Roger and Sheila Meyer have found their Shangri-La. After enjoying a second home at Reynolds Lake Oconee for nearly seven years, they’ve now permanently traded the hustle and bustle, and the traffic of Atlanta, for a place they simply call “relaxing and beautiful.”
“Reynolds is a safe, fun environment – beautiful, peaceful, and quiet,” Sheila said. “The traffic in Atlanta seemed to obstruct everything we wanted to do.”
The Meyers, who have been for married 15 years, had made several visits in the early 2000s to the area, always staying at The Ritz-Carlton Reynolds, Lake Oconee. During one getaway, while waiting in the lobby for Sheila to come down for breakfast, Roger picked up a real estate brochure and it wasn’t long before the couple got serious about looking for property. While they loved staying at The Ritz-Carlton Reynolds, Lake Oconee the prospect of spending weekends and holidays in their own home at Reynolds Lake Oconee was very appealing.
Roger went on to note that he and Sheila had looked at several other developments on Lake Oconee, but they found Reynolds Lake Oconee to be the superior choice..
“Reynolds is far and away ahead of the others – its design, how it’s maintained and landscaped, all the amenities, just everything,” he said. “This is such a special place, and a great area in which to live year-round when you consider the weather. Plus, we’ve met a lot of wonderful people here and are making new friends.”
In 2005, the Meyers’ first real estate search at Reynolds Lake Oconee culminated when they purchased aVillage at Lake Club Pointe condominium. Though their main residence at the time was still in the northwest Atlanta suburb of Smyrna, the Meyers owned the condo for nearly six years before getting the itch to move to Reynolds on a permanent basis. So they purchased a home with more space on a nicely landscaped lot containing a re-circulating waterfall and pond that the Meyers find is a perfect stress reliever.
After all, two of Roger’s three grown children live nearby – Kirsten in Alpharetta, Jennifer in Athens – and, not surprisingly, they absolutely love to visit. The daughters have three children between them, all of whom the grandparents say especially like spending time at the waterslide at The Landing. Meanwhile, son Darin lives in Los Angeles, but looks forward to his visits to Reynolds Lake Oconee with its tranquility, stunning setting on the lake, golf and tennis venues and lack of traffic tie-ups.
Ultimately, in January of last year, Roger and Sheila moved into their new home on Holt’s Ferry in Montgomery Place, overlooking the north side of Angel Pond and just a few steps from Lake Oconee. And when you hear them detail it, they seem to have an idyllic life.
Roger, a retired surgeon, plays tennis at the Lake Club three to four times a week, engaging in competitive doubles action and sharpening his game in the weekly tennis clinics run by Dave Neuhart and his excellent tennis staff. He also fits in frequent runs or walks on the many trails in Reynolds Lake Oconee, and on those few days when the weather doesn't cooperate he might be seen working out at the Lake Club Fitness Center.
Sheila, meanwhile, is learning to play golf and grudgingly admits "lots of practice" is necessary to making steady improvement. A native of Louisiana bayou country, southwest of New Orleans, she also takes Yoga and Zumba classes at the Lake Club, where she is thrilled to enlist the services of Meg Best as her personal trainer.
Together at Reynolds, the Meyers ride their bicycles around the lake, enjoy Oconee Performing Arts Society (OPAS) events, attend church services, dine out at all the restaurants in Reynolds Lake Oconee and nearby, take in the food and wine festivals, and participate in the various holiday festivities, especially the celebration on the Fourth of July.
The Meyers originally met in an operating room at Northside Hospital in Atlanta – Roger as the surgeon, Sheila in her role as a nurse anesthetist. Roger says he made a mental note of Sheila’s name on her badge, and, as they say, the rest is history.
As she has for the past 26 years, Sheila is still employed as a nurse anesthetist but now works part-time. Retirement is in the future for this Louisiana native because as she says, “I still very much enjoy what I do.”
Leave it to a big baseball fan to know that Mickey Mantle, toward the end of his life, had a home on Lake Oconee and played golf here. Roger recalls that was his first introduction to the area, and it is only fitting that his surgical career path eventually took him to Atlanta since he was a Braves’ fan long before he moved to Georgia. Raised in Hoquiam, a small coastal town in the state of Washington, Roger was an early fan of Dale Murphy, who hailed from nearby Portland, Oregon. When Murphy became a Brave and hero to Atlanta sports fans, Roger’s allegiances followed.
For Father’s Day last year, with his daughters and their families visiting, Roger received a present from Sheila of tickets to a future Braves’ game. That is one very good reason Roger can think of to make the trek back into the "big peach." And though it’s still a relatively new feeling, the Meyers are grateful that now when they arrive back “home,” they’re pulling into the driveway at their new Reynolds Lake Oconee residence. “Our sanctuary: just beautiful,” they both say.
