American Craft Council | Lexington Glassworks
If western North Carolina is the hub of American craft, Asheville is its heart. Perched in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the city has a population of just 88,000 – a ridiculous percentage of which seem to be artists. Today, craft lovers may be drawn, in particular, to downtown and the River Arts District. But there is history to be appreciated, too, much of it embodied in three storied places: the Grove Park Inn (since 2013, the Omni Grove Park Inn); the Biltmore, a French Renaissance-style château built by art collector George Vanderbilt in 1895; and the defunct Black Mountain College.