History buff or not, here is the good stuff: Gilded Age mansions, Art Deco, writers, artists and weird mountain lore.
George Vanderbilt opened the house around Christmas 1895. It has about 250 rooms and is the largest privately owned home in the U.S.
Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York's Central Park, shaped the estate grounds.
Forestry education in the U.S. is often traced to a school started on the Biltmore lands. The Cradle of Forestry in Pisgah National Forest tells the story.
Asheville's cool, dry mountain air drew visitors seeking rest and recovery, and the town filled with inns and sanatoriums.
The nickname is often traced to an 1876 novel by Christian Reid titled The Land of the Sky.
The final resting place of writers Thomas Wolfe and O. Henry, among other well-known names.
The Grove Park Inn opened in 1913 with a famous speech by William Jennings Bryan, and its huge granite boulder walls were built by hand.
Asheville grew fast in the 1920s and left a downtown packed with Art Deco buildings. The Jackson Building (1924) is often called the city's first skyscraper.
Designed by Rafael Guastavino, whose tile vaults also appear at Biltmore. Its elliptical dome is among the largest of its kind in North America.
Asheville's city and county buildings from the late 1920s show the style off. Look up when you pass.
The boom ended with the Great Depression. The city carried heavy debt for decades and is said to have finished paying it off in the 1970s.
Hard times meant fewer old buildings were torn down, which helped preserve downtown's Art Deco look.
The Battery Park Hotel of the 1920s was built after a hill was famously leveled to make room.
The author of Look Homeward, Angel grew up in Asheville. His boyhood boarding house, the Old Kentucky Home, is now a state historic site.
The Jazz Age novelist spent time in Asheville and stayed at the Grove Park Inn in the 1930s.
Short-story writer William Sydney Porter, known as O. Henry, married his second wife in Asheville and is buried at Riverside Cemetery.
An experimental art school just east of Asheville that drew artists and thinkers such as Josef Albers, John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg.
Started in 1928 by Bascom Lamar Lunsford, it is one of the longest-running folk festivals in the country.
Synthesizer pioneer Bob Moog moved to the Asheville area in the late 1970s, and the company still builds instruments here.
Asheville won the Beer City USA title in a national poll, and it still has one of the highest numbers of breweries per person in the country.
The French Broad is often said to be one of the oldest rivers in North America, flowing north through Asheville.
Work started in 1935. The Parkway runs 469 miles and the most-visited stretches are near Asheville.
At 6,684 feet it is the highest peak east of the Mississippi River, within a short drive of town.
Waterfalls, trails and the Cradle of Forestry sit right outside the city, which is why so many visitors stay in Asheville.
Asheville is known for farm-to-table dining, cideries and a busy downtown food scene.
Thomas Wolfe titled a book You Can't Go Home Again. Many Asheville visitors end up moving here anyway.
Dates and details summarize widely published local history and can vary by source. Names are for reference only. We are not affiliated with these places. Check official sources before you quote anything.
Yes. Tell us what you want to see and we build the day, with a driver who waits and takes you home.
Yes, we pick up from hotels, venues and the airport.
Plan on half a day to a full day depending on how many stops you pick.
