Susie and Ogden Lewis, New York City natives, love living in the Big Apple. The couple has an apartment near Hunter College which makes attending concerts at Lincoln Center or shows on and off Broadway an easy commute. What’s not to love? Yet nine years ago, the couple took a Southern swing to Fearrington Village, where they say they also had a marvelous time – so marvelous they bought a townhouse there. Ogden, a retired attorney, came to North Carolina to fulfill a long-held desire to teach. He found work as an adjunct professor at Duke University’s School of Law. Susie, who graduated from UNC after high school, came back to enjoy her alma mater and closer proximity to her North Carolina cousins, who hailed from Greensboro, where her grandparents were born.

For the Lewises, a townhouse at Fearrington Village provided the perfect contrast to the urban scene.

“North Carolina was for us a second home for the seven years we were here,” Susie said. “We never extricated ourselves from New York City. We came back in the summers and enjoyed renting a beach house on Long Island and catching up with our city friends.”

Now, though, they’ve returned to New York to stay, and they hope to find new owners who will love their townhome as much as they have. Fearrington’s bucolic setting, with its Belted Galloway cows grazing in the pastures at the entrance to the community against a backdrop of gently rolling woodlands, would be a draw for anyone. It also affords a perfect place for friends and family to visit. The Fearrington House Inn and Restaurant is always there for guests, weddings, corporate retreats and celebrations. Shops surrounding the inn offer home décor, garden treasures, books, a beer garden and other dining options. Services from salon to banking, real estate to spa are also available at Fearrington Village. “We made use of the beautiful Fearrington Inn – the food is divine and the rooms are beautiful,” Susie said. “We used the beautiful terrace on an April evening to entertain our Duke University lawyer friends. And I always loved the author signings at McIntyre’s.”

Swimming, bocce, croquet, parks for playing and relaxing, trails for hiking, jogging and biking lace through the historic Fitch farm from which Fearrington was created. And the clubs – bird watching, bridge, books, discussion, gourmet cooking, cycling, political, charitable – too many to list. Find your favorite at www.fearringtonvillage.com click on real estate, the community, groups and activities.

Another huge draw for residents at Fearrington is the Galloway Ridge retirement community which offers villa, apartment and continuing care options. At the entrance to Galloway Ridge are a Duke Primary Care Clinic and Duke Center for Living. These Duke facilities offer, respectively, a comprehensive internal medicine clinic and health and wellness classes and physical fitness programs tailored to individual goals. While some at Fearrington prefer patio homes or detached custom homes with yards or wooded landscapes, the Lewises chose the convenience of a townhouse.

“We found this lovely house that backed up to the woods and set about opening it up to those beautiful North Carolina woods,” Susie said.

They had new Andersen windows and doors installed – which opened up all the landscape to the front and back. They remodeled the back deck and added a Chinese fretwork railing – all visible from the living room of the townhouse, which, like all of the main rooms, sports new hardwood floors.

The dining room opens to the living room and kitchen – which has been remodeled with new recessed lighting and high-end appliances, including a black Dacor cooktop that disappears into the counter and doesn’t obstruct the view of the walled front garden with its stucco wall and creeping figs that remind the Ogdens of a garden in Tuscany. The kitchen also has a Bosch dishwasher, Sub-Zero refrigerator, Shaw farmhouse sink and a beautifully tiled floor.

They replaced fiberglass showers and re-floored the baths with Waterworks handmade tiles – white in the powder room and guest bathroom and soft pink/green mosaic floor in master bathroom. They also added two closets – one in the front hall for guest coats and another for cleaning supplies.

For more information about the Lewis’s 1,800-square-foot townhouse at 471 Beechmast, offered at $320,000, call listing agent Anne Cole of Prudential York Simpson Underwood at 919-960-8907.

For more information about building options at Fearrington, call 919-542-4000. Currently (as of August 6) there are homes ranging in price from $199,000 to $525,000 available at Fearrington. Custom home sites from $60,000 to $80,000 with home plans that would cost in the range of $350,000 to $450,000 are also available.

Sally Keeney can be reached at shkeeney@yahoo.com or 919-932-0879.