Asheville continues to morph itself into one of the trendiest cities in the Southeast. The lofty Western North Carolina mountains, with their world-class natural beauty and four distinct seasons are luring thousands of retiring baby boomers and younger, affluent city dwellers to what so me have dubbed “The Paris of the South.”
How do you define a town that constantly changes?
Plenty of people try, summing up Asheville, N.C. with such catch phrases and comparisons as “Paris of the South,” “Santa Fe of the East” and “New Age Mecca.” Even, “Top-rated place to retire” and “Land of the Sky.”
As a lifelong Asheville resident, I’ve been aware of the labels used to define my hometown’s unique individuality. I can even see rays of truth in many of them. But none works as a stand-alone description. It’s when you combine them all that you get a sense of the real city.
The Early Ground-Breakers
Asheville has long been a destination for the rich and famous. George Vanderbilt was so taken with the beauty of the region that he bought a huge chunk of land in and around Asheville. In the late 1800s, he built his 250-room mansion and filled it with priceless art, sculptures, tapestries and elegant décor and surrounded it with lavish gardens and landscaping.
Later, E.W. Grove moved to Asheville from St. Louis for health reasons; the city had proved to be a wonderful destination for those seeking relief from breathing ailments, including tuberculosis. Grove marked the landscape with his money, creating the Grove Park Inn, which was built in 1913 and has catered to famous guests since its beginning, and the Grove Arcade, completed in 1929 and touted as “the finest structure in the South.”
Until the stock market crash of 1929, Asheville was a boomtown. Then, saddled with a huge debt, the city could not afford downtown urban renewal. This financial burden led to the preservation of Asheville’s architecture and today, it would be hard to imagine Asheville without its art deco City Building designed by Douglas Ellington, who also created the domed First Baptist Church and the old S & W Cafeteria building. Other buildings add to Asheville’s architectural wealth with gargoyles or faces carved into building eaves.
Asheville Now
If you visit downtown Asheville today, it’s easy to see the Paris connection with the multitude of art galleries and sidewalk cafés; the Santa Fe connection with the unique stores and restaurants that you won’t see anywhere else and working artists in studios in the river district. The New Age reference comes through acupuncture schools, organic groceries and shops that cater to those looking for tarot cards, crystals and feng shui cures.
Without question, Asheville is also a lovely place to raise a family or to retire, with a moderate climate, four beautiful seasons, a low crime rate and stunning scenery. It’s a town that offers something for everyone, from tattoo parlors to antique stores; sushi bars to used bookstores; upscale salons for the perfectly coifed to acceptance of those with dreadlocks.
It’s a town that Self magazine proclaimed America’s “Happiest City,” and one which Rolling Stone Magazine dubbed “America’s New Freak Capital.” Money Magazine has called Asheville one of the “Best Places to Retire,” and AARP cites it as one of the “Best Places to Reinvent Your Life.” It’s also a town with a strong literary history, serving as the hometown of authors Thomas Wolfe, Gail Godwin, Wilma Dykeman and John Ehle, as well as a place of inspiration for O. Henry, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Pat Conroy, to name a few.
As these slogans suggest, Asheville is a melting pot, a location that offers small-town charm, friendliness and acceptance of alternative lifestyles, along with cultural offerings, art, architecture and diversity in stores, shops, and cafés.
What is amazing for those of us who have lived through various stages of Asheville’s renaissance is the degree of transformation that’s taken place.
As a child during the ’60s, I spent many Saturdays shopping in downtown Asheville with my mother and two aunts. I have fond memories of browsing through the elegant department stores located on Haywood Street and Battery Park Avenue. Ivey’s was situated in a corner building that now houses the Haywood Park Hotel, and Bon Marche and Winner’s were set a little further up Haywood Street. I quickly learned the rules: The higher the number on the elevator, the higher the price of clothes. You’d find bargains in the basement, moderate prices on the first and second floors, and more expensive items on the upper levels. 
Around the corner on Battery Park Avenue, we shopped at John Carroll, an upscale boutique, and J.C. Penney, where a little woman sat in the store’s alcove for years selling carnations. Fain’s, a discount store with great prices and wonderful linens, stood on Biltmore Avenue where Mast General Store is now open for business. And there were other smaller shops sprinkled around town.
We’d literally shop ’til we were about to drop, then head for a bite to eat at the S & W Cafeteria, located in a stunning art deco build ing, the lunch counter at Woolworth’s on Haywood Street or Brown’s Restaurant on Battery Park. I also spent countless hours reading in Pack Memorial Library, visiting my aunts in the federal building where they worked for the U.S. Forest Service, getting my teeth checked in the Flat Iron Building, and enjoying summer Saturday evenings on the courthouse lawn watching cloggers and listening to old-time music at the Shindig on the Green.
Downtown Asheville pulsed with activity as people buzzed in and out of stores and restaurants, amid awe-inspiring architecture and the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountain skyline. But when I was in the sixth grade, construction crews built the Asheville Mall off Tunnel Road and the downtown area began its decline.
Beginning Another Boom
In 1979, as a high school senior, I had my first taste of working in downtown Asheville. I drew my paycheck from the Buncombe County Board of Education, then located in the Buncombe County Courthouse, and spent lunch hours combing through bargains at Bon Marche’s going-out-of-business sale.
That summer, the city launched a festival in hopes of bringing people back downtown. The first year, the festival spanned just the length of Haywood Street and brought out a modest crowd, but the energy was set and Bele Chere became a yearly tradition. Now, it is the largest free outdoor street festival in the Southeast, attracting more than 350,000 people each July.
In the early 1980s, I stayed close to home and studied at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. At that time there were few reasons to venture downtown, especially after dark when most of the sparse stores and businesses were closed. Then, after graduation in 1984, I began my second stint working downtown, this time at The Asheville Citizen-Times on O’Henry Avenue. The sight of the Grove Arcade next door depressed me, its architecture still impressive but its usage grown stale with government offices inside. I felt a deep sadness for my town and yearned for the time it would throb again with crowds, stores and restaurants.
A New Visionary
John Cram, owner of the prestigious New Morning Gallery in Biltmore Village, had a hunch about the potential for downtown revitalization. He bought property along Biltmore Avenue and on New Year’s Eve 1990 opened Blue Spiral 1 fine arts gallery.
“It was a ghost town when I opened,” says Cram. “Now it’s packed full. Arts always pave the way for downtown development.”
Today, Blue Spiral 1 anchors one of the busiest, most successful areas of town. It’s surrounded by restaurants, stores, galleries and Cram’s Fine Arts Theatre next door. Any given weekend, throngs of people parade up and down Biltmore Avenue, stopping in the shops, eateries and the nearby Orange Peel nightclub.
By the Numbers: All About Asheville Population Asheville City:69,425 Asheville Metro: 231,205 Cost of Living Index 97.9% of 2003 national average Climate Average Temperature: 56 degrees Average Annual Snowfall:13.3" | Property Taxes per $100 value Asheville City: $1.39 Retail Sales: 7% North Carolina Income Tax Personal: 6-8.25%; Corporate: 6.9% Average Housing Costs 2003: $194,020. Outdoor Activities Fishing, hiking, rock climbing, swimming, hunting, white-water rafting, road & mountain biking, camping, horseback riding, llama trekking, canoeing, gem mining | Recreational Facilities 34 public parks and play areas 14 public & semi-private golf courses Asheville Civic Center Asheville Community Theater Minor league baseball, the Asheville Tourists 23 tennis facilities Montford Outdoor Theater 3 private residential full-service country clubs 2 private swim and tennis clubs Semi-pro hockey, Asheville Smoke |
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