The man who designed this hotel had no training in architecture or construction. He drew it himself after rejecting everyone who did.
In 1909 Edwin Wiley Grove and his son-in-law Fred Seely bought roughly 400 acres near Sunset Mountain outside Asheville, North Carolina, to build a grand hotel. Seely turned down plans from several prominent architects, made his own sketch, and Grove approved it. The building went up in under a year, put together by workers housed in tents on the site.
It opened on 12 July 1913. Acting US Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan gave the keynote, welcoming guests and declaring the inn built for the ages, which North Carolina's Department of Natural and Cultural Resources still quotes. The original inn had 156 guest rooms.
It sits on the western-facing slope of Sunset Mountain in the Blue Ridge, built in the Arts and Crafts style, and it has since grown considerably: 140 acres holding 513 guest rooms, ten restaurants and bars, an 18-hole golf course, a subterranean spa, 42 meeting rooms, two ballrooms, two swimming pools and nine tennis courts.
It is on the National Register of Historic Places and belongs to the Historic Hotels of America programme of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. A long line of US Presidents have stayed here, which is the through-line the state's own history blog follows.
The Arts and Crafts interiors are the reason to walk in even if you are not staying. A hotel drawn by an amateur, built in a year by men living in tents, and still standing as one of the most recognisable buildings in the state, is a better story than most architects get.
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
