SmallSmall MarketMarket MeetingsMeetings November 201318

Early on, the city’s mountain air was a prescription doctors wrote for those with tuberculosis and other ills. Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone made Asheville the launch pad for their “board meetings,” car camping trips into the mountains.

What has brought visitors to Asheville in more recent times is the Biltmore Estate, the palatial 250-room home of George Vanderbilt, the largest private home ever built in America. Last year, more than 1 million visitors trooped through the estate.

jobs,” said Cat Kessler, public rela-tions and marketing coordinator for the Asheville CVB. And when they can’t find work that they want, “they make their own niche,” she said.

That is one explanation for the

As Jonas Gerard remembers, he fell under Asheville’s spell within 20 minutes of rolling into the North Carolina mountain town from Miami seven years ago. Enamored of Asheville and “the arts scene, the people, the friendliness, the hippies … the whole thing” he decided to resettle in a city that’s way smaller but perhaps no less colorful and lively than the south Florida metropolis that had been his home for 38 years.

Many Asheville transplants’ sto-ries are similar to Gerard’s. They came, they saw, they fell for the city and they moved to it. The moun-tain town’s magnetic personality pulled them in.

“People don’t come here with jobs; they don’t come here for

large number of entrepreneurs and the independent spirit of western North Carolina’s largest town.

Ford and Edison among early fans

Tourists have been trekking to Asheville for more than a century.

By Vickie Mitchell

Courtesy Biltmore Estate

Above, at the Biltmore Estate, groups

can dine in gardens, in barns and

under trees. Below, foodies find

plenty of choices. Asheville has 250

independent restaurants.

Courtesy Asheville CVB

19SmallSmall MarketMarket MeetingsMeetingswww.smallmarketmeetings.com

Asheville CVB

36 Montford Ave.

Asheville, NC 28801

800-280-0005

www.exploreasheville.com

Kudos: Omni Grove Park Inn

and the Grand Bohemian Hotel

Asheville have been ranked top

in the resort and hotel catego-

ries by Conde Nast Traveler’s

Readers Choice poll. Last year,

Fodor’s named Asheville a Best

Destination for Fall Foliage. The

city became America’s first

Green Dining Destination in

November 2012. Outside maga-

zine named Asheville among

America’s best river towns.

Asheville’s reign as Beer City

USA continues. In 2012 the city

tied with Grand Rapids, Mich., in

Examiner.com’s online poll.

What’s new: Craft beer makers,

Sierra Nevada and New Belgium,

will build breweries in Asheville.

Blue Kudzu, which makes sake,

opened in September in the

River Arts District. The Grove

Park Inn completed $25 million

in improvements in time for its

100th anniversary this year. The

U.S. Cellular Center has shifted

its box office and created a new

entrance. Downtown Asheville

has gotten edgier with the arrival

of an Aloft hotel on Biltmore

Avenue and a Hotel Indigo near

the convention bureau’s offices.

Location: Asheville is in western

North Carolina, two hours west

of Charlotte, N.C.; two hours

southeast of Knoxville, Tenn.;

2.5 hours north of Columbia,

S.C.; and 3.5 hours northeast of

Atlanta.

Getting there: Asheville

Regional Airport is the largest

airport in western North Carolina

and is served by four major car-

riers with flights to nine hubs.

Interstates 40 and 26 intersect

on Asheville’s edge.

A full-bodied destinationIn the last decade, Asheville

has grown into a more full-bodied vacation destination. Its thriving downtown is packed with home-grown restaurants, independent bookstores, arts and crafts galleries and inventive retailers. Artists like Gerard have found it a genial place, especially with the development of the River Arts District, which has turned an old industrial area along the French Broad River into a rea-sonable rent district for art studios and galleries.

Downtown Asheville is so ener-getic that an average Wednesday night finds sidewalks packed with shoppers, diners and dogs. A seat near a front window or at a sidewalk cafe is all that’s needed for dinner with a show. A “nun” on a unicycle pedals by, a bar on wheels heads up a hill and a purple LaZoom tour bus drives past, packed with partiers.

“This,” said Kessler, looking out on the lively scene, “is as slow as it gets.”

Hotels are a good mixWhat also gives Asheville appeal

as a meeting place is the variety of its conference hotels. Within a 10-minute drive, visitors find a 100-year-old resort, two luxury inns, a modern resort with an emphasis on sports and two well-located conference hotels.

The century-old resort is the AAA Four Diamond Grove Park Inn, now part of Omni Resorts. With 534 guest rooms and 55,000 square feet of meeting space, the resort serves as a convention center for Asheville, a city without one.

As it approached this year’s 100th anniversary, Grove Park made $25 million in improvements. Most noticeably changed is the hotel’s lobby, the Great Hall.

Despite the 24-foot-high ceilings and a wall of windows facing west, the 120-foot-long Great Hall was dark and cavernous. But when the hotel moved its front desk, it also uncovered three large windows. The added natural light, and addi-tional lighting fixtures, brightened what must be one of America’s first “great rooms.”

The room’s charm remains,

anchored by granite-boulder fire-places with openings 14 feet wide, seven feet deep and seven feet tall.

Many of the original 700 pieces of furniture and 600 copper light mixtures made for the hotel by the Roycrofters remains in use today. It is the largest collection of Arts and Crafts furnishings in the world, valued at more than $4 million.

Next to the lobby, a new restau-rant, Edison, pays homage to the inventor and former guest with dozens of vintage-style light bulbs for overhead lighting. Local prod-ucts are emphasized, especially craft beers.

A number of guest rooms have been refurbished and meeting spaces have been upgraded with

newer technology. Retail shops have been opened near the confer-ence space in the Vanderbilt Wing, one of two modern wings added to the 1913 hotel.

Although the Grove Park Inn is edged by the historic Montfort neighborhood and is a 10-min-ute drive from downtown, it feels sequestered. From its Sunset Terrace, just off the Great Hall, its Donald Ross-design golf course splays out to the west, toward the city and the sunset.

Four-Diamond experienceOn the other side of the city,

in an equally serene location, sits the AAA Four Diamond Inn on Biltmore Estate. Opened in 2001 on the 8,000-acre Biltmore Estate, the 210-room hotel is perched on a hill above bustling Antler Hill Village, Farm and Winery.

Paths lead to the village and its ice cream shop, gift shops, outdoor outfitter and Cedric’s Pub, named for the Vanderbilts’ St. Bernard.

The inn has nearly 6,000 square feet of its own meeting space, but it also puts groups within a few miles of venues that the Biltmore has fashioned from the estate’s original buildings.

There’s Antler Hill Barn, with a covered, open-air pavilion bounded by grassy green court-yards. Lioncrest is a converted dairy barn, with a ballroom ceiling that is accented by the barn’s exposed timbers. It sits across a drive from Deerpark, whose four long narrow

Courtesy Asheville CVB

Artists sell their work outside down-

town’s Grove Arcade.

Courtesy Asheville CVB

Asheville is bordered by the

Blue Ridge Mountains.

SmallSmall MarketMarket MeetingsMeetings November 201320

Among Asheville’s advantages

is a longer-than-usual list of after-

hours entertainment ideas. Who

would think a town of 83,000

would be packed with so many

options? Here are a few.

t Spend the afternoon in the

River Arts District. RAD is down

the hill from downtown Asheville,

an old industrial zone in the French

Broad River’s flood plain. Cheaper

rents have artists flocking there

like migratory birds. Already, more

than 160 of them have set up shop

in about 25 industrial buildings.

The district stretches several

miles, with studios and galleries

in clumps.

Among the highlights is Jonas

Gerard Fine Art. Gerard is happy to

book his 5,000 square-foot gallery/

studio for receptions; the lively art-

ist might be game to give a paint-

ing demonstration.

His abstract acrylics lend gaiety

to any occasion, and at Gerard’s,

visitors are advised that it is “Ok

to touch” his paintings.

Gerard’s next-door neighbor,

the Clingman Cafe, is one of six

restaurants in the district; there are

reports that at least two more are

on the way. 12 Bones, a barbecue

spot open only at lunch (President

Barack Obama has eaten there

twice) and the White

Duck Taco Shop are

local favorites. At Wedge

Brewing, downstairs

from an art studio next

to the railroad tracks,

patrons unwind with an

Iron Horse IPA on a patio

punctuated by art.

www.riverartsdistrict.

com

t Beer lovers

should visit at least a

couple of Beer City USA’s

craft breweries. There are

about a dozen in Asheville and

another dozen within a short drive.

An Asheville Brews Cruise lets you

leave the driving to someone else.

Or drive yourself to Asheville’s

southern edge and see the city’s

first brewery, Highland Brewing

Co. Its big warehouse of a home

allows the 19-year-old brewery

to have parties and concerts,

indoors and out. If you’d rather

stay in town, the front patio at

Wicked Weed Brewery, down-

town’s newest brewery, is a good

place to people -watch on Biltmore

Avenue.

www.wickedweedbrewing.com

www.highlandbrewing.com

t There’s high adventure a

half mile from downtown Asheville

at the Crowne Plaza Tennis and

Golf Resort. On a swath of 125

acres, bordered by highways and

across the French Broad River

from downtown, the resort is

home to the city’s only urban zip

line and an adventure park.

Two years ago, Asheville resi-

dent Jeff Greiner, whose family

has long been in the river rafting

business, turned the front nine of

the resort’s 18-hole golf course

into a series of 10 zip lines that

make use of 150-year-old white

oak trees and massive tulip pop-

lars. The trees were handled with

care as platforms were built; an

arborist monitors their health.

The zip line is a short walk from

the Crowne Plaza, making it a nat-

ural for an afternoon of team build-

ing, especially as resort guests are

offered discounts.

The day can end with meeting

attendees zipping along on side-

by-side zip lines that race down

from the course’s tower to a plat-

form that steps from the hotel’s

meeting rooms.

Greiner’s newest offering,

Treetops Adventure Park, is an

aerial obstacle course in a cluster

of trees a few yards from the start

of the zip line tour. It has four lev-

els, each of increasing height and

challenge. From the ground, the

park looks like the Swiss Family

Robinson hooked up with a band

of spiders. Along the aerial routes

are some 50 challenges — climb-

ing a rope net or zipping through

the trees in an airborne kayak.

Picnic tables below allow those

who don’t go in for aerial tricks

to watch friends and family that

do. Both facilities are open to the

public.

www.wildwaterrafting.com

www.ashevilletreetopsadventurepark.com

Paint the town, sip craft brews and zip through trees

Courtesy Asheville CVB

Courtesy Asheville CVB

Courtesy Adventure Center of Asheville

An urban zip line is a half mile from

downtown. The Wicked Weed Brewery on Vanderbilt Avenue

is downtown’s newest brewery.

More than 160 artists have galleries and

studios in the River Arts District.

21SmallSmall MarketMarket MeetingsMeetingswww.smallmarketmeetings.com

dining areas form a square and have French doors of glass that open to a large, landscaped inte-rior courtyard.

Two other hotels, near the Biltmore’s entrance, offer differ-ent moods and price points.

The Grand Bohemian Asheville looks like it has always been a part of historic Biltmore Village, a Tudor-style village where many Biltmore employees lived. Today the village is a shopping and din-ing district.

The 104-room Bohemian, part of the Kessler Collection, opened four years ago and was built from scratch. Inside, the style is that of the baronial Biltmore, a re-creation of a hunting lodge that George Vanderbilt would have built for himself. Antlers are everywhere — rows o little racks along the walls of the dining room, clusters of racks form chandeliers.

The hotel’s main meeting space, the 2,200-square-foot Kessler Ballroom, drips with crystal chan-deliers and gold leaf accents, added by artisans. A 1,100-square-foot salon links the ballroom to the Tryolean Terrace, an outdoor space that can be used, with coverings and heaters, almost year round.

Modest hotel has Biltmore ties

For those who seek a more mod-erate stay near the Biltmore, the 197-room Doubletree by Hilton Asheville-Biltmore sits near the front gate of the Biltmore Estate. It is owned by a Vanderbilt descen-dant, who has preserved his fami-ly’s history by using rich Vanderbilt red in the hotel’s newly done decor and hanging old photos from the estate in the hallways. There’s also a life-size model of a Jersey cow in a meeting area corridor — a nod to the old Biltmore Dairy.

The pride extends to a $3 million renovation, which spruced up 160 rooms and the lobby. Among the property’s surprises is a landscaped courtyard for receptions.

Like the Biltmore and the Grove Park Inn, the Crowne Plaza Tennis and Golf Resort is secluded without being far from town. The 125-acre resort is across the French Broad River from downtown.

The resort is known for its sports

complex, which includes 16 out-door and four indoor tennis courts that draw tennis competitions, a lap pool, two outdoor pools, a large workout center and a spa.

Three years ago, the 274-room property added a 16,600-square-foot expo center. A covered veranda on one side can handle dinners of up to 200; there, guests can enjoy the action on the resort’s zip line (See sidebar, page 20).

A half mile away in down-town Asheville, the 275-room Renaissance Asheville is well located a block from the start of Asheville’s bustling storefronts and a block off I-240. In parking-starved down-town, the Renaissance’s roomy sur-face parking lots, free to guests, are a popular perk.

A mod new lobby makes the Renaissance feel more like New York than North Carolina, and like the Grove Park Inn, the hotel has used local artists’ work in its decorating.

Most of the 21,000 square feet of meeting space is on the lobby level, and the ballroom benefits from an adjacent covered patio, soon to have an upgrade. Demand for meeting space is so strong that the hotel turned its outdoor pool into a second ballroom. The outdoor pool was replaced with an indoor saline pool.

Uptick in attendance

Because Asheville is such a desirable destination, most asso-ciations and other organizations see an uptick in attendance when they meet there.

“Ninety percent of the discus-sions that we are having with clients are ‘we need overflow,’” said Pola Laughlin, sales manager for the Renaissance.

Late spring through fall is a busy time; rates and availability are bet-ter in the winter, when weather is usually temperate, although access through the mountains can some-times pose challenges.

Still, most find it a worthwhile challenge to face, because, as the Crowne Plaza’s Angela Beattie said, “Everyone wants to come to Asheville.”

Courtesy Inn on Biltmore Estate

Courtesy Grand Bohemian Asheville

Courtesy Grove Park Inn

From top, the Great Hall at Grove Park Inn is brighter after a refurbishment; a private dining room’s red decor whets appetites at the Grand Bohemian Asheville; and the Inn at Biltmore Estate sits above the river valley.