Architectural Tidbits

By Dale Wayne Slusser - August 2026 “On his farm and nursery at Oteen is one of the largest collections of plants in the south….”. -Asheville Citizen-Times, April 10, 1932 Chauncey D. Beadle was for sixty years a renowned horticulturalist associated with George...

By Dale Wayne Slusser If there be one who’s sick and weak, With hectic rose upon her cheek, And wishes health, then let her go, And taste thy waters, Swannanoa*. Thy beauteous waters as they roll Bring health to body, strength to soul; No lovelier sight this world can...

by Dale Wayne Slusser - February 2026 Marigold Cottage, one of an assemblage of cottages built in Albemarle Park, is unique among its neighbors (and almost every other house in Asheville) in that it has no street frontage or access, being accessible only from an...

by Dale Wayne Slusser - January 2026 The urgent need for more housing for veterans returning home at the close of World War II was both a national and local crisis.  In February of 1946, President Harry Truman gained bipartisan approval from Congress for what was...

by Dale Wayne Slusser December 9, 2025 O, give back Swannanoa The joys of yesterday That wrought a mystic aura About your winding way. -Mary Finch     Hurricane Helene and its resultant catastrophic flooding wreaked havoc along the banks of the Swannanoa River in...

by Dale Wayne Slusser Asheville, North Carolina, founded in the 1790’s in the mountains of Western North Carolina, remained remote and rather inaccessible well into the latter half of the nineteenth-century.  And although promoted as a “health resort”, beginning in...

 by Dale Wayne Slusser And smiling fields of golden corn, The mountains and the vales adorn, And fruits and beauteous flowers grow, Upon the banks of Swannano! -W.[1]   The site of the Cloisters Condominiums along the north bank of the Swannanoa River, and parts of...

by Dale Wayne Slusser “Governor -elect Locke Craig within the next few weeks, will begin the erection of a modern country home on his property on the Swannanoa River.” -Asheville Citizen-Times, January 9, 1913.   In 1949, North Carolina erected a historical marker...

by Dale Wayne Slusser Gone forever from thy borders, But immortal in thy name, Are the Red men of the Forest! Be thou Keeper of their fame! Paler races dwell beside thee, Celt & Saxon till thy lands… - poem, "Swannanoa: Nymph of Beauty" All the land now occupied by...