Photos by Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Amish made Jake & Amos products at Nature Way Country Store

Preston Stone, originally from Radford and lives in South Carolina, looks at the mobile log camper he purchased in Giles County. Stone bought the trailer from Amish craftsman Sam Chupp, owner of Mountain View Log Homes, for his Claytor Lake property.

Lee Payne (left) and Nancy Payne of Athens, W.Va., shop in Mountain View Country Store at the end of Songbird Lane in the Walker Mountain Amish settlement of Giles County. The women were on a quest to purchase chicken feed and ended up purchasing fabric and fly swatters in the Amish-run store.

Abby Maurer, 7, of Mechanicsville eats hand-dipped ice cream at the checkout counter at Nature Way Country Store in Giles County. The store is one of many Amish-owned retail businesses open to the public in the Walker Mountain settlement.

Amish Adirondack chairs at Heritage House Handcrafted Furniture

A gazebo made by Ferman Yutzy at his Walker Mountain Barns and Gazebos workshop

WHITE GATE -- Girls in bonnets and boys in hats and suspenders walk to a one-room log schoolhouse. Men drive to town in horse-drawn buggies. Women with purple stained fingers take a break from canning blackberries to greet customers at their family-owned store.

It might resemble Pennsylvania's Amish country, but this is Giles County. Over the past two decades, Amish families from across the country have established farms and more than a dozen businesses here, boosting the overall economy and offering new services in an isolated rural area.

Danny Kaufman and his family moved to White Gate from Illinois in 2004 in part because they wanted to "live in a smaller community, and we liked the mountains, too," Kaufman said.

The Kaufmans opened Nature Way Country Store in 2006. Since then it has grown into a grocery store, lunch spot, ice cream parlor and unofficial visitors center for the Amish community. While nobody keeps an official count of the businesses, a variety of things such as horse harnesses, Amish-style buggies and goat cheese are made in the Walker Mountain community.

On a recent Saturday, Preston Stone sat in a bentwood rocking chair enjoying one of Nature Way's made-to-order deli sandwiches slathered with his favorite jalapeno mustard. He later bought a jar of the mustard to take back to his vacation spot on Claytor Lake. Stone said he grew up in Radford but moved to Charleston, S.C., to work in emergency medicine. For the past four years, he has spent part of his annual vacation in the Amish communities clustered in and around White Gate.

"These are good people," he said. "They don't know much about politics, but they're good."

He means good, as in friendly. But, he's also referring to the quality of the merchandise found here such as a hand-built log "camper" he recently bought from Sam Chupp, bishop of the local Amish church and owner of Mountain View Log Homes. On an impromptu tour, Stone pointed out the gas-powered stove and refrigerator, the shower and a hookup for a solar-powered water heater, all meant to provide luxurious off-the-grid living.

"Just look at the workmanship," Stone said.

Amish-made products are often associated with high quality and spark keen interest among consumers. But Kaufman is not fond of the phrases "Amish business" and "Amish merchandise."

"That's like advertising our religion. Making money off our religion is not what we want to do," he said. "We emphasize quality. If it's quality, we'll stock it."

Nancy and Lee Payne of Athens, W.Va., came to White Gate looking for chicken feed and adventure. But they said they were also happy to find a nice tablecloth at the Mountain View Country Store owned by Katie Wengerd.

Wengerd and her family came to White Gate from Pennsylvania in 2006 because they liked the theology of the Walker Mountain church, Wengerd said. They also transplanted their business, which specializes in housewares and Amish-style clothing. It opened this spring on Songbird Lane.

At Heritage House Handcrafted Furniture on Mountain View Lane, owner Noah Swarey is still figuring out what pieces he should display in his 2,400-square-foot showroom.

"You wouldn't believe the variety in Amish-made furniture coming out of Ohio," Swarey said.

Swarey, a cabinetmaker from Ohio, said he plans eventually to add his own handmade furniture to the mix. In the meantime, he stocks some of neighbor Daniel Chupp's rustic furniture made from local woods. Chupp's Brushy Mountain Enterprises is one of the older businesses on the mountain, having opened nine years ago. And it's growing.

"This has been our busiest year so far," Daniel Chupp said.

He employs seven people in three workshops and ships cabinets, interior doors and other wood products across Virginia. There's a particularly vigorous demand in North Carolina, he said.

Several other woodworking and carpentry businesses operate on Walker Mountain, including Walker Mountain Barns and Gazebos run by Ferman Yutzy, who came to Giles from Wisconsin 13 years ago.

According to the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom, the Amish -- sometimes called "The Plain People" or "Old Order Amish" -- originated in Switzerland in the 16th century. Theologically and historically, they are linked to the Anabaptists and the Mennonites. Subjected to widespread oppression in Europe, the Amish were saved from extinction by Quaker leader William Penn, who granted them asylum in what is today Pennsylvania.

Today, the largest populations are concentrated in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. It's estimated that between 30 and 50 Amish families live and work in White Gate and neighboring Bland County, and there are plans to build a third Amish schoolhouse in Giles.

Relations with non-Amish locals have generally been good. But as has often happened in Amish history, their separation from the wider community and their distinct way of life has created some suspicion. One persistent rumor has it that the Amish don't pay taxes, Giles County Zoning Administrator Craig Whittaker said.

It's true that self-employed Amish are exempt from Social Security taxes, but neither do they collect Social Security benefits or other government entitlements. They do pay income taxes, sales taxes, real estate and other local taxes and abide by zoning and other regulations, Whittaker said.

And they've been good for the local economy by providing jobs for non-Amish locals who have made a cottage industry of providing taxi services.

Patty Proffitt is one of several "haulers." Some of her neighbors asked whether she could provide them with rides to doctor visits and other errands too far afield for horse and buggy travel. Word got around, and Proffitt said she has several clients, some of whom have paid for rides to Kentucky and Ohio.

"You help somebody and rewards are going to come back to you," Proffitt said. "I'm a Christian, and I believe that."