7 Best Sights in Downtown Asheville, Asheville

Established in 1948, this architectural centerpiece of downtown incorporates the footprint of the old Pack Library—a 1926 Italian Renaissance–style building—and a recently completed $24 million addition that includes a contemporary glass entrance, a sunny atrium, and the rooftop Sculpture Terrace and Perspective Café. Expanded galleries display more of the museum's permanent collection of American art since 1860, with an emphasis on Southeast regional artists, including those from Black Mountain College.

Asheville's most famous son, novelist Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938), grew up in a 29-room Queen Anne–style home that his mother ran as a boardinghouse. In his prime in the 1930s, Wolfe was widely viewed as one of the best writers America had ever produced. The house—memorialized as "Dixieland" in Wolfe's novel Look Homeward, Angel—has been restored to its original 1916 condition, including the canary-color (Wolfe called it "dirty yellow") exterior. Guided tours of the house and heirloom gardens begin at half past each hour.

Exhibits at the small but worthwhile AMOS include a large collection of North Carolina gems and minerals, interactive astronomy and climate displays, and a Teratophoneus dinosaur skeleton. 

A favorite of locals and visitors alike, this museum/arcade features 70 vintage pinball machines and video games. Bring the kids, who'll probably ignore the modern machines in favor of those from the 1930s. There's also a bar serving snacks and craft beers and restrooms labeled Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man.

A collaboration of Biltmore House head architect Richard Sharp Smith and the Spanish engineer-architect Rafael Guastavino, this elaborate Catholic basilica was completed in 1909. It follows a Spanish Renaissance design, rendered in brick and polychrome tile, and has a large self-supporting dome with Catalan-style vaulting. Take a self-guided tour with one of the free brochures in the vestibule, or book a 25- to 45-minute guided tour at least two weeks in advance.

Although it was around less than 25 years in the mid-20th century, the famed Black Mountain College was important in the development of several groundbreaking art, dance, and literary movements. Some of the maverick spirits it attracted in its short lifetime were artists Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Josef and Anni Albers, and Kenneth Noland; dancer Merce Cunningham; composer John Cage; filmmaker Arthur Penn; futurist Buckminster Fuller; and writers M. C. Richards, Charles Olson, and Robert Creeley. This museum celebrates their historic work alongside modern exhibitions and performances.

In this relaxing 6.5-acre park, there's a stone-and-bronze fountain designed by local sculptor Hoss Haley and the Zebulon Vance Monument honoring a controversial North Carolina governor (he owned slaves). Princeton elms, London plane trees, black gum trees, and hornbeam trees provide shade. At the eastern edge, in Roger McGuire Green, is Splasheville, a large fountain (open daily 9–9 mid-April to early fall), where in warm weather you'll see hundreds of kids, and even some adults, playing in the water. There's also a stage lined with colorful tiles by local ceramist Kathy Triplett, a grassy amphitheater, and a veterans monument. The park is often the site of demonstrations for gay pride, women's rights, and other causes.