Real Estate & Lifestyle Posts in WNC

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 7, 2026

Downtown Asheville is about to get busier, and it has a tennis ball to thank for it.

Starting today, July 7, nationally-ranked players are arriving at Aston Park for the 94th annual Asheville Open Tennis Championships, and Explore Asheville estimates the tournament will bring about $775,000 into local businesses before it wraps on July 26. That is a lot of money for a public park a few blocks off the main downtown grid, and it comes from a single, durable idea: get good players onto clay courts and let the city do the rest.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 6, 2026

The plant that held Asheville's riverbanks together during Helene was not a seawall or an engineered barrier. It was river cane, a native Appalachian bamboo that bends flat under floodwater and then stands right back up, and a local nonprofit now wants a lot more of it along our rivers.

RiverLink, the Buncombe County group that has worked on French Broad River health for decades, is rallying volunteers around restoring river cane after watching how well it survived the storm. Azalea Park, where the first big volunteer push happens, sits along the Swannanoa River just off I-240 in east Asheville, a few minutes from downtown and an easy drive from Black Mountain or Weaverville.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 6, 2026

A new Highlands company centers on a problem most second-home owners on the plateau know well: what happens to your mountain house when you are not there to look after it.

Property Stewards of Highlands celebrated its grand opening with a ribbon cutting on Tuesday, June 30, at the Highlands Community Building. The company provides professional property management and home stewardship services, helping homeowners in Macon County care for and protect their mountain properties. Highlands sits about two hours southwest of Asheville, roughly 75 miles by way of US-64, up a set of switchbacks to a plateau that hovers around 4,100 feet.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 6, 2026

A Quiet Boom on the Fourth of July

Most of Jackson County was winding down from the holiday when the ground moved. At about 11:05 p.m. on Saturday, July 4, the fireworks were done, the coolers were mostly empty, and the U.S. Geological Survey registered a magnitude 2.1 earthquake near Dillsboro.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 3, 2026

For three years, a social district in downtown Waynesville looked dead. Council had voted it down in 2023 after a meeting where nearly everyone who stood up to speak stood up to oppose it. The sheriff had written a letter against it. The word most people used to describe the public comment that night was hostile.

Then on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, the same council voted 4 to 1 to make one permanent.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 3, 2026

The First Building on the Grounds

Before there were inns, before there were homes along the shoreline, before the lighted Cross went up on the hillside, there was Stuart Auditorium. It opened on June 25, 1913, as the first and only completed structure on the Assembly grounds at Lake Junaluska. Everything else came later.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 2, 2026

A brand new professional golf tournament in Asheville is already doing something most sporting events take years to figure out. The Biltmore Championship, a PGA Tour Champions event staged on the grounds of the Biltmore Estate, has launched a grant program that sends tournament proceeds straight to local nonprofits.

That puts a major golf event in Buncombe County to work for the community around it. The estate sits just south of downtown Asheville, a few minutes off Interstate 40 and Interstate 26, and within about an hour's drive of Franklin, Waynesville, and Hendersonville. So the reach of this thing extends well past the fairways.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 2, 2026

The party starts before the art even settles on the walls. Highlands kicks off its summer arts season with a celebration at The Bascom, where six galleries open at once with work from local, regional, national, and international artists. There will be live music, refreshments, and visiting artists on hand to talk about what they made and why.

The Bascom sits on a wooded campus just off Main Street, in Macon County at the top of US-64. From Franklin it is about a 30-minute drive, and from Asheville closer to two hours on mountain highways with no interstate to speed things along. That distance is part of the point. Highlands has always felt like a place you climb toward, not one you pass through.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 2, 2026

Hazelwood is about to lay its entire history out on one enormous map, and locals are the ones filling it in. Hazelwood Proud will present "A Celebration of Community and History: A Map Project Festival" from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, July 11, at the Folkmoot Community Center in Waynesville. The centerpiece is the largest community-drawn map in Western North Carolina, and the whole day is built around getting families to add to it.

This is happening in the Hazelwood district of Waynesville, the seat of Haywood County, about 30 minutes west of Asheville by way of Interstate 40 and US-23/74. Folkmoot is on Virginia Avenue on the south side of town, a few minutes from the historic Main Street shops and restaurants. Admission is open to the community and the media alike, and the group is planning a full day of music, dance, artistic and wellness demonstrations, and historical presentations.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  July 2, 2026

If summer heat has you looking for a way out, Balsam Mountain is the answer most Smokies visitors never find. This high-elevation corner of Great Smoky Mountains National Park sits more than a mile up in the mountains, and you can drive straight to it. No deep wilderness hike required.

The route runs off the Blue Ridge Parkway near the Haywood and Swain county line, close to Cherokee and Maggie Valley. From Asheville it is about a 90-minute drive, most of it along the Parkway itself. Turn onto Balsam Mountain Road, also marked Heintooga Ridge Road, roughly 11 miles from where the Parkway meets US-441 at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center.