Grove’s Asheville is Just Shy of Anything

I thought Millionaires could do anything… especially millionaires operating in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries.

Edwin Wiley Grove (1850 – 1927) was a millionaire. But I bet few people outside Asheville, NC have heard of him. The world knows Coke. In Atlanta we know Candler. We don’t know Grove and we don’t know his “Tasteless Chill Tonic,” the bottled quinine mixture that made him rich. Maybe that’s because people said it wasn’t “tasteless” at all.

Regardless, E.W. did what any respectable human would do with his fortune. He built things - high on hills or intended to tower over neighboring buildings - which he could then name after himself. And the things he built were really, really big – or at least intended to be really, really big. I’ll admit that Sarah and I focused most of the energy during our first trip ever to Asheville this past week on the mountains and the plethora of trails that emanate from the Blue Ridge Parkway, but I did find some time to explore two of E.W.’s legacies.

On Tuesday evening, we headed out to the Grove Park Inn, mostly to see for ourselves the impressive twin-fireplaces that boast the ability to burn 12’ logs. And there they were… big stone fireplaces that could burn 12’ logs. Rumors that in some areas the all-stone exterior walls are a staggering 5’ in section were difficult to actually observe or prove. The building, though LARGE and impressive in that it was constructed in just 12 months, seemed disproportionate and lumbering overall and the additions that had been tacked on over time seemed anything but congruent. To be fair, I didn’t spend enough time there to even see any of the rooms or other (reportedly fine) amenities including spa, etc. But it felt a little bit like a dimly lit, stuffy convention hall and the supposed “largest collection of Arts and Crafts furniture” also failed to impress.

Next was the Grove Arcade downtown, which Grove envisioned as “a massive commercial mall with covered pedestrian thoroughfares and rooftop terraces surmounted by a skyscraper tower.” Sounds famous. This one was just too ambitious. Construction commenced too near to E.W.’s death and it was never finished. After a stint as the National Climatic Data Center (which all you Good Time Charlies will appreciate) it is currently operating as an Arcade and we were able to check off all the things you’d expect to see in a tourist-town mall including overpriced area-furniture stores, public restrooms equipped with homeless people, and several mediocre food vendors.

Quite unlike the Inn, this building is very pleasant to occupy if you can focus vision away from the tacky stores. I appreciated the entirely ramped floor, which covers the grade change clear from one side to the other of the city block that the building occupies, the barrel vaulted ceilings, and the consistent detail throughout.

However, the building that stands there today amidst all of the fine Art Deco buildings of Asheville is not exactly Grove’s vision (good or bad – you decide). The tower was never built. The stock market crashed and with it crashed the towering dream of the then deceased tonic-maker. So all I could do was stand in front of the etched-glass memorial drawing of the would-be building and take this photograph, hardly enough to actually envision what that tower would have meant to the city of Asheville or to Grove’s legacy.