Real Estate & Lifestyle Posts in WNC

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 29, 2026

When 16-year-old Hugh Rogers marched off with the Overmountain Men to the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, he did not expect to fall in love between volleys. But a young woman named Nancy Thornton was walking the line of exhausted soldiers, handing out water from a gourd, and she made an impression. More than one soldier mentioned her in his diary, which is a remarkable thing to survive nearly 250 years.

That brief moment, on a ridge in South Carolina just over the line from North Carolina, eventually planted one of Haywood County's founding families. Fines Creek sits in the northern part of the county off Interstate 40, about 40 minutes northwest of Asheville, and a good number of the people who have lived there for generations can trace their roots back to that water gourd.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 29, 2026

The best part of the Stecoah Arts & Crafts Drive-About is not a gallery at all. It is the half-hour you spend on a gravel road in Graham County, windows down, following a hand-printed map to a potter's home studio you would never have found on your own. When you get there, the potter is at the wheel, happy to talk, and the piece you buy comes straight from the hands that made it.

That is the whole idea behind this free, self-guided driving tour, and it has quietly become one of the most rewarding weekends in the far western mountains. The spring edition just wrapped on June 26 and 27, and a fall edition follows later in the year. If you missed it this time, here is everything worth knowing before the next one.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 29, 2026

A farmer in Haywood County once told a developer he would be driving a coal truck in hell before a house went up on his land. Don Smart, president of the Haywood County Farm Bureau, does not soften his opinions, and on the subject of farmland he has plenty. "We waste it," he says of American land. "You go into European countries, they don't waste it."

That blunt frustration sits at the center of a quieter, more technical fight playing out in front of the county commissioners. It is not about anger at developers. It is about money, and specifically about $568,000 that is already sitting in county coffers.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 23, 2026

A town of about 1,700 people, Burnsville, North Carolina has been quietly showing up on national travel lists, and the pitch is hard to argue with. It sits close to Asheville, costs noticeably less, and gives you the tallest mountain on the East Coast practically in the backyard.

Burnsville is the county seat of Yancey County, roughly 38 miles and a 40 minute drive north of Asheville. You get there by heading north out of the city and picking up US-19E toward Spruce Pine. That short distance is the whole story. Close enough to Asheville to use the airport and the hospitals, far enough to feel like the mountains have closed in around you.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 23, 2026

A rate increase that landed in a lot of Western North Carolina mailboxes as bad news just got a little smaller. Duke Energy Carolinas has lowered its proposed residential rate increase from 18% down to 11.6%, after objections from North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, state regulators, and customers across the state.

For households here in Macon County and the surrounding mountains, that is the difference between a steep jump and a merely uncomfortable one. Franklin sits about 70 miles southwest of Asheville, roughly an hour and a half down US-441, and like much of the region it leans on Duke for power through long winters and the air-conditioning months that follow. A few percentage points off a power bill adds up over a year.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 23, 2026

A #1 New York Times bestselling novelist is heading to the mountains, and her stop in Highlands tends to fill a room fast. Ruta Sepetys, the Carnegie Medal winning author behind Between Shades of Gray and Salt to the Sea, is the featured guest at Books & Bites, the literary gathering hosted by the Highlands Chamber of Commerce. If you read historical fiction, or you know someone who does, this is one to circle on the calendar.

Books & Bites does what its name promises. It pairs a visiting author with food and conversation, the kind of afternoon where you hear a writer talk about her work and then linger over it with other readers.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 23, 2026

A single state where you can dip your feet in the Atlantic at sunrise, wander a Piedmont city by afternoon, and watch the sun drop behind 6,000-foot peaks by evening. That range is the reason North Carolina just showed up on not one but two national rankings of the best places to take a summer road trip in 2026.

WalletHub published its "Best & Worst States for Summer Road Trips in 2026" on June 22 and slotted North Carolina at ninth overall out of all fifty states. A separate study from Dunhill Travel Deals, focused on budget travel across the lower 48, ranked the state even higher at third. Two different methods, two different angles, and both landed on the same conclusion. North Carolina is built for the open road.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 23, 2026

The most photographed courthouse in North Carolina sits at the top of 107 steps in a town of barely 2,500 people. From the bottom of those steps in downtown Sylva, you look straight up Main Street to a 1914 brick-and-column building perched on a hill, with the Plott Balsam Mountains stacked up behind it. It is the kind of view that ends up on postcards and Instagram feeds, and it is the first thing most visitors remember about Sylva.

But the courthouse is only the opening line. Over the past several years, this small Jackson County seat has quietly become one of the most interesting stops in Western North Carolina, the sort of place that draws travelers who thought they were just passing through on their way to the Smokies. It has a cat museum that is one of only two in the country. It has the only certified forest therapy trail in the state. And it has a downtown dining scene dense enough that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution called it an affordable foodie getaway. For a town this size, that is a lot to carry.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 22, 2026

A Father's Day market at Highland Brewing in east Asheville drew more than 100 vendor applications on June 21, turning the brewery's outdoor campus into a busy summer marketplace. Shoppers came looking for the kind of gifts that actually fit a dad, and the vendors delivered.

Highland Brewing sits just off Highway 74A in Buncombe County, about 15 minutes from downtown Asheville and an easy drive from Black Mountain or the I-40 corridor. The brewery has quietly become one of the region's go-to gathering spots, and this market was a good example of why.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 22, 2026

A national travel site just ranked North Carolina's most hospitable towns, and anyone who lives in the mountains could have guessed how it would go. WorldAtlas pulled together 11 communities across the state, and the western end of North Carolina is exactly where you find the kind of friendliness that lands a town on a list like this.

That is not a coincidence. The towns scattered across Western North Carolina have built their reputations on being easy to visit and even easier to stay in, from Brevard in Transylvania County to Waynesville off I-40 and Franklin down US-441 near the Georgia line.