The Story Behind The Sale!
For several years, we drove 90 minutes a day to and from work to our old home in Penrose. Pretty drive on pretty days but not much fun in the rain or snow. We began looking for a lot closer to Asheville where we could come home for lunch. It took two years to find this spot and to see the potential of the view. Thankfully, our first impression was on a cold October late Sunday afternoon day. The leaves were almost gone and like magic the view just beckoned us.
A few weeks before, we thought we had found the right spot but the price and the setting just did not feel right to us. Thankfully, it forced us to keep trying. After that things just kept falling in place. We bought two lots so we could turn the house to frame the mountain view and it worked! We had never drilled a well before but after a week we only had about a half pint of water. We got nervous but a friend reminded me when you live on a small mountain, you have to go farther for the water. At 500 feet we had a quart. But at 600 feet, we hit gold or water, and it shot out of the ground. We continued to 711 feet and have never run out of water. It is cold and fresh, and the pressure is about 60 gallons per minute. We can fill the 100 gallon tank on the RV in a few minutes!
The front yard was hilly and rocky and it took us three weeks to plant 500 hundred juniper plants to cover it. The blue green monsters hated the soil and refused to grow. Along with a friend and we drew up the rock walls, but we had to find the right rock mason to make it look right. We chose a real Cherokee Indian Chief – Ernest Lambert. He hauled all the rocks from his land in the Indian Reservation so We like to tell everyone we have authentic Cherokee rocks. Ernest has a special eye for finding just the right rock for a corner, side or top. After hauling in good soil, we can now grow just about anything here.
We like computers, electronics, movies, and music. The house wiring system provides all the above in just about every room—even the master bath is wired for sound! We can soothe in the sauna, or soak in the Jacuzzi with music, or the latest DVD movie blasting away just over our head.
The kitchen is big and open, and the breakfast room is perfectly in the spot We intended for the view, though you might have to fight for the best side of the table. The pantry is the size of the master bath with many rows of shelving all the way around the room. We’ve never managed to fill it up.
The dining room welcome the morning sun. The morning sun peaks in the overhead windows to give the dining room and the kitchen a beautiful warm glow. It’s a nice way to start the day. It was also the scene of many Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthday dinners. We raised the floor in this room to make it special from all the others. One step just puts a lift in your spirits!
While the lower recreation room provides our family and friends much fun with the ability to shoot pool, play ping pong, or tap away on the pinball machine, my favorite room is the upstairs greatroom. We chose high windows for the guests upstairs for a morning glance at the mountain view, and lower atrium windows just for me. Believe it or not, the entire house was framed in before we settled on the fireplace design. With the high ceiling and massive walls, wooden balcony, and over cedar ceiling and stained laminated beams, well, the fireplace just had to fight to stand out. We designed a curved setting that goes from the floor right to the roof with a big indention and accented lighting for a painting of Mountain Lion on nearby Grandfather Mountain. It helped us combine modern with the natural wonder of our Blue Ridge Mountains with our sense of contemporary. The gas logs have never failed to make us feel warm and cozy on a cool night and we still leave for a journey with a wink at the lion!