Living in Holly Springs Contents

Everything You Need to Know About Moving to Holly Springs, NC

Holly Springs Personality 

Twenty years ago Holly Springs was just a blip on the map as you drove from Fuquay-Varina to Cary or RTP.  That is not the case today.  Holly Springs has become one of the many Triangle boom towns. 

That rapid growth has significantly contributed to the character of Holly Springs, but the town was very conscious of retaining a small-town charm that so many people are looking for.  It might be the best of both worlds.  It’s a small town with loads of amenities in a very convenient location in the Triangle.

History

To understand Holly Springs, you have to understand its history.  Most of the men who lived in the area around what is now Holly Springs died in the famous Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, leaving the area nothing more than a “deserted village”. 

Similarly, World War I and World War II rocked the population of Holly Springs.  In the early 1960’s Holly Springs had a population of less than 600 people.  In 1992 there were still less than 1,000 people living in Holly Springs! It is absolutely amazing what has happened here in 30 years.

And then came the boom!  By 2000 there were almost 10,000 people in Holly Springs.  By 2010 there were almost 25,000 residents, and 2022 estimates put the population around 45,000. 

What this means is that most of Holly Springs is NEW.  The shopping is new, the houses are new, the parks are new.  And for the most part, the people are new!  And the people in Holly Springs tend to be young with a median age of 35.  There are many activities for young children and most residents of Holly Springs would tell you it is a great place to raise a family.

Location Makes it So Desirable 

The outer loop of the Triangle, I-540, passes just north of Holly Springs and makes driving to Research Triangle Park relatively simple.  US 1, which takes you into Raleigh, also passes just north of town.  It is less than 25 minutes to RTP or Raleigh from Holly Springs.  But Holly Springs isn’t your typical commuter town.  Holly Springs has been developing its own high tech industries and is becoming not just a great place to live, but a great place to work as well.  I’ll talk about that in just a minute. 

Check out our post and video on whether Holly Springs is still worth it!

Also, Holly Springs will be less than a 20 minute drive to the new Triangle Innovation Point in Chatham County.  This megasite will be home to the Vietnamese electric car manufacturer Vinfast.  But it isn’t just proximity to jobs that makes Holly Springs desirable.  Holly Springs is only 21 minutes to downtown Cary and 11 minutes to downtown Apex or Fuquay-Varina.  And like the rest of the Triangle, beaches and mountains are just a day-trip away.  Wilmington, NC is only about 2 hours drive, and Boone, NC is a 3 hour drive.

Holly Springs Jobs & Economy

Holly Springs got its booming start this century because it was a relatively easy commute with more affordable housing than the towns to the north like Cary, Apex, and Morrisville. 

People moved to Holly Springs because you could get newer homes for less money than you could in Cary or Apex.  But Holly Springs wasn’t content to be just a bedroom community.  They wanted to make Holly Springs a place people loved living in. So they started the process to create a live-work-play community. The town set aside land for industrial growth and began courting life science industries to make Holly Springs their hometown as well. 

They have been wildly successful.  Top biotech and life science companies like Fujifilm-Diosynth, Amgen, and Seqirus have either already moved in or are in the process of construction. 

According to the US Census Bureau, the median household income in Holly Springs is $120,229, the highest in the entire Triangle.  Cary, NC has long been considered the most affluent of Triangle towns, but compare Holly Springs’ median income to Cary’s median income of $113,782 and you’ll see that Holly Springs has quickly become one of the Triangle’s most dynamic towns.

Events and Festivals in Holly Springs

We like to keep it real here, and are happy to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly about the places we talk about.  Holly Springs’ event calendar isn’t the most robust in the area, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things happening.  Remember that I told you Holly Springs was young, and traditions take some time to develop. 

Sugg Farm

One of the great things about living in Holly Springs NC is Sugg Farm.  Sugg Farm is a 117 acre park of fields and woods adjacent to Bass Lake in Holly Springs.  It is an old farm that provides abundant space for Holly Springs to stretch out and party.  Each year Sugg Farm is host to Holly Fest, a free event with rides and activities for the kids, food, and entertainment.  Sugg Farm is also host to the town’s annual July 5th celebration.  Each year around 6:00 pm Holly Springs residents come to Sugg Farm for a second Independence Day celebration culminating with fireworks after dark. I’ll talk about what else you can do here when we talk about parks and recreation in Holly Springs. 

Ting Park

Another Great venue for people living in Holly Springs NC is Ting Park.  Ting Park is home to the Holly Springs Salamander, an amateur baseball team, but it is also home to soccer fields and tennis courts which make it an excellent place to host Holly Springs’ Annual Spring Fling event.  This event is part community yard sale and part egg hunt for the younger residents.  With inflatables and games for the younger crowd it is like Holly Springs’ Spooktacular, which is a Halloween event designed specifically for younger children. 

But the town also puts on the annual Haunted Trail at Sugg Farm for the older kids and the kids at heart that love a good scare each October.  Like most other small towns, there is an annual Christmas parade through town. But, unlike other towns I’ve lived in, the Holly Springs Fire Department escorts Santa around all the Holly Springs’ neighborhoods in the days leading up to the parade. 

It is so much fun to see the kids and the adults come out into the neighborhood streets to see Santa drive by with the sirens wailing.  It just epitomizes Holly Springs.  You can check out all of Holly Springs Events and Festivals on the town website here.

You might also like to check out our blog post and video on why we moved to Holly Springs.

Weather in Holly Springs

Whether you like the weather when living in Holly Springs NC will probably depend on where you are moving from.  Our weather isn’t as nice as San Diego, but it’s much nicer than Houston!  We have all four seasons here. 

Winter is typically mild, with an average of a few inches of snow each year, and an ice storm or two.  Spring comes quickly and really lasts into June.  It doesn’t really get hot and humid until July. But, the cooler temps and lower humidity shows back up by mid to late September.  Fall is gorgeous and really lasts until the end of December, when it gets cold enough to make Christmas time feel like winter most years. 

But honestly sometimes you might see a 70 degree day even in December.  The weather in Holly Springs allows year round outdoor activity.

Schools in Holly Springs

All the public schools in Holly Springs are a part of the Wake County Public School system, and you can find all you need to know about the Wake County Public Schools in our Blog post here.  There are four elementary schools, two middle schools, and like I said, only one high school in Holly Springs.

However, some homes on the north side are zoned to Apex Friendship High School and some on the south side are zoned to Fuquay High.  Two of the elementary schools are on a year-round schedule and one of the middle schools is on a year round, multi-track schedule.  You can explore schools in Holly Springs more at their website here.  

There are a few private schools in Holly Springs as well as numerous pre-schools.  Thales Academy is currently a preK-7 private school in Holly Springs and Pine Springs Academy is a local charter school serving students K-8.

Crime Statistics in Holly Springs

According to BestPlaces.net Holly Springs’ violent crime is ranked as an 8.5 out of 100 (the average for the country is 22.7).  Property crime is ranked as 17.2 out of 100 (the average for the US is 35.4).  That makes living in Holly Springs NC one of the safest places you can live in the country. 

Holly Springs’ crime rate is lower than any other town in Western Wake County, and that’s saying something.  Its crime rate is lower than Cary NC which has often been referred to as the safest city in the country. If you are relocating to Holly Springs from any major city, you will notice the difference immediately.

Family Life and Parks in Holly Springs

Holly Springs is a young and growing town that does a lot to cater to children.  It is not necessarily a hot spot for the nightlife!  But if you need a break from all the kids’ activities, you can head over to Niche Wine Lounge for a very special evening.  Wines are their passion and there is often live music, of all different genres.  And there’s the Pimiento Tea Room, the coolest tea room you’ve ever heard of.  Tea, yes. . . but also boozy upgrades, great food, live music, in a quaint old house.  

But, back to the kids.  As I mentioned before, the town plans events like the Spring Fling and Spooktacular that are geared specifically for young children to enjoy the holidays.  Bass Lake Park, Sugg Farm, and Womble Park all provide excellent opportunities to get out and play, whether it’s paddling on Bass Lake, enjoying the playground overlooking the pond at Womble, or just roaming the open fields of Sugg Farm.   The town offers plenty of organized sports leagues for the kids as well.  

Senior Living in Holly Springs

Holly Springs has activities for seniors as well.  The town hosts Bingo at Bass Lake Park.  Mah Jongg, Bridge, and other Card clubs meet at the Holly Springs Cultural Center.  Quilting, Crocheting, and Knitting clubs are available for seniors in Holly Springs.  There is even Wii Bowling.  A senior book club and walking club, as well as Tai Chi and fitness classes are also offered by the town.  There is no registration required or fees to participate in any of Holly Springs’ clubs for seniors.  

Holly Springs Farmers Market

The Holly Springs Farmers Market is pretty special.  Every Saturday they set up shop around the Holly Springs Cultural Center from 8:00 AM to Noon from May through October, and from 9:00 AM to Noon during the winter.  The American Farmland Trust ranked the Holly Springs Farmers Market as the #3 Farmers Market in North Carolina, #10 in the Southeast, and #31 in the country!  Not bad for a small town market!! 

This means that when living in Holly springs NC, you have great access to local, fresh food.  You can find free-range eggs, NC caught seafood, pasture raised meat, baked goods, preserves, and even beer and wine among many other offerings.  You can check out their Facebook page here. 

Different Parts of Holly Springs

Even when living in a small town like Holly Springs NC, there are distinct areas of the town.  Understanding them can really help refine your home search if you’re relocating to Holly Springs.

The Village District and Old 55

Not to be confused with the newly renamed Village District in Raleigh, the Holly Springs Village district is “old Holly Springs”.  It is home to the newly built “downtown” area, the community center, recreation center, library, and Womble Park with its athletic fields and playground. It is where you will find independent restaurants and shops. 

Homes in this area tend to be older and more modest in size and price than other, newer parts of Holly Springs.  This was the part of Holly Springs that first developed in the 1990’s when the strongest selling point of Holly Springs was affordable housing in Western Wake County.  This is the part of town that feels like it is just an old-fashioned southern town, albeit newer!  Popular neighborhoods in this area are Somerset, Oak Hall, Arbor Creek, and Windcrest.

The 55 Bypass Corridor

In 2002 a new bypass was opened that took travelers around what we are now calling the Village District.  Retail developments soon followed and today all the big box stores, chain restaurants, hotels, the town hospital and the town’s movie theater live here on the bypass.  The most important thing you need to know about the bypass is that the traffic patterns are different. 

Holly Springs brought in some traffic engineers during the construction of the bypass and have created a somewhat unique stretch of road here in Holly Springs.  These traffic engineers loved U-Turns.  In an effort to keep the flow of traffic moving, most intersections have limited options.  Many times you just can’t turn left.  You have to turn right, go down a ways, and then make a U-Turn to head in the direction you originally wanted to go. 

This can be frustrating until you figure it out.  You can see where you want to go, but the road just won’t let you go there.  Just follow everyone else and get used to U-Turns.

East Holly Springs.

The eastern side of Holly Springs is dominated by the subdivisions surrounding Sunset Lake and Bass Lake.  Sunset Ridge is a large golf, pool, and tennis community situated near the privately held 125 acre Sunset Lake. 

The Sunset Lake neighborhood is where you want to be if you need to back up to the water.  The neighborhoods in this area tend to feel more connected to the other parts of Wake County and the towns of Fuquay-Varina, Apex, and Cary.  While this is just a generalization, the homes in this area tend to be more upscale than their counterparts toward the center of town, but were still built at a time when land was reasonably affordable in Holly Springs, so the lots tend be much larger than the newest construction that is taking place in West Holly Springs. 

Popular neighborhoods in this part of Holly Springs are: Sunset Ridge, Sunset Ridge North, Wescott, Carrington, and Brakenridge.  Sunset Lake and Woodcreek are also popular choices in this area but sit outside of the town limits.

West Holly Springs

Holly Springs is growing west toward Lake Harris and the newest growth tends to take place in this area.  This is the side of town where the growing life science sector is located. 

12 Oaks is a major golf community in this area with homes ranging from the $500,000’s to over $1 million.  Other popular neighborhoods are Holly Glen, Braxton Village, and Trinity Creek.  This side of town provides easy access to US 1 South toward Sanford and the upcoming Triangle Innovation Point, as well as access to the recreational opportunities at Harris Lake.  And there is access to I-540 on this side of town for your quick trip to RTP or Durham.

What we haven’t told you YET.

Holly Springs takes a bit of ribbing from other towns in Western Wake because it is also home to the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant, whose silo can be seen from parts of the western side of town.  It is also home to the South Wake Landfill.  Jokes about these two areas are common, but problems with them are not common.  But, again, we promised to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly!  

Food and Shopping in Holly Springs

You won’t lack for shopping basics when living in Holly Springs, NC. And because Holly Springs is a small town, everything is close.  There is a Super Walmart and a SuperTarget.  All the normal big box stores are here: Marshalls, Dicks Sporting Goods, Ulta, DSW along with all your typical chain restaurants. 

There are not a lot of independent shops in Holly Springs, but there are some boutiques in town.  Peek-A-Boo grins is a children’s boutique in downtown Holly Springs.  Bless Your Heart Boutique is also in downtown.  The independent Pace Yourself Run Company caters to the runners and walkers of Holly Springs.  On the west side of town, The Wardrobe offers boutique clothes shopping.  That being said, you’re going to have to go to Raleigh or Durham to have a wider selection of boutique shopping and high-end retailers.  Fortunately that kind of shopping is only a short drive away.  Crabtree Valley Mall and North Hills are only a 25 minute drive. 

But Holly Springs does have some independent restaurants that can spice up your routine.  Downtown you’ll find the My Way Tavern, Osha Thai Kitchen and Sushi, the Vieni Ristobar, Sir Walter Coffee and Kitchen, Bep Vietnamese Kitchen, Lovegrass Kitchen, JT’s Creamery, and Mamma Mia Italian Bistro. 

When you move to Holly Springs you will have to visit both Niche Wine Lounge and the Pimiento Tea Room.  The Niche is Holly Spring’s version of Cheers with live music, and the Pimiento Tea Room will serve you dinner on Saturday before the live Jazz begins.  Out on the bypass you’ll find The Mason Jar Tavern.