Architectural Tidbits

By Dale Wayne Slusser- September 10, 2024   In the heart of Asheville’s historic Charlotte Street neighborhood, in the shadow of the historic Manor and Albemarle Park grounds, is a humble two-story house built by African-American John William Bowman and his wife...

By Dale Wayne Slusser- June 11, 2024 “NEW TYPE HOUSE FINDING FAVOR- River Rock Bungalows Are Unique And Material Is Plentiful”, announced the May 14, 1926 edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times.[1]  In the opening line of the article, the reporter further announced...

By Dale Wayne Slusser- May 14, 2024 Tuberculosis, first called “phthisis” or commonly, “consumption”, had been around since ancient times, but during the 18th and 19th centuries it had turned into an insidious epidemic in Europe, Great Britain, and the United States. ...

By Dale Wayne Slusser- March 12, 2024 “Kenilworth Inn is thought to be designed by Ronald Greene, a prominent architect in Asheville who designed a number of the city's downtown buildings on Pack Square.”[1]  So concluded the preparer of the official National Register...

By Dale Wayne Slusser- January 9, 2024 The first two decades of the twentieth century have long been known as Asheville’s architectural heyday, when many of its most famous historic houses and buildings were designed and built.  One of Asheville’s most famous...

-Dale Wayne Slusser -November 2023             “No prettier or more accessible location for the erection of handsome houses exists in the city than that of Prospect Park,”[1] announced the May 28, 1889, edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times.  Prospect Park, Cliveden...

By Dale Wayne Slusser 10/05/23 Southeast of downtown Asheville lies the community of Oakley, historically, a working-class neighborhood.  Often thought of as a planned community built in 1926 to accommodate the workers needed for the new Sayles Bleachery, in fact,...

By Dale Wayne Slusser Many Asheville residents, like me, have passed this street sign at the intersection of White Pine and Brackettown Roads at the north entrance to Asheville Mall, and asked the question- “Where is Brackettown”?  This is especially perplexing...

by Dale Wayne Slusser The river-rock building tradition in Buncombe County was spawned in the early 1920’s at Montreat, NC with the building of the Anderson Auditorium in 1921-22.  This river-rock/cobblestone building tradition not only continued in Montreat after the...

by Dale Wayne Slusser George Washington Vanderbilt began building his 250-room French Renaissance château in the mountains of Western North Carolina, just south of Asheville in 1889.  Designed by the renowned architect, Richard Morris Hunt, construction of “Biltmore”...