On your left stands a white wooden house with a broad wraparound porch, a steep gabled roof, and a pointed corner turret that makes it easy to spot.
This is the Thomas Wolfe House, where Asheville’s restless young writer grew up inside a boardinghouse full of strangers, stories, and sharp family feeling. In nineteen oh six, his mother, Julia Westall Wolfe, bought the place when it was called Old Kentucky Home, and she brought Tom here while the rest of the family stayed on Woodfin Street. He lived here until he left for the University of North Carolina in nineteen sixteen. A year later, Julia added five more rooms, stretching the house the way boardinghouses always seem to stretch... around need and ambition. The porch chairs in the photo hint at that crowded, watchful world. Wolfe later turned this house into “Dixieland” in Look Homeward, Angel, drawing directly from the people who lived under this roof. A fire set by an unknown arsonist in nineteen ninety-eight destroyed the dining room and two hundred original artifacts, but careful restoration reopened the house in two thousand three. It generally opens Tuesday through Saturday, from nine AM to five PM.
This house feels like a memory someone refused to let disappear. When you’re ready, continue on toward the Jackson Building.
