Real Estate & Lifestyle Posts in WNC

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 24, 2026

A walking path that already gives Cashiers something most mountain villages only wish they had is about to get significantly longer. An expansion of the Cashiers Greenway Ramble is underway, extending one of the plateau's community amenities and reinforcing the idea that this small crossroads town is thinking hard about how people move and spend time here.

The Cashiers greenway sits on the Highlands-Cashiers plateau in Jackson County, right around the junction of US-64 and NC-107. Cashiers is about 60 miles southwest of Asheville, roughly an hour and a half of driving through some of the prettiest terrain in the region, and only about 10 miles from Highlands. At an elevation near 3,500 feet, the village stays cooler than the valleys below, which is a big part of why it draws the crowds it does every summer.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 24, 2026

A restaurant in South Asheville just pulled off something rare. It earned a perfect 5-fork rating from Fork & Dagger, the restaurant review series that runs through 828 News Now, and it did it while flying almost completely under the radar.

That is the part worth sitting with. This is not a downtown Asheville spot with a line out the door and a wait list two weeks deep. It is a quieter place, tucked into the South Asheville corridor in Buncombe County, the stretch that runs along Hendersonville Road just off I-26, roughly 10 to 15 minutes south of downtown. Most people driving past probably have no idea it is there.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 24, 2026

A pickleball paddle might be the last thing you would expect to fight hunger, but that is exactly the idea behind Picklepalooza, a tournament built to put food in Western North Carolina kitchens. Players sign up, brackets fill, and the proceeds go to work stocking pantries and community kitchens for local families.

It is a simple trade. A day of competition on the court turns into meals on the table for neighbors who need them, and you do not have to be a great player to be part of it.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 24, 2026

Every Saturday night in August, a few thousand people fold camp chairs onto the lawn at Pack Square Park, and along about sundown the music starts. That is Shindig on the Green, and in 2026 it marks its 60th season. Fiddlers, cloggers, ballad singers, and buck dancers take the stage while families spread blankets and neighbors catch up on the grass. It is free, it is unhurried, and it is one of the most Asheville things you can do all summer.

That is the tone of August in Buncombe County. The calendar is packed, but it never feels frantic. Between the free street festivals, the ticketed music weekends, and a brand new riverside venue opening its doors, there is something worth leaving the house for nearly every day. Here are eight events worth planning your month around.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 23, 2026

A wildlife biologist is coming to Highlands next week to make the case that black bears, elk, and salamanders all need the same thing we do on a mountain road: a safe way across.

On Thursday, July 30, the Highlands Biological Foundation hosts Liz Hillard, senior wildlife biologist for the Appalachian region at Wildlands Network, for a talk titled "Connecting Appalachia: Wildlife Connectivity, Corridors, and Road Crossings." It is part of the long-running Zahner Conservation Lecture Series, and like every talk in the series, it is free. The lecture starts at 6 p.m. at the Highlands Nature Center at 930 Horse Cove Road, up on the plateau in Macon County.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 23, 2026

The List Asheville Cannot Seem to Stay Off Of

Asheville just landed at No. 3 on Southern Living's 2026 South's Best Cities list, and the only two names ahead of it were Charleston and Savannah. That is rare company. Two cities with centuries of tourism polish, and then a mountain town in Buncombe County holding its own right behind them.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 23, 2026

A foraging family from the far north of England, with a following bigger than the population of most North Carolina counties, is spending tonight at Grandfather Mountain. The Grizzly Forager Family has built a community of more than 600,000 people online, all of it around one simple idea: get your kids outside, teach them to read the land, and let nature do the rest. On Thursday, July 23, they bring that message to Linville for a fireside chat that opens Grandfather Mountain's 2026 speaker series.

It is an unusual pairing at first glance. A family from rugged Northumberland, sitting down to talk about mushrooms and wild greens and slow living, on a mountaintop in Avery County. But once you hear what the evening is actually about, it makes complete sense. This is a story about the outdoors, about raising kids who love the natural world, and about a mountain that has spent more than seventy years trying to get people to look a little closer at what is growing around them.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 23, 2026

Three Asheville breweries walked away with medals at the 2026 World Beer Cup in Philadelphia this April, including a gold for a West Asheville newcomer. Diatribe Brewing Company took the top prize in the Export Stout category for its Irish Extra Stout, part of a haul that gave North Carolina 11 medals at the competition. For a city that spent 2025 clawing its way back from the worst storm in its modern history, that gold medal carried real weight.

It showed how far the city had come.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 22, 2026

Some mountain properties give you a view from the deck. This one gives you a view from every room in the house.

760 Woody Lane sits at the top of its own ridge in Laurel Ridge Country Club, on two acres inside the Waynesville town limits. The main house is a single-level log home built in 1999, and next to it stands a separate two-level guest studio with its own entrance and parking. Together they make one of the more unusual offerings in Haywood County right now: a low-maintenance cabin for the way you actually live, plus a second building for everyone who comes to visit.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 22, 2026

More salamander species live in the mountains of Western North Carolina than anywhere else on the planet, and most people driving US-441 through Macon County have no idea they are passing through the middle of it. The Southern Appalachians are the global center of salamander diversity, with Great Smoky Mountains National Park alone home to roughly 30 species. Mountain Xpress recently covered the growing local interest in herping, the hobby of heading out on purpose to find reptiles and amphibians.

It is more accessible than it sounds. From Asheville you can be standing over a productive creek in Pisgah National Forest inside of 30 minutes, or in Highlands in about two hours southwest, where the Highlands Biological Station has been studying these animals since 1927.