Architectural Tidbits

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”...

By Dale Wayne Slusser We often find that in telling the story of a single building we are also telling the broader story of time, people, places, and events. This phenomenon can be summed up in one word: “microcosm”, which is defined as, “a community, place, or...

by Dale Wayne Slusser Often when researching the architectural history of a house or building, one tends to “go down rabbit trails”, seemingly off track from the object of the research.  But sometimes those rabbit trails lead to a related and often more interesting...

by Dale Wayne Slusser As if finding a stash of empty, lidded, stacked liquor bottles behind a basement wall, and finding a shoe that was intentionally placed inside of a plastered wall, were not mysterious enough for the homeowners of 191 Murdock Avenue, tracing the...

by Dale Wayne Slusser We preservationists have flown banners in front of historic properties which tout: “THIS PLACE  MATTERS!”.  But what do we mean by the word PLACE!  The house that Samuel D. Holt built in 1906, at 162 W. Chestnut Street, for me is an example to...

by Dale Wayne Slusser Montreat started in 1897 as a summer religious conference ground.  Now after 125 years, Montreat has evolved into an incorporated town within which lie not only the religious conference ground, but also a Christian liberal arts college, a...