One building that affected me in a positive way early on in life was the Sugar Mountain Ski lodge. I first encountered this building my first winter in North Carolina at around 8 years old. Prior to living in NC, I lived in a beach environment and had no idea of the concept of snow sports ( a pastime that grew to be a huge passion of mine to this day). My time spent at Sugar Mountain ski lodge was spent eating breakfast and making friends before a long day on the slope. The lodge was a den of warmth in all senses of the word. If it was a particularly cold day you could go inside and warm up. It was also warm in the sense it felt like a community. There would always be tourist but the local kids like myself treated the lodge as a clubhouse. It was the home of thousands of card games, laughs, and memories. To this day, skiing Sugar Mountain is what I look forward to most when I return to NC for Christmas.