Heritage/History

Montford: From Boom to Bust and Back

Sarah Upchurch in front of Wright Inn. Courtesy of Pack Memorial Library, North Carolina Collection

The Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County will host a lecture exploring the journey of one of the city’s most historic neighborhoods, Montford, on Wednesday, November 14, at 5:30 p.m. at the Asheville Chamber Visitors Center. Montford: From Boom to Bust and Back will be presented by Sharon Fahrer, founder of the Montford Music and Arts Festival and co-founder with Jan Schochet of the tour company History@Hand. Fahrer and her husband moved to Asheville from New York in 1997, and were immediately drawn to Montford. “Our first impression was the wonderful mixture of historic homes that were affordable compared to New York, where we could never afford a historic home,” she says. “I immediately wanted to learn all I could about the neighborhood and who lived here.” The Fahrers moved into and restored an 1896 home in Montford, where they still live.

Fahrer has won two Preservation Society Griffin Awards for restoration of homes in Montford and also served on the Board of Directors for the Preservation Society. “Neighborhoods, like people, have life cycles,” she says. “The importance of this presentation is to enable people to learn where the neighborhood came from and where it is going. I hope that they will realize it was not one thing that reinvented the neighborhood. It was a lot of people over time who contributed.”

The Asheville Chamber Visitors Center is located at 38 Montford Avenue. The lecture will be held in the Lenoir-Rhyne board room. While the event is free to attend, a $10 donation helps support local preservation.

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