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PhC.173
The Manor Inn
Photograph
Collection
Photographs depicting the Manor Inn. 265 Charlotte Street,
Asheville, NC, c.1910-1970 (bulk c.1910-1920).
The following is from the National Register of Historic Places:
The Manor and Cottages compose a picturesque small historic
district, evocative of Asheville's dramatic tum-of-the-century
resort town boom era. The Manor, a resort with an English inn
atmosphere conceived by Thomas Wadley Raoul and his father
William Greene Raoul, was begun in 1898 on a 32-acre tract of
land acquired by the elder Raoul, a railroad magnate. To
compete against the lucrative hotels and numerous boarding
houses in Asheville, the Raoul family also developed a village of
individually designed cottages adjoining the Manor, one of the
Nation's earliest planned residential parks. Suffering from
tuberculosis, Thomas Raoul moved to Asheville and oversaw the
development of Albemarle Park, the dignified name his mother
chose for the complex.
Much of the special qualities of the buildings erected between
1898 and 1920 comes from a remarkable palette of residential
designs and their integration into the mountain landscape.
Working in close collaboration with the Raouls, architect
Bradford Gilbert created individually designed cottages that each
bear a distinctive design reflecting the eclectic character of the
Manor with various combinations of Shingle, Tudoresque, and
Colonial Revival styles. Landscape architect Samuel Parsons, Jr.
created a superbly planned landscape that takes maximum
advantage of the natural mountain setting. Parsons found the site
to a be a challenge, offering him opportunities to incorporate its
rugged terrain, sweeping vistas, native stands of trees and
woodland vegetation as character defining features. Albemarle
Park was a groundbreaking achievement for its time because of
Parsons's successful manipulation of slopes that averaged a 20
percent gradient. He approached the landscape design with a
sensitivity to the property's natural beauty and worked to ensure
that the overall effect be picturesque and provide each cottage
with a "miniature park."
Gilbert was the logical choice to design the Manor, the lodge
(gatehouse), and several of the early cottages because of his
work with the senior Raoul on a number of railroad projects.
Working with the Raouls allowed Gilbert the freedom to
experiment with revival styles at the height of their popularity in
the early 1 900s. Galax and Rosebank, cottages of the Dutch
Colonial Styles, use cantilevered gambrel roofs and wood
shingles as siding and roof materials. An example of the half-
timbered Tudor style is Clover cottage, which features
pebbledash (stone-textured stucco) and pegged timbering. The
Shingle style expressed the English concept in cottages like
Milfoil, and is covered in wood shingles with heavy timber posts
