The city of Asheville, North Carolina, tucked away in the scenic Appalachian Mountains just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, has long been one of our favorite places in the South to visit for a day or two. Its wealth of carefully restored Art Nouveau and Art Deco architecture, combined with a strong arts scene, and its history as a vacation mecca since 19th-century doctors prescribed the fresh mountain air, mild climate, and hot springs for TB patients had made it a locale we loved to return to time and time again.
After the railroad arrived in 1880, Asheville became an acclaimed health resort and also the go-to destination for rich and famous Americans. One of the wealthiest was George Vanderbilt who became smitten with the mountains' beauty on his initial visit in 1888. The following year, construction was begun on his 250-room, French-Renaissance-style Biltmore estate that comprised 125,000 acres of land that eventually became parks, woodlands, and carefully laid-out gardens.
At the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, we learned that the acclaimed 20th-century writer Thomas Wolfe drew from his early years growing up in his hometown of Asheville for inspiration throughout his literary career. Wolfe's 1929 novel Look Homeward, Angel chronicled the "unfolding childhood of a young boy" coming of age in a small southern mountain town at the beginning of the 20th century.
I don't know how Wolfe could possibly keep track of the 200 characters he had in his story! They were modeled on his own family and the people of Asheville and his hometown was immortalized as Altamount. Although the book was regarded as a critical and commercial success, there was an outpouring of anger and resentment by locals who recognized themselves or locations in the book and disliked the candid and unflattering character portrayals. As a result, he didn't return to Asheville until 1937 when controversy over his book had subsided.
As Steven and I were both interested in history and architecture, we welcomed the opportunity to 'walk into history,' by walking part of the Urban Trail. The trail was divided into The Frontier Period from 1784-1880, The Gilded Age from 1880-1930, The Times of Thomas Wolfe, The Era of Civic Pride, The Age of Diversity, and also an Architecture Trail, a self-guided stroll into the city's historic district. We didn't have the time to see everything so cherry-picked some that were either convenient in the city center and/or seemed of greater interest to us.
On the Move was a fun art-in-motion sculpture that evoked the history of Asheville's transportation. When we turned the wheel, it made 11 different sounds!
The City Building:
Until electricity was introduced in the late 1800s, gas and kerosene lamps provided lighting in what was then Asheville's Public Square, now Pack Square.
Fountains, fed from a mountain reservoir, were attached to gas lamposts on the square. Childhood, the bronze figure drinking at a replica horse head fountain, represented Asheville's past and promise.
Around a large street had been painted each of the letters in the words Black Lives Matter and other slogans that we are now all too familiar with us.
The words "I can't breathe" sadly came into our lexicon in 2014 after Eric Garner uttered them after being placed in a chokehold by a New York City police officer just before dying. The words are now a slogan associated with the Black Lives Movement.
The Asheville Art Museum:
In front of the museum was a replica angel sold by Thomas Wolfe's father that was made famous in Look Homeward, Angel.
On the other end of Pack Square was a huge covered granite obelisk that had once honored Zebulon Baird Vance, a Confederate colonel and slave owner that had been installed by the Daughters of the Confederacy. Following years of calls from activists, racial justice protests, and months of deliberation, the city council voted in March of this year to remove the 75-ft. tall monument to the locally born Civil War soldier and governor. However, The Society for the Historical Preservation of the 26th North Carolina Troops filed a motion to object to its destruction. It was one of many monuments and buildings throughout this country now facing a closer look in light of a fresh examination of history.
The first Buncombe County Courthouse and prison were placed on what was to become Pack Square in 1793. After the Buncombe Turnpike opened in 1827, this public square became a crossroads for stagecoach travelers as well as a gathering place for drovers herding cattle, hogs, and turkeys to markets further south.
Short story writer O. Henry, the pen name for William Porter, rented an office near here in the dawning years of the 20th century. He was inspired to write Let Me Feel Your Pulse after a visit to an Asheville physician. He was later buried in the city's Riverside Cemetery. The embedded bronze objects represented symbols from Henry's Christmas story, The Gift of the Magi.
The small ironwork sculpture was a tribute to Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the woman awarded a medical degree in the US. She began her medical studies here in Asheville before receiving her degree in New York.
The Drhumor Building, built in 1895, had been named for the Johnson family estate in Ireland. It was described as one of the best examples of the Romanesque Revival in the state. There was little wonder, therefore, that it was within the boundaries of the Downtown Asheville Historic District, which was also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Immortalized in the exquisite frieze was the face of local florist Cyrus Deake who watched the sculptor as he worked.
The Kress Building from 1928 embodied the founder's vision that each of his stores also be regarded as public art. The
elaborate terra cotta ornamentation was certainly evidence of that!
When the S & W Cafeteria building was completed in 1928, it was considered to be architect Douglas Ellington's most refined Art Deco project with its great arched windows and terra cotta panels topped by tiles.
A population explosion in 1880s Asheville was prompted by the coming of the railroad and tuberculosis sanitariums. Both the Grand Central Hotel and the Grand Opera House opened soon afterward. Vaudeville and motion picture theaters later opened up along this thoroughfare.
On previous visits to Asheville, we had made a point of walking through the elegant Grove Arcade that covered an entire city block and was built in 1929. The Neo-Gothic arcade featured spiraling staircases, Venetian Gothic arches, and a glass ceiling that makes the building positively divine in my opinion! When it was restored from 1985-2002, it was filled with restaurants, shops, and 42 apartments. IF you ever get to Asheville, make sure you stroll through the indoor shopping paradise.
I liked how the beautiful Art Deco design of some of the older buildings was carried over in this newer one, too.
Black American master craftsman James Vester was the chief mason for the 1925 Municipal Building. The cornucopia over the doorway marked the location where the integrated public market was moved to when the old City Hall was torn down.
Eagle Street had traditionally been the commercial, cultural and political center of the city for Black Americans. The bronze wall sculpture known as The Block was based on memories of former residents who recalled Eagle and Market streets were the heart of Asheville's Black community with stores and doctor's offices.
Photos of the funkier Asheville:
The Scottish Rite Cathedral aka the Masonic Temple had been constructed in 1903 according to its centennial stone.
Woodfin House was a ceramic replica of a building that housed Asheville High School, and then the YMCA for 50 years. Part of the structure was the original home of Nicholas Woodfin, a prominent citizen, agricultural innovator, and lawyer.
Wolfe's Neighborhood was a diorama of two different time periods that celebrated Asheville's most famous native son who roamed these streets as a young boy.
To share Wolfe's time, it was suggested we stand in his size 13 footprints to view the panoramic screen of bronze castings that recreated his neighborhood. What a novel way of literally stepping back in time.
As I have long been interested in the crafts of North Carolina from our many previous trips to the state, we stopped in at the Folk Art Center to admire items created by members of the Southern Art Guild. These walnut and white oak rockers were beautiful but, at $3900 each, I would have been too afraid to sit in one if it were in our home!
The Guild was a non-profit whose goal was to conserve the living arts and practices of individual hand craftsmanship that was native to the Southern Appalachians. The Guild had worked since 1930 to maintain standards of excellence in the design and workmanship of crafts sold in the area. Over 900 active members were drawn from the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Georgia. Each time we have visited the Folk Art Center, I both marvel and drool at the items for sale and show at the country's oldest craft shop.
Next post: Bears in Hendersonville and Legos at the North Carolina Arboretum - oh my, oh my!
Posted on June 25th, 2021, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, two weeks into our long road trip from Denver to Florida's Panhandle via North Dakota, and the Midwest, etc!
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