Discover and Celebrate the Bliss of Asheville and Western North Carolina Area as a Health Retreat

How Asheville Came to Be Known
as the Ideal Place for Healing

"... As far back as 1795, records show that the Asheville area was regarded as a place to come heal oneself of ills. American Indians used the area as a neutral ground for their sick, particularly the area around Hot Springs (30 miles north of Buncombe County).... in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tuberculosis was one of the foremost diseases leading to fatalities.... From the late 1880s to the 1930s Asheville rose in prominence as a curative place for tuberculosis....Dr. Joseph Gleitsmann... “selected Asheville as having an optimum combination of barometric pressure, temperature, humidity and sunlight” which he believed to be conducive to healing tuberculosis. Gleitsmann is credited with helping to establish Asheville as a center for tuberculosis treatment... because of the many articles he wrote and talks he gave at medical gatherings promoting the benefits of the Asheville climate. His work was respected in medical circles and patients from all over the country were referred to him and the Asheville area as especially curative.... With the introduction of the railroad in 1880 and further connection to Knoxville in 1883, Asheville was suddenly a day's travel away from many cities on the East Coast and more accessible from the hot humid cities of the South. Tourists and health seekers alike came in hordes to Asheville, prompting the development of hotels, boarding houses and eventually more sanitaria." CLICK HERE for the rest of the story

Brexton Boarding House, (now a private apartment and not open to the public) one of many boarding houses in the Montford Historic District, was once a tuberculosis sanitarium operated by the Sisters of Mercy for St. Joseph's. The architecture of the building, with its 3 story sleeping porches, was designed for optimum health -- assuring that its occupants would get plenty of sunlight and mountain fresh air.

Click on each of the dozens of categories to the left to uncover what makes the Asheville area so vital, so intriguing and so, well, UTTERLY BLISSFUL!

From Rolf Potts' Vagabonding blog:

I've never been one of those uptight literary types who thinks that you have to have actually read a book in order to recommend it to others. So I feel no trepidation in suggesting Eric Weiner's new travelogue-slash-memoir The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World The premise of the book is simple but intriguing-- here is Amazon's description:

Part foreign affairs discourse, part humor, and part twisted self-help guide, The Geography of Bliss takes the reader from America to Iceland to India in search of happiness, or, in the crabby author's case, moments of "un-unhappiness." The book uses a beguiling mixture of travel, psychology, science and humor to investigate not what happiness is, but where it is. Are people in Switzerland happier because it is the most democratic country in the world? Do citizens of Singapore benefit psychologically by having their options limited by the government? Is the King of Bhutan a visionary for his initiative to calculate Gross National Happiness? Why is Asheville, North Carolina so damn happy? With engaging wit and surprising insights, Eric Weiner answers those questions and many others, offering travelers of all moods some interesting new ideas for sunnier destinations and dispositions.

In the imaginary Netflix queue of books-that-I'm-planning-to-read, this one has just jumped to the top. By the way, why has no one started a Netflix for books? This question, and many more, I'll leave for another day.

Dr. S. Westray Battle was the most influential physician to come to Asheville, as he was responsible, indirectly, for both the building of the Biltmore Estate and the Grove Park Inn

"... One of Asheville's greatest promoters was Dr. S. Westray Battle who came to Asheville in 1885 and turned out to be, perhaps, the most influential doctor to come to the area. Through his connections and reputation, many wealthy individuals and families came and ended up staying in Asheville. Among them was George Vanderbilt, who accompanied his ailing mother. While in Asheville, Vanderbilt fell in love with the area and returned to build his now famed Biltmore Estate. Edwin W. Grove also came to Asheville as one of Battle's patients and stayed on to build Grove Park Inn, the Grove Arcade and the Grove Park neighborhood...."