southern highland craft guild cellular center

Southern highland craft guild cellular center free#

Southern highland craft guild cellular center free#

Free self-guiding tour maps are available at the Asheville Art Museum, the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce/Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Thomas Wolfe Visitor Center, and at many downtown hotels and galleries. The 30 artworks along its length interpret various aspects of the city's heritage and are fun places to go. Pink granite markers embedded in the sidewalk mark the Asheville Urban Trail, a 1.7-mile loop tour through downtown. It was designed by Spanish-born craftsman and architect Rafael Guastavino, who came to Asheville to work on the Biltmore and later retired to the area. Lawrence, 97 Haywood St., has a tile-and-mortar dome built without an underlying supporting structure. Other Ellington landmarks are the architecturally distinctive S&W Cafeteria building, an ornate eye-catcher on Patton Avenue, and Asheville High School.Īlso notable is the Grove Arcade, a Gothic-looking indoor shopping mall at Battery Park and Page avenues. By 1930 Asheville's skyline included such impressive buildings as the neo Gothic-style Jackson Building and the distinctive octagonal, terra-cotta tile roof and chevron accents of City Hall, designed by North Carolina native Douglas Ellington. Scott Fitzgerald and Henry Ford.ĭespite the massive scale of these twin landmarks, the biggest construction boom was yet to come. Today it maintains the elegant atmosphere that has attracted presidents, generations of Rockefellers and distinguished guests like Thomas Edison, F. The inn was designed to resemble a rustic lodge Grove had seen at Yellowstone National Park, but offering all the comforts and amenities of a top-notch resort hotel. In 1913 he constructed The Omni Grove Park Inn out of hand-cut boulders hauled by wagon train from nearby Sunset Mountain. To furnish it Vanderbilt traveled throughout Europe collecting expensive artwork and antiques, and hired Frederick Law Olmsted to transform 125,000 acres of farmland into a vast tract of carefully laid out gardens, parks and woodland.Īnother visionary who left an early imprint was Edwin Wiley Grove, a medicine manufacturer who visited the area in 1897 seeking relief from a bronchial condition.

The 250-room, French Renaissance-style Biltmore was completed 6 years later. Smitten by the mountains' beauty, he envisioned building a magnificent country estate the following year construction of his dream house began. Vanderbilt, who accompanied his mother on a trip to town in 1888.

One of the first well-heeled visitors was George W. Following the arrival of the railroad in 1880, the town became a renowned health resort and the destination of choice for a select group of rich and famous Americans.Īrtists, writers, statesmen and socialites have all been drawn to Asheville since rail lines first crested the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the late 19th century, when tuberculosis was still a devastating illness, the first tuberculosis sanitarium in the United States opened in Asheville. Asheville has been a vacation mecca since the days when 19th-century doctors prescribed the city's fresh mountain air, mild climate, abundant mineral waters and hot springs as the perfect prescription for rehabilitation as well as relaxation.