Western NC Mountain Communities and Homes

Discovering Western North Carolina

Good Things From Asheville to Brevard

For decades, Asheville has been the hub of the Western North Carolina. Everything has revolved around it: Shopping. Fine dining. Major stage attractions and sporting events. Here, small children have delighted in the tall buildings. Here, people have traveled miles to reach the “big city.” But, today Asheville is not alone. There’s plenty to savor in the satellites around it.  

Nobody doubts that Asheville is still the hub of the North Carolina mountains, easily reached from all directions by interstate highways and bursting with places to see, things to do and natural and man-made extras.

But the last time the city looked back, its neighbors were catching up. 

It isn’t that Asheville has slacked off – in fact, its “Paris of the South” reputation has only grown over the years – but that surrounding areas have grown up with better roads, more things to do, extraordinary places to live, and a mixture of urban and rural atmospherics with exclusive shops, exquisite dining, attractions and beautiful scenery.

Asheville still has its outstanding community theater, but Henderson County houses the state theater of North Carolina, the Flat Rock Playhouse; Brevard has the major-league Brevard Music Center; and Haywood County is thrilled to note the reopening of Maggie Valley’s Ghost Town in the Sky, one of the region’s greatest attractions. 

In some areas, of course, Asheville still excels by a mile and a half. Sports fans who want to see live professional baseball come to the city to watch the Asheville Tourists of the Class-A South Atlantic League perform in historic McCormick Field.

Then there’s the incomparable Biltmore House – America’s largest home – as well as the charming Grove Park Inn, the downtown Grove Arcade, the North Carolina Horticultural Center, and a hopperful of other attractions.

Not to be missed, too, is the WNC Farmers Market located on N.C. Rt. 191 South near the outskirts of the city, a huge place where farmers sell truckloads of produce and give locals the opportunity to purchase fresh country foodstuffs and an assortment of other goods.  

Attracting New Attention

Three counties abutting Buncombe have become major locations for visitors and new residents. Henderson, Transylvania and Haywood counties to the south and west of Buncombe have become vacation paradises for thousands of people, and chambers of commerce in the three counties increasingly get second visits from folks asking for relocation information.

More than 150 private and gated communities have sprouted on mountain tops and down the hillsides to the valleys all over Western North Carolina, attracting hundreds of new residents who enjoy high country living at its best.
For Just Good Fun

The best news for the tourism industry in Haywood County is the reopening in May of Ghost Town in the Sky, the Western-themed park where thousands saw gunfights in the streets and drank Coca-Cola in the Red Dog Saloon during a 40-year run in the latter half of the 20th century. During its five-year hiatus, little more than wind-blown dust stirred in the streets where the Apache Kid and Digger the Undertaker had held forth for four decades.

Now under new ownership, the 99-acre park, sitting atop 4,000-foot Ghost Mountain, is thoroughly face-lifted and greatly expanded at a cost of more than $4 million. The improvements include new streets, businesses and many new rides, all incorporated into the ones that visitors enjoyed before.

Long-term development plans include the addition of a water park, retail outlets, condominiums and potential high-mountain home sites.

“This is the right group at the right time for Ghost Town and the entire region,” says David Huskins, managing director of Smoky Mountain Host, a regional tourism marketing and development organization for Southwestern North Carolina.

And There’s Still More

Though Ghost Town is big, it’s not the only focal point of tourism in Maggie Valley.

Marion Hamel, who wears three hats there – vice president of Smoky Events, treasurer of the Maggie Valley Chamber of Commerce, and executive director of the Haywood County Hotel and Motel Association – mentions two great annual motor vehicle shows, one that brings Chevrolet Corvettes to the fairgrounds for a weekend, and another for Chevy-GMC trucks. Jonathan Creek has been heavily stocked with trout and Eaglenest, where the Ghost Town movie premiered in early June, will feature Christian Rock and bluegrass shows until October, and The Carolina Night Dinner Theater will stage shows every weekend.

According to Hamel, the push is afoot to make Maggie Valley a winter destination, with skiing at Cataloochee, which already exists, winter tubing down mountain streams at Tony Tube World and other offerings.

“I believe,” she says, “that we are on the verge of a boom in the valley that will equal the boom of the 1960s.”

A Place of Natural Appeal

Buffy Messer, executive director of the Downtown Waynesville Association, claims the county’s greatest attractions lie in its natural resources.

“When I think of scenic attractions,” she says, “I think of the beauty of the Great Smoky and Blue Ridge mountains, the free-flowing, clean water in our mountain streams, plus trees, plant life, the black bear, the newly-stocked elk in Cataloochee, the apple orchards, fertile fields, historic barns and homes, and especially the four seasons of perfect weather.

“There are breathtaking sunrises and mystical sunsets,” she adds, “camping, hiking, whitewater rafting, back packing, water and snow skiing, sledding, swimming, rock hopping in the creeks, rock hunting around the county’s gem mines, and several challenging golf courses.”

Downtown Waynesville, surrounded by mountains, creeks and lakes, is eclectic and spirit-filled with charming shops, restaurants, art galleries and studios. There is an antique store, a general store, bakery, coffee shops, a wine cellar – every sort of store that sells the things people need for daily life.

The Real Transylvania

“Unlike the Transylvania of movie fame,” says Beth Carden, president of both the Brevard Chamber of Commerce and the Transylvania Tourism Development Authority, “the Transylvania in North Carolina has few bats — but plenty of white squirrels.” On second thought, she adds, “and waterfalls.”

Abutting Haywood County to the west and Henderson County to the east, Transylvania is a land of beauty, offering a high quality of life and some of the most spectacular scenery in the North Carolina mountains. Five years ago, there were 250 waterfalls in the county, but since then 10 more have been discovered in the Gorges State Park, North Carolina’s newest.

Where the Arts Thrive

The Brevard Music Center is one of the nation’s leaders in schooling young musicians from all over the world and in the presentation of concerts and festivals that often feature nationally famed entertainers. The annual summer week of entertainment brings in outstanding opera performances and appearances by such acclaimed American composers as Burt Bacharach.

The center was founded in 1936. On its 140-acre campus, 65 distinguished faculty artists conduct an intensive seven-week program of study and performance annually. David Effron, artistic director for 11 years and now in his last season, has seen a tenure marked by tremendous artistic growth.

Music lovers come from all over the country for the orchestral, operatic, and chamber music festivals, with offerings from classical to bluegrass and jazz.

“The center has a short season,” Carden says, “but a huge economic impact. Many come for the music and stay six months, daily enjoying concerts at Brevard Music Center and then at the Porter Center for Performing Arts at Brevard College, which was built to provide stage experience for students.”

“Transylvania County receives the highest rainfall – about 80 inches annually – of any county east of the Rockies,” Carden says. “A portion of Pisgah National Forest is considered rain forest, and with all of this water flowing down mountain streams, it is no wonder we have so many waterfalls.”

It would be impossible for a visitor to reach all of them on his own, or even a goodly number, but Miller’s Land of Waterfalls Tours, operated by Craig Miller, carries folks to view some of the more photographic, out-of-the-way falls and back roads beauty of the area.

The white squirrel population, beautiful little animals that delight visitors and home folk alike, number around 1,000 in the county seat of Brevard, according to Madrid Zimmerman, executive director of the Heart of Brevard, a downtown development organization. The count of white squirrels is made annually by the White Squirrel Institute of Brevard College.

These are not albinos, but descendants of two very prolific white squirrels, an unusual breed with white fur and dark eyes, that escaped from an overturned carnival truck in the 1940s. They are so numerous and so popular that Brevard holds an annual White Squirrel Festival, which attracted more than 10,000 people last year on Memorial Day weekend.

Three parklands make up 50 percent of Transylvania County: the 157,000-acre Pisgah National Forest, DuPont State Forest and Gorges State Park. Ranked among the top 10 rivers in the nation for trout fishing, the Davidson River runs through the county.

Transylvania is outdoor-oriented in both living and tourism. Hiking, biking, swimming, horseback riding, rock climbing, camping, canoeing, kayaking, tubing, gem mining, fishing, and many other outdoor sports are available. In addition, the Cradle of Forestry is the place where modern day forestry, sponsored by George W. Vanderbilt, was first practiced.

Those who live in Transylvania enjoy a high quality of life.

“It’s a low-key place,” Carden says, “when compared with places people move here from. There’s a very strong hospitality in the county and a vibrant, strong entrepreneurialism here. We’ve seen a high percent of visitors come to the chamber to get information on vacations, then return later for relocation data.

“Not all of our newcomers are retired,” she says. “Many younger people are moving here from regions of extreme heat to enjoy living and working in a place with four distinct seasons and they’re opening new businesses here that help the economy.”

Elevations in Transylvania County range from about 2,200 to 2,600 feet around Brevard up to 6,000 at the Blue Ridge Parkway, the county line between Transylvania and Haywood counties.

“One last thing,” Carden notes. “All other counties around us have interstate highways. We think being without one makes Transylvania a unique, more tranquil place.”

The land that became Henderson County, located just east of Transylvania, became accessible in 1828 with completion of the Buncombe Turnpike, a road that opened the North Carolina mountains to the world.

Even before its completion, the road gave affluent South Carolinians from the great plantations of Charleston access to the cool mountains to escape the sweltering heat, yellow fever, and malaria that ran rampant in the Low Country.

Charles Baring of the Baring Brothers banking firm in London was first to discover Flat Rock in what was then Buncombe County but 11 years later, in 1838, became Henderson County. Baring established a great estate of 3,000 acres in the wilderness near an enormous, flat granite outcrop used by the Cherokee for tribal gatherings – hence the name Flat Rock. Baring also built a private chapel on his estate, now known as St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church.

Soon other South Carolinian coastal families came to the mountains and joined Baring in claiming huge estates and constructing beautiful homes with white pillared porches surrounded by wide lawns, towering trees, and well- tended gardens. The Village of Flat Rock was born.

Judge Mitchell King of Charleston built the second large estate, called Argyle. It was he who donated the land on which the City of Hendersonville was built. Shortly, 50 wealthy South Carolina families had joined Baring and Judge King in building estate homes in Flat Rock, most of which still stand and some of which are still in the possession of the founding families. Summers became a round of Southern gaiety in antebellum days, and Flat Rock became known as Little Charleston of the Mountains.

Long before the South Carolina invasion, William Mills, a Revolutionary War veteran, came to the area in 1787, carrying a land grant from the government for the service he rendered in the war. Noticing the richness of the land, he staked his claim. Others followed, land was cleared, and farmers grew wheat, corn, rye, potatoes, and cabbage, but Mills planted hundreds of apple trees and when his neighbors saw the trees thriving, they each planted hundreds more, and the Henderson County apple crop was born.

Today, Henderson County leads the state in production of apples, and the annual North Carolina Apple Festival, the largest festival of the year, occurs in Hendersonville on the four days leading up to and including Labor Day, when thousands of people fill the streets.

Hendersonville is known as the City of Four Seasons, with delightful weather that lures visitors today by the thousands.

Here they visit the many unique shops in the downtown area, with an abundance of quality antique stores, the Henderson County Farmers Curb Market, a mineral and lapidary museum, an arts center, the nearby DuPont State Forest and the Western North Carolina Air Museum, the first and only air museum in the state. It features a variety of aircraft primarily of 1930s and 1940s vintage.

A cemetery in Hendersonville is also the final resting place of author Thomas Wolfe’s Angel statue, [from his book, “Look Homeward, Angel”] which attracts many visitors each year. Nearby are various state and national parks for recreational and sight-seeing purposes, many streams and lakes for fishing and boating, exceptional views from places like Jump Off Rock, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and hundreds of other areas.

The nearby Village of Flat Rock offers Connemara, a National Historic Site and home place of poet and author Carl Sandburg, near the Flat Rock Playhouse, which as the official State Theater of North Carolina, is perhaps the greatest attraction in Henderson County. What began as a few weeks of summer plays in 1940 is now an eight-month season that includes Broadway musicals, comedy, drama and theater for young audiences, hosting more than 80,000 patrons annually. 

By Bob Terrell
Originally published in the Summer 2007 issue of Mountain Homes magazine