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Wesley and Janice Taylor once used their Roanoke Rapids Lake home as a weekend escape. Now, it’s their full-time retirement residence.
Photo Above: Courtesy of Brian Frost
It’s one thing to dream for years about pinpointing the ultimate retirement locale for the future. It’s another to actually start living in that dream years before retirement takes place. That’s the journey Wesley and Janice Taylor have taken.
More than a decade ago, while working and living their lives in Wake Forest, they keyed in on the Roanoke Rapids area as a place they loved. They wanted to find a lake house within driving distance of their home. They first considered Lake Gaston, but they ultimately bought a home with a view of Roanoke Rapids Lake—a nearby area that was a bit quieter and less commercialized than Gaston.
Roanoke Rapids Lake encompasses 4,600 acres and offers a variety of fun excursions including kayaking, fishing, and public swimming in the lakefront area, as well as walking trails, picnic shelters, and other activities.
“It’s an absolutely beautiful lake,” said Janice. “There’s a lot of wildlife. We are bird watching people. We have a pontoon boat and enjoy getting out on the water to fish and tool around the lake.”
“We just happened to drive into this neighborhood on a Sunday afternoon and saw it,” said Wesley, referring to the house they purchased in 2010. “We wanted a house to sit on the deck and watch the boats go by.”
It became a weekend home until they moved into it fully after selling their Wake Forest home in 2022.
In the years in between, they both enjoyed busy, successful careers. Janice is a certified nurse midwife who worked with a couple of obstetric practices in Raleigh. Wesley served as the CPA/controller for the North Carolina General Assembly, a role he held for 21 years.
In the last three or four years prior to moving to Roanoke Rapids permanently, they began stretching their weekends to spend the maximum amount of time there. They would arrive on a Friday afternoon and stay until Monday morning when they’d get up at 5 a.m. to be back at work at 8 a.m. “We were motivated to stay,” said Wesley.
Now that they are settling into their retirement years, they are happy to sleep in on Monday mornings, but Janice admits she misses working with patients. She stays busy as a master gardener and participates in a neighborhood garden group.
Wesley doesn’t miss the day-to-day work grind at all. He has turned his attention to playing golf several times a week, as well as pickleball. “We bought a house two years ago in Florida and spend our winters there. I play pickleball there four to five times a week,” Wesley said. “This past August, Roanoke Rapids built three pickleball courts, so there is starting to be a pickleball following here.”
Janice and Wesley have one son who lives and works in Washington, D.C. They find their home in Roanoke Rapids to be very convenient for all of them. “We can be at his house in three and a half to four hours, and it’s a good trip down for him to be away from the big city,” said Janice.
They enjoy watching the area grow and expand to include new offerings.
“We split our time between Roanoke Rapids and Littleton,” said Janice. “We enjoy going out to dinner and relaxing. There’s a brewery in Littleton and a distillery in Weldon, so that’s been entertaining for us to do. The Weldon Mills Theatre has concert offerings with some good entertainment bands that come and play.”
“We hope the Weldon Mills Theater continues to take off,” added Wesley. “It has struggled a bit, but it is coming around.”
He said when they first moved to the area, most of the people they met lived and worked here. Increasingly more retirees are moving in. “Our neighborhood has a large retirement community,” explained Janice. “There are several neighborhoods like ours around the lake, but I wouldn’t characterize Roanoke Rapids as a retirement community. It’s more of a working-class community. This has become a destination for people who want their lives to be on the lake.”
Wesley said he loves being able to glance out their back window and see the lake, “but with little footprint of homes.”
When they aren’t out and about in the community, they enjoy quiet moments and spending time with their two Shih Tzu dogs, Tootsie and Sasha. “They love it here,” said Wesley.
