My first stop on the road less traveled between Atlanta, Georgia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was Hendersonville, a small historic town just southeast of Asheville in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge mountain region. Main Street in Hendersonville is lined with enough privately owned shops, restaurants and galleries to keep visitors and residents alike busy all day long — which quite possibly contributes to its being named one of America’s top places to retire in a number of surveys conducted over the past decade or so.
With a thriving arts community that includes both local artwork and traveling exhibits (hence the goats), endless opportunities for outdoor enthusiasts, and a world-famous Apple Festival each fall, I wasn’t surprised that everyone I met in Hendersonville was ridiculously happy and friendly. What did catch me off guard, though, was the lack of retail and restaurant chains within the city limits. Almost everything is owned and operated by the town’s residents themselves, many of whom grew up in western North Carolina. National recognition has definitely increased traffic to Henderson County and the people there have welcomed the great migration of retiring baby boomers with open arms, but they’ve put in a lot of effort to preserve the atmosphere that earned them their reputation in the first place.
Not every town in the greater Asheville area has been fortunate enough to withstand the influx of emigrants who have been promised rainbows, butterflies and bliss. I visited Brown’s Pottery in nearby Arden, NC, where I met the Brown family’s 8th and 9th generations of potters. When the Browns started throwing pots Benjamin Franklin was still flying kites in thunderstorms, but they didn’t move to their current location until 1924. Still, eighty years is a long time to stay in one place, and upon learning the purpose of my visit to the region Charlie Jr. recommended I talk to Charlie Sr. if I wanted to know anything about anyone who ever lived in Arden.
I explained that I didn’t really want to know about anyone in particular — just about the community and its culture as a whole. Charlie didn’t have to think twice about this. “You’re too late,” he told me as he chuckled and shook his head.
I was a little confused. Did everyone typically vacation during the second week of August? Had I just barely escaped a mass alien abduction that no one had yet bothered to report to the media? Unfortunately not.
Growth and development in Asheville, a lot of which has occurred during the past decade, naturally impacted the city’s suburbs and outlying communities. Some of them have survived, like Hendersonville. Some, like Arden, have not. Brown’s Pottery is one of two original businesses that still remain in Arden; the rest have been bought out or overshadowed by retail and restaurant chains that make up strip mall after strip mall along North Carolina’s “scenic” highway system. The extensive heritage that’s tied this family to their trade for centuries is what has kept them going after everyone around them seems to have given up, but there’s no telling how long they’ll be able to live comfortably while doing so. It’s disheartening to realize that a really rich and wonderful culture is hanging by a thread, and that a few key individuals have to work so hard to preserve it; still, though, the Browns — along with their neighbors in Hendersonville — are committed to a cause that’s made Rand McNally shout their praises from the pages of his large-print atlases, and if the travel gods are on your side, I’d say the outlook’s good that everything will end up okay.
This is a really interesting post. I lived in Asheville for the past 5 years, and currently work for a Western North Carolina vacation rental company. I try to be very conscious of the pros and cons (sometimes it’s a lot easier to see the cons) of growth and development in the area, but I’m a little bit shamed to say I never thought of Arden as a mountain town in it’s own right. I love Weaverville, Hendersonville, all the other well-maintained towns – but the places like Arden and Fletcher that mostly became the out of town spots for Asheville’s ugly sprawl… well, I just took them at face value. Thanks for the reminder that all of our towns have their OWN history and worth!
If you are interested in coming back to Western North Carolina, please don’t hesitate to use Carolina Mornings as a reference point – we’re all over the Internet with a blog, a myspace page, Facebook page, and of course our regular reservation Web site. Take care, and happy travels!