A storied history.
There are bigger cities. But there are few places that knit together so beautifully the life and culture of a city of the world with the freshening wildness of nearby national parks, preserves, rivers and forests.
And whether you call it Asheville, “Land of the Sky,” “Paris of the South,” or “Sante Fe of the East,” one thing’s clear: it’s been a destination of the heart for a long, long time now.
Thomas Wolfe wrote about the the city in Look Homeward Angel, forging a new kind of modernist literature that changed the dimensions of fiction. And, during the same time his mother ran her boarding house on Spruce Street, a young man from New York came here to create an estate that would change the dimensions of a lot of other things: architecture, forestry, the art of the planned landscape and the self-sufficient farm. His name was George Vanderbilt and his artistic sensibilities, his longing for the exquisitely planned and well-made, still directly influences the way in which people from Asheville regard art, architecture, music, dance, theater, even conversation. These are parts of life, especially in this sacred and beautiful country, to honor, celebrate, embrace and savor.
The fanciful architecture of Wolfe’s time in Asheville, characterized by Douglas Ellington’s City Building and E.W. Grove’s Grove Arcade and Grove Park Inn actually benefited from a particularly bitter Depression in the mountains in which the great building stock of Asheville literally went into a deep freeze, only to thaw out, years later, into the stunning city scape of an art deco city. Asheville honored its debts from the Roosevelt years, paying them off in 1976, and setting the stage for infrastructure growth and city planning that heralded a renaissance of city life that’s still unfolding--in coffee shops, in sidewalk cafés, in jazz and music clubs, in galleries and studios, and across performance stages, both petite and grand.
In its lush and varied neighborhoods, where conversations from front porches once drifted into the streets in places like Montford and Kenilworth during Wolfe’s time, what you’ll find today is an eclectic residential architecture from well-preserved original arts and crafts cottages to Asheville’s own brand of contemporary mountain style home--beautiful, accommodating and energy efficient. “Rooms with a view” is a descriptor that practically goes without saying, with Mount Pisgah a point of reckoning for pilots, residents and visitors alike, proof that you are once again in the lap of the French Broad River Valley and home.
A Global City of the Arts
In 1980, Asheville’s downtown and river front studios and galleries were tougher to find than ceramic hen’s teeth. In 2010, it’s hard to go a city block without feeling, from a gallery window, the beckoning call of painting, sculpture or piece of high craft; maybe it’s a teapot that looks like Mae West, fabric art that dazzles with texture or blown glass so rich in color it makes your head swim.
There are studio strolls in the spring, summer and fall, farmers’ markets with artful, local produce on Saturdays, and a continuous run of festivals and events that leave no weekend unclothed and no week day without choices of sublime and ridiculous proportions.
It is totally within reason to suggest that, within a few weeks, you could go to a film debut, witness an originally choreographed dance performance staged for the first time, see a Jazz Hall of Fame recording artist at Diana Wortham, knock out three plays at three venues, drop into the Orange Peel for an evening of folk, rock or rap, catch a symphony, sit on the grounds of Biltmore Estate as the moon rises for an exquisite concert by an international talent. In the end, you may be a bit wrung out but you’d have entered a realm of happiness few have known.
Festival-wise, to mention only a handful: Bele Chere, the largest free outdoor street festival in the Southeast (July 23-25, 2010); the Asheville Film Festival (late May); Goombay! An African-Caribbean street festival with plenty of dance and good food (August 27-29, 2010); WordFest, four days of poetry readings, slams and live performances (early May of each year); the Asheville FringeArts Festival, serving up avant garde work that might otherwise not have a venue (January of each year); and the Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF), with diverse world music, poetry and great relaxation at a graceful setting near Asheville (in spring and fall).
Betwixt and between, anyone is welcome at the Asheville Drummer’s Circle, from 7 to 10 p.m. when the weather’s good Fridays in Pritchard Park, and at Shindig on the Green, a long-standing traditional gathering of mountain music pickers, singers and dancers, now on Roger McGuire Green every Saturday night from early July to early September.
It’s a staggering mix of creative work and creative expression and it would have never happened were it not for so many inspired people and organizations pitching in, wrangling ideas and funds, networking, bringing good planning and good strategy to the city’s calendar.
For example, hundreds of citizens were involved in shaping the city’s 2010 plan, written in 1985, which outlined where the cultural neighborhoods would be best established and gardened. There were hundreds of creators, too, of HandMade in America, a grassroots non-profit in support of those who make original crafts and one-of-a-kind furnishings. And dozens of other organizations, all intricately involved, overlapping, authors of a new city, built, in large part, around the simple idea of artfulness.
A Landscape of Wonder
From most anywhere in Asheville, in about ten minutes, you can drive to an entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway, then thread through forests and mountains for mile after mile in either direction. It’s called “America’s favorite drive” and its very existence has caused people to move here, to be close by it, to use it for motoring, for cycling, for photography, for getting to a trail head.
Going north, you will climb to Craggy Gardens, so named for catawba rhododendron that come into bloom there in June, and further into the highest mountains in the East. At Mount Mitchell, named for Elisha Mitchell, a professor who died during his explorations of the peak, you can see the great Roan Massif and look across the Blacks to Grandfather Mountain and Hawksbill. You can breathe in the air at over 6,500 feet and realize what a blessing this region is, around Asheville, where you can see and experience the roll and pitch of protected lands, mountains and high meadows.
And if you think it’s a major deal to gear up and find time to be at one with the environment, here are some indicators of true travel time:
• In about 15 minutes from town, you can be hiking the trails of the North Carolina Arboretum, curling up Hardtimes Trail and back across Owl Ridge, for a lush and beautiful hour’s stroll that finishes along the banks of Bent Creek.
• In about 20 minutes from town, you can off-load your kayak in the French Broad River and, when the river’s up, run the gates just off Ledges Park.
• There’s also class-act mountain biking in the Bent Creek area and beautiful stretches to cycle along the Parkway.
• And, all within an hour of the city: horseback riding, rock climbing, waterfall hunting, skiing on groomed winter slopes, fishing for native trout, hiking mile after mile of inspirational trails and discovering some of the best places in the world to stop, to rest, and to enjoy the view.
No stranger to the region, naturalist John Muir once wrote, “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energies, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”
In the high places around Asheville, it’s easy to wonder why something seemed so pressing, so important, before you got there and came fully to your senses.
Many thanks to Bob Boettcher and Carolyn Knight who commissioned this project as part of the rollout of their new firm, Diamond Real Estate Group.
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