PAW PAW, West Virginia — The time was 2 p.m., the sun was scorching and a retiree named Dewey Butts III was reveling in his version of heaven: a swimming pool crowded with dozens of men and women — every last one of them naked, himself included.
“This is about finding a way to enjoy life and I enjoy being nude,” said Butts (yes, that’s his real name), a widower who drove last weekend from Pennsylvania with his girlfriend for a gala celebrating Avalon’s 30th anniversary.
“This is freedom,” he said, his smile befitting someone who had just won something akin to the jackpot.
The regimented constraints of conventional life often inspire a deep yearning for liberation, the form of which can be as logistically challenging as, say, parachuting out of an airplane, or as prosaic as channeling your inner Pavarotti in the shower — neighbors be damned.
At Avalon, 250 rolling acres that include streets with names like “Bare Buns Boulevard,” freedom means moseying about in nothing more than gobs of sunscreen and embracing a lifestyle that dates back nearly 100 years in the United States and longer in Europe.
Feeling a tad self-conscious?
Not to worry, say Avalon’s members, largely an older crowd that includes people like the ever-sunny Linda Keesee, 74, a retired naval intelligence officer who bought a condo at the resort years ago with her husband, Bill, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who died in 2022.
On her kitchen wall is a framed photo of a happy moment — Bill at their outdoor grill, his middle-aged body covered only by a red apron. A second photo, this one on a side table, also captures Bill at the grill, this time without the apron.
“I always tell people when they come to Avalon that Barbie and Ken don’t live here,” said Keesee, in a sundress, at least for the moment, as she reclined in a comfortable chair in her condo. “It is people of all shapes and sizes and colors just enjoying the freedom of it.”
The resort draws patrons from various backgrounds and professions, as well as parents with children, willing to pay an annual year-round membership fee of as much as $800 (raising kids to accept nudity as natural and to not equate it with sex is a mainstay of the nudist ethos).
On this particular weekend, the crowd seemed heavy on ex-military and government types. At one point at Keesee’s place, Chris Morales, 63, a forensics expert who formerly worked for the Secret Service and Justice Department, dropped in, naked from head to sandal-covered toes.
“Join us! Get comfortable!” Keesee said, unfazed by her friend’s choice of attire, or lack thereof.
Robert Roy, 77, another Avalon condo owner, and his wife delved into nudism after he retired from the U.S. Navy, where he rose to master chief, among the service’s highest enlisted ranks. “We all got over it in the big showers at boot camp,” Roy said of his willingness to strip down in the company of others — many others.
After years of wearing an Air Force uniform, Gary Gist, 59, said he relishes the chance to slip into nothing at all. “I still can’t grow hair on my ankles because I had to wear boots every day,” said the retired sergeant, who lives in a trailer at Avalon with his wife, Jessie. “We can relax here. Your whole body is relieved of the restrictions.”
The Gists have two daughters, both in their 30s, neither of whom have visited them at Avalon, where they live full-time, though the couple plans to decamp to nudist-friendly Florida for the winter. The subject of how Mom and Dad like to spend their alone time is not something that anyone brings up, Jessie Gist said.
“It’s a ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ situation,” she said.
‘Without clothes, everyone’s the same’
Avalon Resort founders Phyllis and Patrick Gaffney stand beneath a disco ball holding glasses of champagne as they toast and thank their early investors, employees and guests. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Avalon offers many of the staples found at any scenic retreat, including pickleball courts, pools, hot tubs, saunas, camp sites, and hiking and jogging trails. But there are differences — and not just that the pants-less far outnumber the pants.
For one, the library has, along with a selection of fiction and nonfiction, a shelf devoted to “nudism” and includes a handful of nude photo books (spare reading glasses, conveniently kept in a basket, are also available for anyone in need).
For another, the resort offers what it refers to as the “Nudsino,” a room featuring several slot machines, an amenity that Avalon’s founders, Phyllis and Patrick Gaffney, himself a former Pentagon computer analyst, came up with years ago to lure visitors (Avalon’s membership, after peaking at well over 500, sank to 100 during the pandemic and is now at just over 225).
The Nudsino is in a building known as the Bare Barn, the main gathering place where volunteers were busy decorating for the celebration. The walls are lined with dozens of photos of current and former members, everyone au naturale. A preponderance are couples, including Nevin Paradise, 71, and his wife Lynne, 77, who have been vacationing at nudist spots for decades.
“Boy, does it cut down on the packing,” said Lynne, a former flight attendant.
As she spoke, she was sitting in the back seat of their car, wearing only a baseball cap and a light colored see-through cover-up, while her husband, naked at the wheel, took a reporter and photographer on a tour. Over here was a verdant community garden that members tend by themselves; over there, a grove of apple and pear trees planted in memory of nudists come and gone.
Up past Running Bare Boulevard was an RV where the owners — he, a federal IT guy; she, a retired State Department instructor — displayed a pair of nude garden gnomes. Nearby was another trailer, the placard out front declaring, “Life is Short, Party Naked.”
The Paradises (yes, also their actual name) own a sprawling home they built in Somerset, a development adjoining Avalon where a sign announces that it’s a “clothing optional community” and asks, “Please Respect Our Privacy.” Just inside the Paradises’ front door, on a living room wall, are his-and-her faux-bronze reliefs, formed from plaster casts of the couple’s bare torsos.
Nevin, a retired United Airlines maintenance manager, said one aspect of Avalon culture he appreciates is that people are not judgmental. No one feels obligated to ask the perfunctory get-acquainted standby, “What do you do?,” a fact that he and others attribute to the absence of clothing and the status that a designer shirt or dress can convey.
“Here, without the clothes, everyone is the same,” Nevin said. “We’re all in this together. Everyone is accepted.”
Well, not everyone, actually.
Those who don’t follow a certain code of nudist conduct can find themselves hearing from management.
“You can look, but you can’t stare,” said Sharon Leipfert, 72, a nurse and frequent visitor from Winchester, Virginia, reciting one main rule.
Another: You can hug but your hands better not roam, as was the case after a man once asked Leipfert to dance.
“The first thing he said was, ‘I hope this is okay,’” she said, demonstrating how the man’s hand landed and lingered on her breast. “I said, ‘No it is not!’ He was asked to leave. It’s usually the new people who get in trouble.”
Public sex is a no-no at Avalon, as is the taking of photos in common areas. In the event that anyone becomes, say, a little too happy to be there, Avalon’s website recommends rolling over on one’s stomach or covering up with a towel “until the ‘situation’ subsides.”
“A true nudist will only look you in the eye,” said Steve Snyder, 74, a retired maintenance mechanic who cooks and tends bar at Avalon. But human nature is what it is, he acknowledged, and eyes have been known to stray.
“I mean, how can you stop from looking?” he asked.
Back to nature
Linda Weber, president of an organization called the American Association of Nude Recreation, is on the phone from California where she acknowledged, in response to a reporter’s question, that she was naked, as she always is when she’s home and not circulating in what she refers to as the “textile world.”
“It’s hard to get me into clothes,” said the retired insurance company sales manager. “I was born nude, and I wish I could have stayed that way. Then they threw that diaper on me and the indoctrination began.”
As AANR’s leader, Weber is trying to ensure that future generations embrace nudism, a lifestyle historians trace to Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “It was a reaction to industrialization and urbanization,” said Brian Hoffman, the author of “Naked: A Cultural History of American Nudism.” “It was a back-to-nature thing.”
Around 1930, a man named Kurt Barthal brought the movement to the United States, where it grew in popularity, surging in the 1960s and 1970s, when youth culture revolted against the materialism and conformity embraced by their parents’ generation.
At its peak in the 1990s, Weber said, AANR’s membership roll exceeded 50,000 and it was affiliated with more than 200 organizations, including nude resorts, nude cruises and nude clubs.
More recently, membership has fallen to 28,000, a decline that seems predictable in an age of TMI, when “the internet and TV is so saturated with nakedness, it’s not a big deal anymore,” Hoffman said.
“We’re seeing that people are aging out,” Weber said. “It’s a boomer crowd and we’re trying to attract younger people to take our place.”
AANR has turned to TikTok and Instagram to promote what Weber refers to as “body camaraderie,” although she also hopes activities like nude hiking and nude bowling will spark interest.
“It’s very wholesome,” she said. “There’s nothing where your mom would say, ‘Whoa, what are you doing here?’”
Toasting 30 years
The time was now 7 p.m. and the Bare Barn was filling up with people in various states of undress, everyone here to celebrate Avalon’s 30 years. The crowd cheered as the Gaffneys, both now 78, stood beneath a disco ball holding glasses of champagne as they toasted their early investors, employees and members.
“This is very emotional for me,” said Patrick, his attire limited to a pair of sandals, as he stood alongside his wife, who wore just a skirt.
A woman dressed only in a light-up tiara applauded, as did the man wearing next to nothing between his cowboy hat and shoes, along with another in formal tails, a white collar and no pants.
And here was Butts, 71, who used to work as a quality assurance professional, positively aglow in a top hat, white gloves, black bow tie and bottomless underwear he bought specially for the occasion.
As a (fully clothed) band played a rich blend of blues, country and gospel, and everyone danced, Butts recalled one of his last conversations with Marlene, his wife who died a few years ago and who was not into the nudist thing.
“She said, ‘I want you to be happy, I want you find someone and be happy,’” he said.
Not only has Butts found that someone, but they’re planning to get married and host their wedding celebration at the Avalon.
Clothing optional, naturally.
I love the Avalon Resort. I have been there several times. I have also been the DJ at some of their events. Great facility and staff. Looking forward to my next visit there.