Solving the Puzzle
When Gilbert Jason Contreras entered remission after six months of chemo, he knew he couldn’t return to his old life. “My oncologist told me,…
More Than Tomato-Skin Deep
Growers liken the Cherokee Purple to a leg bruise, and it’s an apt (if not particularly appetizing) description of the popular tomato. “They’ve got…
Water in the Balance
Bullington Gardens Director John Murphy traces his agrarian roots back to the low-lying Swannanoa Valley, where he worked Warren Wilson College’s farm as an…
A New Leaf
It’s unusual that a self-styled “red-blooded American male” with a name like John Wayne Jackson would give props to homemaking icon Martha Stewart. Yet…
Country Chic
Over the years, Glennwood Custom Builders has grown a portfolio of splendid estates. Heirloom lodges dominate lake shorelines. Multi-tiered rooflines emulate the sweep of…
Shady Grove
In the cold light of a winter’s day, Leah Baker returned to lamps. Maybe the bitter air and waning afternoons of 2012 inspired her,…
You Can Go Home Again
Contractor Thomas Wolfe is no relation to Asheville’s rhapsodic literary giant. But overseeing the siting of Lobo Builders’ 474-square-foot micro home on a tricky…
The Primitive and the Pragmatist
En route to Gragg, an unincorporated town nestled up in Avery County, Hendersonville resident Robert Sears spotted an engine-oil-stained barn commanding the skyline, its…
Don’t Call it a Hobby
Back then — “then” loosely meaning the mid-to-late 1800s, the pioneer era of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie book series —…
Life Studies in Terra-Cotta
The beginning is nebulous for Kate Fisher. Maybe her cache of gardening pots and planters started in Kentucky. There, she grabbed armfuls of her…