Black Mountain

Lake Tomahawk with ice, Jan 16, 2025
Showing posts with label artist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label artist. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Our Monte Vista Hotel

 In honor of National Retro Day, let's take a step back in time. (I never heard of that day...Feb 27!)




Built in 1937, the Monte Vista Hotel is a three-story Colonial Revival-style hotel located at 308 West State Street to the west of the commercial district in Black Mountain, North Carolina. With the completion of a railroad connection in the late-nineteenth century, the Black Mountain area became a popular gateway for tourists to visit Mount Mitchell and the surrounding mountains. Lucien and Rosalie Phillips opened the Monte Vista Hotel in 1919 in a former school building and built a fifteen-room annex in 1926. The Phillips's borrowed $70,000 during the height of the Depression to construct the modern brick building, which was designed by architect S. Grant Alexander and built by Connally Dougherty. The Monte Vista Hotel, which has operated continuously since 1919, meets National Register Criterion A in the area of Entertainment/Recreation as one of the largest and most successful hotels in Black Mountain. A six-room addition to the hotel built ca. 1940, soon after the main building was completed, and an attached sixteen-room annex built in 1980 are located to the rear of the main building. The period of significance for the hotel, which remains in operation, extends from the construction of the main building in 1926 to 1957.
Today The Monte Vista Hotel still functions as a hotel with full bar and restaurant, as well as venue space for weddings and gatherings. Our guests enjoy the step back in time to a simpler life with no telephones or televisions in our historic rooms but the modern convenience of AC.




Today's quote:
A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist. -Louis Nizer, lawyer (1902-1994)

My question: Why would you ask a lawyer to tell you what an artist is?

And we mustn't forget the celebration of the day (thanks to Frog and Penguinn)
National Cheese Doodle Day
and here in North Carolina, it's primary election day.

Linking to Tom's Tuesday Treasures.

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Puppets by Jerry Pope

The Swannanoa Valley History Museum has a stored display of these puppets, which were used several years ago in a puppet show.




The original figures made by Wade Martin were the inspiration for Jerry Pope's artistry.

Jerry and his lovely creative wife, Rebecca Williams.


Friday, February 7, 2014

An artist, a friend

Brad Stroman is a painter.  In Black Mountain, NC

Here's his new studio, and invite to come see it.



Just a reminder that my informal drop-in open house will be this coming weekend (Feb 8,9) from 1 to 5 each afternoon. Drop by if you're in the Black Mountain area for some light refreshments, see the new studio, talk with me and preview some new works just finished. Since my new studio is a 'by appointment only' kinda place now, this will be one of those rare times that the door will be wide open and I'll be wearing a smile.
Zen Crow Studio, 5 Sandy Branch, Black Mountain, NC

 And here's a sample of his work.

Lighter Than a Feather, by Brad Stroman