ABOUT
After living for 8+ years in Santa Fe NM, Denise and Tom sold their home and moved to Asheville the summer of 2022, all because they found Legacy! They are both originally from the east coast, so being in the mountains of western NC puts them closer to their kids/grandkids/parents/friends in northern VA. And they no longer will have to fly to visit! Denise is an Architectural Designer and for 16 years ran her own residential Design Build company in the northern Virginia area. After retiring to Santa Fe in 2014 she became very involved with the local animal shelter and Habitat for Humanity. She also served as HOA President and VP of their community for four years. Tom has been an intelligence officer all his life. He started on that path as a junior officer in the Marine Corps, and after his release from active duty, went to work for the NYPD Intelligence Division. From there he moved to the Drug Enforcement Administration, and finally to the Central Intelligence Agency, where he initially spent about three years as an analyst. At that point he had the good fortune to become the Agency’s lead case writer and case method instructor, a dream job that he held for the next 20+ years before retiring in 2014. He also had a parallel career in the US Marine Corps Reserve, serving as an intelligence officer for some 27 years. At the time of his retirement from the Marines in 1999, he was the director of the Marine Corps Reserve cryptologic program.
HOBBIES
Denise and Tom are enthusiastic hikers and look forward to exploring the national forests and parks around Asheville.
Denise is a huge nature and animal lover and will never tire of walking the local parks and Arboretum with their dog – especially when topped off by a delicious lunch at a local eatery! She is also the ‘planner’ and looks forward to more international travel.
Tom enjoys classical music and reading – mostly nonfiction – and dabbles in woodworking projects of all kinds.
SURPRISED TO KNOW
Denise appreciates the importance of native bees, so moving to Asheville, the first city designated an official Bee City, is a perfect fit! Long an advocate of these amazing pollinators, Denise has spent hundreds of hours giving presentations about them to local schools and gardening groups. Legacy’s multiple gardens will benefit both the gardeners and these special insects.
In New Mexico Tom’s main focus was as an active member of the Santa Fe Search and Rescue Group. He started out as a “ground pounder,” and then became a ground team leader and finally a member of the Incident Management Team, either as the plans officer or the ops officer. He participated in about 200 SAR missions. The vast majority had happy endings, and it was very often an intensely gratifying experience.
WHY LEGACY?
Especially attractive to Denise and Tom were Legacy’s east coast location, equity model, unique opportunity to be in on the “ground floor” of the development, and evolution of both their personal home and Legacy as a community. They have been impressed with the emphasis on keeping both Members and Employees happy. They also love all the amazing amenities and resources planned to keep everyone’s brains and bodies enriched, and sharing the journey with others at the same stage of life is appealing. They thoroughly embrace the way Legacy will allow them to experience their senior years with independence, and without burdening their children.
FUTURE AT LEGACY
Denise hopes to assist in ‘naturescaping’ the gorgeous Mills River property, and would love to install a blue bird trail. Tom thinks it would be great fun to get a couple of case-based seminars up and running that would focus on various aspects of how the U.S. Intelligence Community carries out its work in safeguarding the security of our nation. He created and taught seminars of this nature for much of his career and believes that other Legacy residents would find this sort of learning opportunity quite interesting.
FUTURE HOMEOWNERS OF
Estate Home 52, Floor Plan Standen
