Architectural Tidbits

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...

by Dale Wayne Slusser At the northwest corner of Woodward Avenue and Norwood Avenue there sits a late-nineteenth-century gambrel-roofed house, which obviously predates all the other houses in the 1914 Norwood Park subdivision in North Asheville, which surrounds it. ...

by Dale Wayne Slusser A small unassuming log cabin, which sits on a bluff just above the John B. Lewis soccer fields in East Asheville, and which is now sadly in need of restoration, is famously known as “The Thomas Wolfe Cabin”, although Thomas Wolfe never owned it,...

By Dale Wayne Slusser When researching the history of a house, the primary goals, for me, are to try to discover who had the house built, who was the builder and/or architect, and when was the house built.  Usually, the answers to these three questions, in most cases,...

by Dale Wayne Slusser An East Asheville homeowner inquired of the Preservation Society, if anyone in the Society knew anything about the mysterious dressed granite stone, incised with the name “WHITE BOULDERS”, which sits on top of a low stone wall along Old Chunns...

by Dale Wayne Slusser  The Preservation Society of Asheville & Buncombe County has recently purchased the Cappadocia Church in Asheville’s East End neighborhood, a historically African American neighborhood on the western slope of Beaucatcher Mountain.  The church...

By Dale Wayne Slusser The owner of the property at 124 Montford Avenue recently sent an inquiry to the Preservation Society inquiring about the history of their property, an apartment house obviously dating from the early 20th century.  Two specific statements made by...