Posted on 08/15/2005 6:18:51 PM PDT by clintonh8r
My wife and I are thinking of retiring in Asheville in a couple of years. (We are also considering other places.) We welcome any FReeper comments, opinions, experiences, recommendations, resources, links, etc. about living in Asheville....housing market, services, government competency, churches, medical facilities, cultural life, political environment (red/blue), etc. We are interested in what kind of neighborhoods there are (we have houses in historic districts of two different towns right now, so we have an obvious interest in that) and we prefer established neighborhoods as opposed to new developments.
Please feel free to FReepmail any personal comments, but comments in the forum are welcomed as well. Please ping anyone who you think would like to add their comments.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Freeper thinking about moving to North Carolina!!!
Could you provide your Asheville insights to this FReeper?
I have to agree with Congressman Billybob. Visit the area first, spend some time in and around the area, and find out which areas you want to avoid. I did that when moving to NC from California, and I'm glad I did. Whatever you do, when you look at the pictures of the beautiful homes, assume there may be a power line or mobile home next to it.
Gotta agree, Asheville is the gay capitol of the East, full of liberal tree huggers and gays. The towns on the outskirts and surrounding areas are absolutely beautiful and more traditional.
In all seriousness I assume you want the NC mountains, but you can have that, without Ashville. Areas like Blowing Rock, Grandfather Mountain, and Boone seem to have less of the harmonic convergence crowd. And, they're (in my opinion) closer to a much nicer section of the BlueRidge Parkway. And you would be much closer to 'civilization' like Winston-Salem or Raleigh. (W-S is still 'Red' but Raleigh is not.Yet I still like W-S) And you can hit Virginia a lot sooner. Asheville is REALLY out there in western NC. It's also an eight+ hour drive to the coast. Something to consider if you like the coast.
Monroe is very historic; halfway between the mountains and the beach. Great prices on Victorian houses!
There are many good towns around Asheville. Asheville itself has been called the San Fransisco of the east. Hippies and wicken and such. Especially downtown.
Hendersonville, Weaverville, Waynesville are nice towns.
Subscribe right away to "Our State" magazine. Get a hold of some of the back issues. A good source on NC that usually has something each month on all sections of NC.
I thought you were retiring?, it would be a long commute from either of those places. If your going to work in Asheville you could check out Black Mountain, Weaverville, both nice places.
We have friends who retired to Boone and love it! Also, my sister and her husband moved from Colorado to Asheville and bought a 6-room country inn. She had her own catering business and he's a carpenter...great experience to do this! They renovated all 6 rooms and the kitchen, and it looks and works fabulously for them! I'm sure now that they've had it open for over a year they've come to know the area and would be happy to answer any questions.
Their website is www.crookedoakmountaininn.com
Not to mention retirees, yankees, and halfbacks (elderly who moved to Florida from New York and made it only halfway back). The place has become a tourist trap and living there if you're not a hippie or one of the above groups is very, very hard. Sorry, ch8r that's my bad side and I am a bit jaded about what has happened to Asheville in the past 10 years (not to mention much of the rest of my state).
For the good, unless the enviro-whackos have closed down the paper mill thereby increasing the price of land in Canton with the hopes of overdevelopment, I would suggest Canton. Just not downtown Canton. Beaverdam community just outside of Canton is/was still nice. You're still close enough to Asheville (about 15 miles) but still out in the country. I would almost say Woodfin but I fear by now that's probably been overrun with new housing.
Maggie isn't that much further than Black Mountain. And you know if it snowed you'd have a better chance getting to Asheville from Maggie than up that 5 mile climb up I-40. I wouldn't live in Maggie though. Especially since they widened the road over the mountain so all the suckers, I mean fine tourist visitors, can get to Cherokee and Harrah's that much quicker
I'm disappointed to hear about the hippie/lefty infestation. Why does that always seem to happen to nice towns? Why can't they just stay in Manhattan, San Fran, LA, etc? The problem is, they don't want to just live in nice towns, they want to run them!
There's still a lot of 'red' in and around Raleigh. Durham and Chapel Hill are very 'blue'.
My nephew goes to school in Culowee, south of Ashville.
Very beautiful country.
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