Final episode of ‘Bring Me the Beauties’ airs June 15, featuring local voices and renewed questions about a secluded Lake Lure compound
A new HBO documentary series is bringing national attention to a little-known chapter of Lake Lure history, revisiting the rise and fall of the Eternal Values cult and its years-long presence in the Hickory Nut Gorge.
The three-part documentary, Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult, examines the life of Eternal Values founder Frederick von Mierers and the experiences of former followers, including John Hoyt, known professionally as Hoyt Richards, one of the world’s most successful male models during the 1980s and 1990s.
The third and final episode is scheduled to air on June 15.
The series includes interviews with current Lake Lure Town Council member and former Mayor Jim Proctor, as well as former Lake Lure Police Chief Mike Bussell. Another police chief, Frank Fritts, was quoted extensively in a 1990 Associated Press (AP) article about the group.
According to the documentary, Eternal Values began among affluent New York professionals, socialites and fashion industry figures. Von Mierers claimed to be a spiritual messenger connected to the star Arcturus and warned followers that a catastrophic “pole shift” would devastate much of the planet.
Former members interviewed in the series described being taught that the Earth’s magnetic poles would rapidly shift, causing earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and widespread destruction.
The group believed portions of Western North Carolina would survive.
“Frederick found that the Smoky Mountain region was far enough away from the oceans, and it wasn’t going to be affected,” one former member recalled in the documentary.
Richards said those beliefs eventually led the organization to purchase property in Lake Lure.
“We bought the property, and we would all go back and forth between New York and North Carolina to set up a compound down there where we could be ready for when the space people would arrive,” Richards said during the second episode.
Former members described a belief system in which extraterrestrials would rescue followers from the predicted catastrophe and eventually return them to Earth to help lead a new civilization.
While those beliefs may seem unusual today, the First Amendment protects freedom of religion in the United States, including the right to hold beliefs that others may consider unconventional. The documentary’s focus is not on religious freedom itself, but on allegations by former members involving manipulation, coercion, public humiliation, and financial exploitation.
Historical reporting confirms the group’s presence in Lake Lure.
According to a March 19, 1990, AP article published in The Herald-Sun, von Mierers died Feb. 4, 1990, after leaving New York for what the AP described as the group’s “$400,000, Xanadu-like home beside peaceful Lake Lure.”
The article identified the property as 21 Buffalo Shoals Road near Lake Lure Dam.
The AP reported that Rutherford County records showed Eternal Values purchased the property in 1987 for $400,000 and later transferred ownership to Unified Cosmogony Inc., another name associated with the organization.
The article described a residence featuring pink marble interiors and extensive mirrors overlooking Lake Lure.
At the time, local officials said the group generally kept to itself.
“They were rather reclusive. They pretty much stayed to themselves,” then-Lake Lure Police Chief Frank Fritts told the AP in 1990.
Yet residents noticed something unusual.
“In a little bitty town like Lake Lure, the rumor mill is full of all kinds of things,” Proctor said during the second episode of the HBO series. “The Eternal Values folks, they wanted to keep a low profile. But they weren’t very good at it. I mean, you’ve got these extremely beautiful people coming into this little bitty town, and they stick out like a sore thumb, especially when they take a rustic mansion of a house and turn it into a pink palace.”
Bussell recalled similar community reactions.
“You would hear rumors…some visitors from another world coming here and meeting up with some of their members, and the local people did not like that,” Bussell said in the documentary.
The “model cult” formed in New York, but its Lake Lure connection became national news shortly after von Mierers’ death.
A major Vanity Fair investigation published in 1990 examined the organization and its influence over followers. According to Richards, the article had a profound impact on the group.
“The reality is the Vanity Fair article was like setting up an atom bomb in Eternal Values, because Frederick died five days before the Vanity Fair article hit,” Richards said in the series.
Later reporting said von Mierers died from AIDS-related complications.
More than three decades later, some questions about the Lake Lure property remain.
A review of current Rutherford County GIS records by Lake Lure News and Cops & Congress found no active listing for the address identified in the AP report.
Likewise, searches of current GIS records did not immediately identify parcels under the names Eternal Values, Unified Cosmogony Inc., Ultimate Custom Interiors, Frederick von Mierers, or other entities mentioned in historical reporting.
That does not necessarily mean records are missing. Addresses frequently change over time because of 911 addressing updates, subdivision activity, redevelopment projects, mapping corrections, or other local government actions. Properties may also change ownership multiple times over the course of decades.
As a result, the address listed in the 1990 report may no longer exist in its original form or may now be associated with a different parcel number and street address.
Still, the discrepancy highlights the challenges of tracing historical property records decades later and raises broader transparency questions about how older deed records are connected to modern GIS databases. The documentary didn’t explore that, but it follows the investigations von Mierers faced tied to gemstones and the eventual collapse of Eternal Values.
After von Mierers’ death, former members said the organization continued operating in North Carolina under successor leadership. According to the series, followers continued preparing for the predicted 1999 catastrophe, which never occurred.
Richards eventually left the group on July 3, 1999. He reportedly crept past German Shepherds guarding the property. Subsequent lawsuits brought by former members led to settlements and the liquidation of the organization’s remaining assets.
For many Lake Lure residents, Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult marks the first major national examination of a story that unfolded quietly in the mountains decades ago.
Today, more than 35 years after von Mierers’ death and 27 years after the group’s collapse, the HBO series is introducing a new generation to a strange and largely forgotten chapter of Lake Lure history—one that blended celebrity, prophecy, secrecy, and a secluded lakeside compound in the Blue Ridge foothills.
A separate biopic film was recently announced.
This story has been updated.
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