Montford Historic District, Asheville

Just north of downtown Asheville, the Montford neighborhood is the city's largest intact Victorian residential district. Development began in the eighteen eighties and nineties as Asheville boomed on the strength of its reputation as a health resort. Wealthy consumptives, retirees, and summer visitors built gracious Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Shingle-style homes along Montford Avenue and its side streets.

The neighborhood also holds the Riverside Cemetery, where Thomas Wolfe and O. Henry are buried. Wolfe, who grew up not far away, is the most famous literary figure the mountains ever produced.

By the nineteen seventies Montford had declined badly, but preservation efforts and the National Register listing in nineteen seventy-seven sparked a long revival. Today it is one of western North Carolina's most sought-after addresses, and the Victorian streetscape survives nearly intact.