Some years back, I had the good fortune to attend a national conference for my office, held at the Grove Park Inn, high atop a mountain to the north of downtown Asheville, NC.

Because it was easier to drive than fly, I drove. My mileage reimbursement more than paid for my gas, and my wife got to come with me at no cost other than her meals. It was a very interesting trip.

The Grove Park Inn was built out of granite quarried from the area, and carried up the mountain by teams of mules, in blocks, in the late 1800’s.. The hotel had a display on one wall in the lobby, with newspaper clippings showing the mule trains, ferrying those heavy blocks up the incline road.

It was amazing to see this huge hotel built from those granite blocks, and to know they were “hand carried” up the mountain, as it were. The view from the top was stunning. The hotel had three restaurants. One was a ground-level grill that catered mostly to the golfers and lunch-time crowd. Another was a fancy (and expensive) dinner restaurant. The third was an open-air breakfast restaurant I think on the second floor that faced out over the mountains to the west. That’s the one with the amazing view.

Because the place was built long before air-conditioning had been invented, that breakfast grill was open to the mountain air.

The only problem with that was, sometimes bees and wasps would wander in, drawn by the smell of the sweet rolls and pancake syrup that wafted out the open view. But one just brushed them off, and they were really no problem.

But that was indeed a different experience, having to do that. Because we had already stopped for dinner somewhere along the way, we only went to get coffee and dessert, the evening we got there. I was astonished to see the price for coffee and a piece of pie was $10 – each! I was not used to those kind of prices, back then (late 1990’s?).

Fortunately for me, my conference provided a continental breakfast and lunch, so we only had dinner on our own for three nights. The last night there was the conference banquet, and that cost was included in our registration fees. (My wife’s fee as a social guest might have been $100, I don’t remember.) So we ventured forth into downtown Asheville the other two nights, and found good food at relatively reasonable prices.

Two other amazing things about the Grove Park Inn were the three-sided elevator that opened up to the main floor in front, and the east and western wings on each side, on upper floors. I had never seen an elevator with multiple doors before.

The other thing was the massive fireplace in the downstairs lobby. It was so huge one could put an entire six-foot tree trunk in it, that would probably burn all night. I have never seen another one that big.

The rooms were relatively small, however. I guess, back when it was built, guests were not expected to spend much time in their rooms, except for sleeping. No TV back then, for one thing, of course. Guests would likely have spent their evenings in the dining rooms, and later in the lobby.

One afternoon we had the opportunity to tour the famed Biltmore Estate, which was built on a nearby mountain of its own. It was huge, I forget how many rooms it had, and was graced with a huge lawn in the back that sloped down to the tree line, as I recall. Guests would often come and spend a month or two, and there was an army of servants to attend to their needs, from meals to cleaning services, lawncare, etc.

They even had their own winery on the premises!

Very expensive to maintain, I’m sure, back when it was first built.

The last interesting place we visited was Chimney Rock Park, just a short distance from Asheville proper. This was a tall slice of granite that rose, needle-like, into the air, with an amazing viewing platform at the top, from which one could see several miles into the distance.

There was also an elevator built into the rock that would take one to the top at a breath-taking speed. Or one could take the winding trail on foot, which at one point led between two rocks in a narrow space that only the more slender of us could squeeze through. Quite an interesting natural phenomenon.

All in all, a very interesting place. This just relates the highlights.

Rafe lives in east Liberty County and drives through Richmond Hill frequently.

He is a Savannah native and UGA graduate.