This is the fourth part of the posts about this year's condo trip. You really should read them in order. Here's a link to Part One. And here's a link to all the pictures from this year's trip.
All of my pictures, I believe, are captioned, so you don't have to just
guess at what you're looking at. In some applications, the captions show
at the bottom of the photo; otherwise, when you view the pictures in
Google Photos, you'll see a little "Information" icon at the top right
-- an "i" in a circle. Click on that to read the captions.
Part Four: Condo Week (cont'd)
Monday, May 20
Well, this was a good, full day. First, the weather was much nicer than had been forecast; in fact, the entire week's forecasts have improved. We spent the morning here in the condo planning out our week, then headed up the highway to Asheville. After a quick lunch at a fast-food restaurant, we stopped by the Southern Highland Craft Guild Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway, just outside of the city. So many beautiful works of craftsmanship on display, and most of them for sale. I very nearly bought a very small oval glass bowl, but I remembered the truth of what I'd written in this blog not long ago, about what a slob my dog is....*
The main reason, though, that I didn't buy anything was that the car was pretty fully loaded on the way up here, and I suspect we will be transporting some stuff that will later find its way to Colorado. But one of these days. One of these days....
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| Pinball Museum |
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| 1st Baptist |
Then we decided to take a driving tour of architecture, because the public art tour we'd originally planned involved too much walking. So we drove around and around the compact downtown of the city, seeing a number of interesting buildings, mostly from the early 20th Century. The First Baptist Church, modeled on Florence's duomo; the City Building; the neighbouring Jackson and Westall buildings, which share an elevator; and so on (pictures in the album), ending at the Grove Arcade, and early version of a shopping center.
The Grove is quite a nice space. Upper floors are given over to apartments, and the second floor is offices. The ground floor is filled with small shops varying from arts and crafts to home decor of an upscale variety. Most were already closed for the day by the time we wandered in to admire the arcade's Venetian-themed architectural touches, but a gelato shop drew the four of us in as if there was a chemical trail we instinctively followed. I had a scoop of salted caramel gelato topped with a scoop of peanut butter, and was surprised that the peanut butter was the better of the two. (And having read in the Guardian this morning that a double scoop of ice cream in the U.K. now costs more than ten dollars, I feel like I got a bargain on the gelato, at about $6 for two scoops.)
We came out the south end of the
arcade to try and locate several of the buildings on the tour that we
couldn't get to in the downtown congestion; and while we were there we
decided to have dinner before heading back to the condo. A passerby, who
overheard us discussing the restaurants in sight, interjected her
opinions about local cuisine, and managed to dissuade us from trying a
rooftop Cuban restaurant across the street; I was dead-set against the
poke-bowl cafe on the side street, and voted instead for the eventual
winner, a "southern-inspired" cafe on the corner with outside tables. We
had excellent service and pretty good food at Carmel's, despite the
passerby's disparagement. (I rated it five stars on Google Maps because
four and a half wasn't an option.) Mine was a mushroom pizza with sausage added, once again served on cracker-thin crust. Must be the current fashion. Sherry's was a chicken pesto pizza, very good but way too oily. Half of each went home with us.
Once back to the car, we embarked on a search for the house Jeff's dad had been born in, on Brevard Road. The information Nancy got from a real-estate web site said the house there had been built in the 1940s, but it looks exactly like the house Jeff's grandparents had built there in the 1920s; so we believe it's the same house. Maybe there was some kind of update that caused the county records to be altered. But it is the same house.
Following that, we stopped at a drug store in the neighbourhood so I could get some cash at an ATM, then headed back to the condo for the night.
* on May 13; see Part One, regarding the North Georgia Folk Pottery Museum galleries.
Tuesday, May 21
Another great day! Gorgeous weather and lots of exercise. I had my leftover pizza for breakfast, and it was even better as leftovers. We gradually got ourselves together and headed out for our day. We'd planned to take a boat tour of the lake at 10AM, but we got there a few minutes after they sailed. So Sherry and I killed the interval in the town's Welcome Center, which had lots of brochures about things to see and do in the area; and it had a three-dimensional map of the area, which I enjoyed studying; and in the back room was a small history museum, detailing the minor events that took place locally in both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. There was also some coverage of more recent events, such as the founding of the town in 1927, the same year the first tourist buildings were constructed and the year the dam was built. It was interesting that the dam was a private venture, paid for by the sale of electricity. It paid off the dam in ten years, by which time the Great Depression had started and the Morse Brothers, whose vision gave birth to the town and the lake, were ruined. So only the bankers profited.
She also pointed out places related to the filming of Dirty Dancing.
There's not much left. The stars were housed in the 1927 Spa Hotel,
which has been renovated recently along with two other Spanish Revival
buildings on that part of the lakeshore. The cabins that were used as
employee lodging in the movie, and where Baby met Johnny, were torched
by an arsonist some years ago. One scene was filmed on the golf course
by our condo. And the town has an annual Lift Festival, when competitors
get into the water and try to lift their teammates out, as Patrick
Swayze did with Jennifer Gray. (He was given cinder blocks under his
feet, to give him a grip in the mud; competitors don't get that
advantage.)
A number of people have funiculars to access the lake below their houses. In some cases it's their only access to the water. Others have long slides that toss riders into the lake. She showed us the largest house on the lake, a fifteen-thousand square-foot French-style palace occupied by just two people.
When the Morse brothers went bust, all the land they owned around the lake was auctioned off; one man, a Mr Powers, bought 200 acres, which he gave to his daughter. She never built on it, and later in life gave half to two nephews and put the other half into a conservation trust. The two nephews ended up doing the same with their property, so now there are only 200 acres on the entire 24-mile-long lake shore that are undeveloped.
We found the entire cruise around the lake interesting and relaxing. So glad we did it.
Afterwards we went up the road a few miles to the village of Chimney Rock. The plan was to buy some sandwiches or whatever and have a picnic up on the mountain in Chimney Rock State Park. But because we'd missed the 10AM boat tour, it was past noon when we got to the chosen provider of foodstuffs, the Old Rock Cafe; so we just had lunch there. Glad we didn't have to carry food or a cooler around while we hiked.
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| the tunnel |
From another point in the park is a trail leading to Hickory Nut Falls,
which, at 404 feet, is one of the highest in the state. The trail is a
mile and a half each way, improved but not paved. It took us a long time
but it was worth it. The falls flow from a natural spring on top of the
mountain, and it's been wet recently. We happened to be there just as
the sun was above the falls, giving our view some special effects. (The final scenes of the movie Last of the Mohicans were filmed at the top of this waterfall.)
After spending the afternoon in the park, we decided that the Fog & Scaffold Athletic Club should have its annual meeting, as there is a very nice miniature golf course laid out on the bank of the river. We had a business meeting first, in the bar there, and then hit the links. I had a two-stroke lead at the halfway point but ended up finishing third. Good enough. It was fun.
We followed this up with dinner at the Highlands, a pretentious restaurant with a balcony overlooking the river. The ambience was very nice. The food had highs and lows. For example, my prime rib sandwich was fine, nothing really special, but it was served with what I have to call steak fries, but cut in a way I've never seen, before being fried up perfectly. They end up looking like crescent moons. Sherry had fish tacos that I thought were so-so. I know it sounds odd, but they had a fishy smell. They were served with rice that was simply boring, undercooked and underseasoned. The service was mostly good, although turgid, but I suspect the waiter was overextended. There were long gaps in the service, when we were waiting for things. He apologised at the end, which leads me to suspect that the problems is either that he is stretched too thin, or that the kitchen is disorganised, or both. As for the prices, they were slightly higher than I would willingly pay were it not for the ambience. I hesitate to call it any kind of good value, but it was not outrageous.
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| the Riverwalk |
Before
we left, Sherry and Nancy took a quick look at the Riverwalk the
village is building. It's a work in progress. San Antonio has nothing to
worry about here. Then we went to the condo and crashed.
Wednesday, May 22
Today we went to the Biltmore Estate. This is the single biggest attraction in this part of the country, other than the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Biltmore is the gigantic house built by George Vanderbilt, grandson of the Commodore who was in his day the richest man in the world. It was built during the Gilded Age, that late-19th-Century era when a handful of robber barons first came to control a significant part of the wealth of this country. They were the Oligarchs of their day, though none were as wealthy, relatively speaking, as the richest people of our own time.
The house was originally to be a sort of Appalachian version of a Newport cottage: 6,000 square feet or so, maybe Greek revival. But his architect, believing that money was no object to a Vanderbilt -- and it seems he was right -- convinced George that he should build a house "worthy of the estate" he was acquiring in the North Carolina mountains, which eventually came to more than a hundred thousand acres. (The entire Pisgah National Forest began with 87,000 acres of estate land sold to the government -- at a very low price -- by his widow, in recognition of George's wishes.) The resulting mansion, at something like fifteen thousand square feet, is still the largest private residence ever built in the United States. It's built in a French Empire style, and looks like the chateau of Blois, with the stairs moved to the front of the house.
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| Biltmore |
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| Blois |
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| the stables |
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| The entryway: grand stairs, lobby, winter garden |
George kind of rushed the construction so that he could host his entire family for Christmas in 1895. As a result, a number of the major rooms on the main floors were incomplete when the house was occupied, and some remained that way for the rest of George's life. (I feel you, George.) As the insipid audio guide puts it, the present appearance of the rooms is "an interpretation of George's wishes, based on extensive research." After a few rooms like that, I decided that the audio guide wasn't worth listening to. The woman who recorded the guide speaks unbearably slowly, and each room's brief lecture begins, "As you move as far into the room as possible...," as if she expects people to heed her; her voice is irritatingly breathy; the information she imparts consists of rare dollops of interesting fact submerged in a bathtub of drivel. "Guest" speakers were heard but did nothing to elucidate anything.
Anyway, after a few rooms like that I dispensed with the audio recordings. That made it easier to go through the house, taking photographs, and that made me look for things to photograph. (My digital SLR Nikon camera stopped working after half a dozen shots, so I had to switch to my phone. Irksome.) Considering how much time I wasted listening to the audio for the first 7 or 8 rooms, I doubt that I missed anything of real significance. On several occasions I spoke to docents positioned around the house, and found out the reason there are no working bathrooms inside the house: "120-year-old plumbing and no sinks in the bathrooms." I also learned that the 40 or so bathrooms in the house are all exactly the same, from the master suite to the lowliest servant's quarters. Vanderbilt ordered plumbing fixtures from England for all the bathrooms, the same stuff, and had all the walls done in the same white tile because it was considered (correctly) to be more hygienic than wallpaper, and easier to clean. But he wanted his guests to know the luxury of having a maid deliver a pitcher of hot water. (I suspect the maids got their own hot water, rather than delivering it to each other to taste the luxury.)
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| the staff dining room |
The whole place boils down to this: it's huge, and no expense was spared. It was expensive to furnish and too expensive to maintain, it's magnificent and beautiful and it was, and is, a point of pride not only to the family but to the people of western North Carolina.
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| the back yard |
Before coming back to the condo we stopped for dinner at an Italian place in Lake Lure. The service was excellent, the prices were reasonable, the ambience was good (it's on a hillside overlooking the town, with Chimney Rock visible in the middle distance), but the food was not very good. The garlic rolls were dripping oil, and my own lasagna is better than theirs; and I don't really do lasagna well.
