ASHEVILLE, N.C.— With summer just getting started and heat and humidity practically smothering most of the country like a fat wool blanket, now is the time to plan a romantic getaway to higher, cooler elevations. The historic, stunningly serene Omni Grove Park Inn, in the heart of western North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, has been welcoming guests to the clean, pristine air of its slope-side retreat for more than a century.
The iconic Grove Park has long been a symbol of the Blue Ridge, probably as well-known as other local landmarks of the Biltmore House, Chimney Rock and the Blue Ridge Parkway. The hotel, literally chiseled into the granite wall of Sunset Mountain, opened in 1913 after Edwin Wiley Grove and Fred Seely, both in the pharmaceutical industry, and their crews quarried the rock from the mountain’s massive boulders. Using only one steam shovel, it took roughly 400 men and a team of mules and wagons less than a year to hew the boulders from the rocky terrain and build the inn. It is, to state it plainly, a remarkable feat that resulted in an architectural wonder.
From the outside, the main lodge looks similar to a rustic, oversized gingerbread house capped with red frosting. Then you step into the Great Hall, noted not only for its impressive stone walls, rich woods and hand-stenciled ceilings, but also for its two massive fireplaces, one at each end of the cavernous room. At 8 feet high and 14 feet wide, a grown man or woman can stand inside one — if the fire isn’t blazing, of course — and still have room to spare. Like the inn itself, they are carved from granite, and they’re so immense that it seems mere logs aren’t burned in them but entire lengths of trees. Watching the fireplaces has all but been named an official pastime in Asheville, so popular is it that the Grove Park added rocking chairs for guests to while away the hours with a good book while snuggling to the warmth of the toasty, crackling fire.
