Moving to Lake Wedowee from Atlanta, Birmingham, or Auburn: Drive Times, Who Is Buying, and Full-Time vs Weekend

Most of the people who call us about Lake Wedowee are not from here. They are in a subdivision outside Atlanta, or a neighborhood in Birmingham, or they have a kid at Auburn and have driven past the lake on 431 enough times to wonder about it. The questions are always the same. How far is it really? Who else is doing this? Could we live there, or is it a weekend place?

We moved here from Carrollton, Georgia as empty nesters, so we have asked ourselves every one of those questions. Here is what we would tell a friend.

How far it is, honestly

Wedowee sits in east central Alabama on US 431, close to the Georgia line. Published drive times, measured without stops, put it at 99 miles and about 1 hour 38 minutes from Atlanta by way of I-20, 93 miles and about 1 hour 50 minutes from Birmingham, 58 miles and about 1 hour 22 minutes from Auburn, and 36 miles and about 51 minutes from Anniston.

Those are calculator numbers, and calculators do not sit in traffic on I-285. From our own driving, a trip from the Atlanta perimeter on a Friday afternoon is closer to two hours, and from Birmingham the last stretch on two-lane road is slower than the mileage suggests. The Auburn drive is the easiest of the three. If you are coming from west of Atlanta, Carrollton or Douglasville or Newnan, you are well under an hour and a half, which is why so many of our neighbors have Georgia roots.

Depending on which part of the lake you are going to, the last 20 minutes can be on county roads, and your GPS will confidently send you down a gravel one. Ask us for the route before your first trip.

Who we see buying

We are not going to quote statistics here, because no reliable public numbers exist on where Lake Wedowee buyers come from. Take this as our observation over the years we have been selling here, not as data.

The largest group, in our experience, is west Georgia and metro Atlanta. Some want a weekend place within a couple of hours of home; some, like us, are getting ready to retire and want the lake to be the primary residence. Birmingham buyers are the second group we see most, often families who want a lake that is less crowded and less expensive than the ones closer to them. Auburn shows up two ways: parents of students who want a place for game weekends, and university-connected people who want to live on the water and commute a few days a week.

What they have in common is that almost nobody arrives with a strong opinion about which arm of the lake they want. That is the part we help with.

What it is like to live here full time

Lake Wedowee, which Alabama Power officially calls R.L. Harris Reservoir, covers about 9,780 acres with 367 miles of shoreline. The town of Wedowee is the county seat of Randolph County, and it is small: 737 people at the 2020 census, in a county of 21,967. The name comes from the Creek language and, by the usual account, from a Muscogee Creek chief.

We love it here, and we would move again in a heartbeat. We also think the people who are happiest on the lake full time are the ones who came in with their eyes open. So here is the honest version.

The good

The water is the point. We are on it or looking at it most days of the year. Summer weekends are lively, with boats and families and a Fourth of July the whole lake turns out for. The pace of life is genuinely slower. People wave from the road. The hardware store knows your name.

The tradeoffs

Winters are quiet. Starting October 1, Alabama Power begins lowering the lake from its summer pool of 793 feet toward a winter pool of 785 feet, reached by November 30, and it stays down through the winter. The weekend crowd goes home in September and does not come back until spring. Some coves that are beautiful in July have very little water in January. If you draw energy from having people around, plan for that.

Big-box shopping and specialty care are a drive. For a mall, a warehouse club, or a specialist physician you are going to Anniston, Auburn, Carrollton, or Birmingham. Most full-timers make a town run once a week or so and combine errands.

Healthcare in town is better than most people expect for a town this size, and we want to be precise about it. Tanner Medical Center/East Alabama in Wedowee has a 24-hour emergency department with eight exam rooms, 15 private inpatient rooms, on-site lab and imaging, and a surgical suite, with specialty clinics in an adjacent building. It is part of the Tanner Health system. It is a small hospital, and for a major event you would be transferred to a larger one. Know that in advance and plan your care around it.

Cell service and internet vary by cove. That is the number one thing we tell remote workers. One house can have strong signal and fiber at the road; the house around the point can have neither. Do not buy a house you plan to work from without testing your phone in the driveway, on the dock, and inside, and without asking the provider in writing what is available at that address.

County roads are county roads. Most of the lake is reached by two-lane roads, some gravel, and after a heavy rain a few get rough. It is fine in a normal car, but it is not suburban pavement.

Services take longer. A plumber may be a day or two out. Packages arrive, but not always on the promised date. You learn to keep spare parts and to know a few good tradespeople, which is part of why Terry started a home management business.

Full-time or weekend: the questions to ask

Some people who intend to buy a weekend house end up living here. Some who intend to live here miss the city more than they expected and turn the house into a weekend place. Both are fine, but the decision affects what you should buy and what it costs to own.

Taxes are the first difference. Alabama assesses owner-occupied residential property as Class III at 10 percent of appraised value, while other property, including second homes, is Class II at 20 percent. A house you claim as your primary residence and file homestead on is taxed on half the assessed value of the same house held as a weekend place, before any exemptions. There is more to it, including the homestead exemption and the state’s assessment cap, and we go through all of that in our property tax article. Confirm your situation with the Randolph County Revenue Commissioner or your CPA.

Insurance is the second. Secondary and seasonal homes are often insured differently, and policies may include vacancy language. Ask your agent before you close, not after.

Then the practical questions. If it is a weekend place, how far are you really willing to drive on a Friday night, and how many weekends a year will you actually come? Two hours from Atlanta sounds like nothing until it is August and you have done it six weekends in a row. If you are moving full time, where is your doctor, where are your grandchildren, and how do you feel about the quiet from Thanksgiving to Easter?

If you are somewhere in between, buy a house that works both ways: one you could live in year-round, with reliable connectivity, that is also easy to close up and leave.

Schools, for the families who ask

Most of our buyers are past the school years, but not all. Randolph County has two public systems. Randolph County Schools serves the lake area with Wedowee Elementary (K through 3), Wedowee Middle (4 through 6), and Randolph County High School (7 through 12), plus Wadley and Woodland High Schools (both K through 12). Roanoke City Schools serves the town of Roanoke with Knight-Enloe, Handley Middle, and Handley High. Both systems share the Randolph-Roanoke Career Tech Center. Which system a house falls in depends on where it sits, so ask before you fall in love with a place.

What we tell people at the end of the first visit

Come in the summer, and then come back in January. If you still want it in January, you will be happy here. The people who struggle bought in July, imagined every weekend would look like that, and were surprised by how still the lake gets. The ones who thrive wanted that stillness in the first place.

We came from Carrollton with the kids out of the house, Terry retired from the Georgia State Patrol, and no real plan beyond wanting to live on the water. We have not regretted it once, and we have also learned exactly where the cell signal drops on our road.

If you are thinking about the move, or just want to know whether a weekend place makes sense, call us at 404-317-5120 or send a note. We will tell you what we know, including the parts a brochure would leave out.