had.
Meanwhile Emily Copus had also been investing in and learning about the community. She expanded her flower business into events and delivery and began planning a storefront (Carolina Flowers Mercantile). When the grand opening was disrupted by the pandemic she morphed her flower delivery service into a grocery delivery for local farmers and producers.
And now, finally—in the middle of a pandemic—the renovation is complete and Josh and Emily have opened the hotel, a bar, a deli and restaurant in the historic space. Emily has opened “Zadie’s Market and Deli” in the hotel and has collaborated with John Fleer, James Beard awarded Asheville chef, to also open a restaurant.
I greatly admire these two talented, tenacious young people and want to help them succeed by telling as many people as I can about their businesses, so I have rented out the entire hotel for the last Friday night in August (27th from 5-7pm) and have invited my fans to join me on the patio of the new hotel for a fun evening of music and food. If you can’t attend the gig, please make plans to stay at the hotel (or at least stop by for food and drink) at another time.
The patio Parker and I will be performing on (and you will be dining on) is partially made up of the bricks that Josh and the community made over the past 5 years (more bricks in the walls and front sidewalk…you can help us look for the bricks Dan and I made in 2017!). Pretty cool.
