At this West Virginia nudist resort, everyone has skin in the game

National Post

3 days ago

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.
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Here at the Avalon Resort, a self-styled 'clothing-optional' retreat two hours west of D.C., the dress code requires no type of dress (or shirt or pants) at all.
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'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.
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'This is freedom,' he said, his smile befitting someone who had just won something akin to the jackpot.
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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.
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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.
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Feeling a tad self-conscious?
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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.
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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.
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'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.'
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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).
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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.