Friends I need your help. Stokes residents please email Kyle.Hall@ncleg.net or call 919-733-5609 and Joyce.Krawiec@ncleg.gov or call (919) 733-7850 and tell them to put money in the Cultural Resources budget to save the buildings at Vade Mecum (hotel, chapel and gym). If you live outside of Stokes, you can find your NC legislators by address look up – https://www.ncleg.gov/FindYourLegislators
The state park system received the property in 2014 and it has remained closed ever since. Why? They say they are going to have an event center, but the construction bid process never starts. We pay vendors for a strategic plan but the general public sees no large scale construction, just fabric samples and huge orange X’s painted on our beloved cabins. When will the construction start? When will Vade Mecum open? Is the state parks waiting for the historic mineral springs hotel to collapse? If we wait any longer, that is exactly what is going to happen. There literally won’t be anything worth saving. 
Please join me in saying we want our state park open! 10 years is too long to wait.
<I have mad respect for the HARO staff and the folks working to make this happen. My goal is to put pressure on our legislators to give the parks the $ we need to renovate VM and open it NOW! Second goal is to light a fire to get those construction bids out that I was told would happen this past fall.>
Below is a sample letter written by Judge Manning to Kyle Hall.
Please feel free to use it as inspiration. Write or call and speak from your heart about why Vade Mecum’s historic buildings need to be saved NOW!
It is my understanding you and the Budget Committee are hard at work on many important projects that will benefit all grateful North Carolinians. Not the least of these included are the 800 acres of forests and historic buildings that have graced this Stokes County property across three centuries. Now a part of Hanging Rock State Park near Danbury, just north of Winston-Salem, the old Vade Mecum preserve was once a town, a mineral resort and even the winter quarters of the Sparks Circus.
Today, it’s hotel, gymnasium and chapel, all significant structures, are in jeopardy. Together with its streams, forests and meadows, the Vade Mecum preserve should be funded sufficiently to make it a vital part of the allure of the state park. The hotel can become a magnet for year-round guests. The cabins surrounding Moore’s Knob and Hanging Rock are always booked from start to finish of tourist season. As the area in the Triad continues to spread and welcome more inhabitants and tourists, food and shelter at this historic hotel will be vital to the success of the great state park in which it is located. The gym has always been a magnet for area and regional events. After renovation, it could become home to The North Carolina Music Festival. That would be another feather in the cap of North Carolina as Variety Vacationland.
Please fund this unique place in the heart of North Carolina and its Saura Mountains. This is the time when it is possible to achieve. We appear to have the necessary funding to make it all that it has the potential to be. I hope you and members of the Budget Committee will embrace it. It is certain to blossom and be a favorite place within our great state.
Thank you!
Judge Howard Manning
