Overlook | |
Location | Asheville, North Carolina |
---|---|
Coordinates | 35°36′40″N82°32′4″W / 35.61111°N 82.53444°W |
Area | 6 acres (2.4 ha) |
Built | 1914 |
Built by | Fred Loring Seely |
Architectural style | English manor |
NRHP reference No. | 80002804 [1] |
Added to NRHP | October 22, 1980 |
Overlook Castle or Seely Castle [2] is a historic house in Asheville, North Carolina. It was built from 1912 to 1914 for Fred Loring Seely, the son-in-law of Edwin Wiley Grove. He built the castle after his father-in-law gave him ten acres on top of Sunset Mountain. The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 22, 1980. [1]
The house has had five known owners. The Seelys lived there until 1942, when Mr. Seely died at age 70. In the winter of 1949, Evelyn Grove Seely, daughter of entrepreneur Edwin Wiley Grove and widow of Fred Seely, offered to sell her former home to the second owner, Asheville-Biltmore College. The college was there from 1949 to 1961, until they outgrew the available facilities. The limited area for developing new buildings caused the trustees to move the college to its current site on the northern edge of Asheville. The third owner was Mr. Jerry Sternberg. He upgraded the heating system from coal to oil fuel and put a new roof on the structure. He planned to turn the house into a museum but his plan never came to fruition. He then sought to turn the facility over to a non-profit organization. Overlook Ministries was the fourth owner. The fifth and current owner is the Wells family. They acquired it in 1984 and restored it. [3]
The castle has two large glass windows that offer a panoramic view of Asheville. There are Jacobean ceilings. The castle is situated on the top of the mountain and is surrounded by English gardens.
Asheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the most populous city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th most populous city. According to the 2020 census, the city's population was 94,589, up from 83,393 in the 2010 census. It is the principal city in the three-county Asheville metropolitan area, which had a population of 469,015 in 2020.
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The University of North Carolina at Asheville is a public liberal arts university in Asheville, North Carolina, United States. UNC Asheville is the designated liberal arts institution in the University of North Carolina system. It is a member and the headquarters of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges.
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Asheville–Buncombe Technical Community College is a public community college in Asheville, North Carolina. Established in 1959, the college is one of the oldest in the North Carolina Community College System and serves Buncombe and Madison counties across five different campuses, although students from anywhere may enroll. As of the 2014–15 school year, the curriculum enrollment was 10,070 and continuing education enrollment was 14,053 students. As of 2019–20, the college is the seventh largest in the North Carolina system and the largest in Western North Carolina. A-B Tech offers more than 120 degrees, diplomas, and certificates.
Castle Hill is a 56,881 sq ft (5,284.4 m2) mansion in Ipswich, Massachusetts, which was completed in 1928 as a summer home for Mr. and Mrs. Richard Teller Crane, Jr. It is also the name of the 165-acre (67 ha) drumlin surrounded by sea and salt marsh that the home was built atop. Both are part of the 2,100-acre (850 ha) Crane Estate, located on Argilla Road. The estate includes the historic mansion, 21 outbuildings, and landscapes overlooking Ipswich Bay on the seacoast off Route 1, north of Boston. Its name derives from a promontory in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, from which many early Massachusetts Bay Colony settlers immigrated.
The Omni Grove Park is a historical resort hotel on the western-facing slope of Sunset Mountain within the Blue Ridge Mountains, in Asheville, North Carolina. This hotel was visited by various Presidents of the United States mentioned below.
Edwin Wiley Grove, commonly known as E. W. Grove, was an American business magnate, entrepreneur, and self-made millionaire. He founded the Paris Medicine Company, creating and producing its most well-known patent medicine products, Grove's Tasteless Chill Tonic and Laxative Bromo Quinine tablets. He later invested in and developed properties in cities in the southern United States, including Atlanta, Georgia, and Asheville, North Carolina.
Fred Loring Seely was an American newspaperman, chemist, inventor and philanthropist.
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Richard Sharp Smith was an English-born American architect, noted for his association with George W. Vanderbilt's Biltmore Estate and Asheville, North Carolina. Smith worked for some of America's important architectural firms of the late 19th century—Richard Morris Hunt, Bradford Lee Gilbert, and Reid & Reid—before establishing his practice in Asheville. His most significant body of work is in Asheville and Western North Carolina, including dozens of buildings that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places or are contributing structures to National Register Historic Districts.
The E.W. Grove Henry County High School building, also known as Grove Tower, is a historic building located on Grove Boulevard in Paris, Henry County, Tennessee. It is a "two story and basement building of gray pressed brick," the first of a few buildings comprising the Grove School campus. Grove High School was the first privately endowed public high school in Tennessee, opening in 1906. It was closed after graduating the class of 1969 and replaced by Henry County High School. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Biltmore Industries, Inc., also known as Biltmore Homespun Shops, is a historic industrial complex located adjacent to the Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina, now known as Grovewood Village. Biltmore Industries was started by Eleanor Vance and Charlotte Yale, missionaries who moved to Asheville, NC in 1901. The complex of seven buildings were built about 1917 by Fred Loring Seely, and are constructed of hollow ceramic tile with stuccoed exterior wall surfaces. The buildings are The Eleanor Vance Building (1917), Charlotte Yale Building (1917), Carding and Spinning Building (1917), (Former) Weavers' Building (1923), Boiler House (1917), Gatehouse, and Guardhouse (1917). The complex produced high-quality crafts and fine hand-woven wool cloth. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The Allen Centennial Garden is a free public garden on the grounds of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The grounds feature the Agricultural Dean's House, a brick Queen Anne-style home built in 1896, and the home of the first four deans of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. In 1984 the house itself was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Kate and Charles Noel Vance House is a mansion located in Black Mountain, Buncombe County, North Carolina. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.