Rural Homes Make National Register Too

The Jesse McCall lived in one Vanderbilt's lodges
 in the Balsam Grove ares.

Picturing the Past has been featuring local historic landmarks that are designated locally or on the National Register.  This week’s features properties in the Pisgah National Forest, the Lake Toxaway area and the Rosman area on the National Register of Historic Places.

Structures on the Cradle of Forestry’s Biltmore Campus Trail listed on the National Register include Black Forest lodges constructed around 1896 and the 1880’s Hiram King House.  The lodges, which served as housing for rangers on George Vanderbilt’s vast property, were built of heavy timber with a high pitched roofs in the style of Black Forest architecture.  The wood frame Hiram King House was built as a family home and later used as housing for Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Forestry School.

Lake Toxaway Methodist Church
serves full-time and summer residents in the are

The Lake Toxaway area has three properties on the National Register, including Lake Toxaway Methodist Church, Hillmont and Backus Lodge. 

Lake Toxaway Methodist Church is a traditional one-room frame structure constructed in 1912 just one-half mile from the five-story, 100+ room Toxaway Inn.  The entire building, including the vestibule, is only about 1300 square feet.  A six-sided belfry tops the central enterway.

Greystone Inn on Lake Toxaway.

Lucy Armstrong’s summer home, Hillmont, on Lake Toxaway was completed in 1915.  One year later the dam broke and the Toxaway Inn closed.  Armstrong remained at Hillmont, making it her permanent home.  After the death of her first husband, Lucy married timberman Carl Moltz.  Lucy lived to see the lake rebuilt and developed.  Before her death in 1970 she sold the home to the Lake Toxaway Company because she “wanted it to be used by many people; that’s the way it should be.”  Today it is known as Greystone Inn and reflects the elegant lifestyle of wealthy Southerners who spent their summers in the mountains.

Backus Lodge was a summer retreat/hunting lodge for Chicago industrialist Edward Backus.  The main lodge, two cottages, a stable and a barn were built between 1908 and 1922.  The buildings are Adirondack style, with the lodge, caretaker’s cottage and stable constructed of chestnut logs.  The property is in Transylvania and Jackson counties but the buildings are all located in Jackson County.

Flem Galloway House in the Calvert community.

Northeast of Rosman on the Old Rosman Highway is the Flem Galloway House.  This two-story house was built in 1878 by Flem Galloway and is still owned by family descendants.  A two-tiered porch covers the front entrance and a large ell extends from the back.

Built in the Cherryfield section of the county in about 1856 by Morgan Mill was added to the National Register in 1979.  It remains on the listing even though it collapsed under the weight of heavy snow in 1998. 

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library.  Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs.  For more information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-3151 X242.