About Asheville
From spring’s abundant rhododendron blooms to autumn’s spectacular Western North Carolina color, Asheville, North Carolina, is a year-round gallery of nature. Unlike any other East Coast locale, it features an inspiring combination of mountain scenery and the eclectic charm of a European city, living up to its nickname, “Paris of the South.”
Like Europe’s great cities, Asheville, too boasts its own fairy tale castle—George W. Vanderbilt’s nineteenth-century Biltmore Estate, which is set on 8,000 acres in the heart of Asheville’s metropolitan area. The breath-taking 250-room chateau, designed by Richard Morris Hunt and landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted, is the nation’s largest residence, and has been attracting visitors from around the world since its inception. Carefully developed by Vanderbilt’s descendants, Biltmore Lake is mere minutes away.
The community is also in close proximity to downtown Asheville, where area residents and guests delight in the generous mix of shopping, dining, and entertainment venues. Music has long been a part of mountain culture, and the offerings run the gamut from a sophisticated evening with the Asheville Symphony to the nationally-renowned Orange Peel to folk jams at the local pub where locally-brewed beers are always on tap. A culinary center for innovative cuisine, downtown is host to countless independent restaurants that feature flavors from around the world. All of these great venues are set amid downtown Asheville’s historic Art Deco buildings, which survive from the city’s first golden age that lasted from the late 1800s through the roaring 1920s.
The Arts & Crafts Movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was also a formative time for Asheville’s aesthetics. Marked by a style that sought to bridge utility with craftsmanship, the movement focused on the artist’s skill rather than the industry. Biltmore Lake was planned with those same principles in mind, affording residents a reprieve in an increasingly hectic world.
Biltmore Park Town Square, located in South Asheville just minutes from Biltmore Lake, is a unique New Urbanism mixed-use center that also offers a growing number of top destinations: Regal Biltmore Grande Stadium, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, REI, Brixx Wood Fired Pizza Oven, Asheville’s largest YMCA, Barnes & Noble, and more.
