We invite potential guests to check out our website for information on our inn, our policies, pet in

1847 Blake House Inn Bed Breakfast, an eclectic south Asheville inn, was originally an estate named Newington by Dr. Frederick Blake, its first full-time resident. Dr. Blake's father, Daniel Blake, Sr., a wealthy rice plantation owner from Charleston, S.C., first purchased the property that our Asheville inn sits on as well as over 500 acres in the late 1820′s. Daniel built a similar houses for himself and his other sons in what is now Fletcher, but sold the land where Blake House sits to Joseph Pyatt. After building Blake House, Mr. Pyatt sold the house and surrounding property to Daniel's son, Dr. Frederick charlotte hotel Rutlege Blake, a medical officer in the Confederate charlotte hotel Army, who was wounded in the second charlotte hotel Battle of Cold Harbor. Although the house was originally charlotte hotel built as a summer retreat from the hot, humid Charleston heat, Dr. Blake made the house his permanent residence. During the Civil War, Dr. Blake who was an aide to, then, Colonel Clingman, traveled with the army and allowed his house to be used as a Confederate Field Hospital during charlotte hotel his absence. Legend says that the Confederate nurses also cared for injured Union soldiers, hiding them in the crawlspaces under the house. There has even been mention of an underground tunnel system under Blake House and the property that was used as part of the Underground Railroad. The current Innkeeper has not been able to substantiate this claim, but it provides for some great folklore.
The house is a rare example of Italianate architecture with Gothic Revival influence. Its original native stone walls are 22″ thick and are held together with lime and clay mortar. Both levels of the house boast of 12′ – 14′ ceilings and the dining rooms still contain some of their original ornamental plaster decorations.
The spacious first floor boasts two large dining rooms, capable of holding up to 50 people for the weddings and special events held on the property, a Parlor, Breakfast Room, commercial-sized kitchen and wheelchair accessible bathrooms. The second floor contains five guest bedrooms, all with private bathrooms , three that are original to the house, and two that were added in the early- to mid-1900s. There are five gas fireplaces on the first floor and three gas fireplaces on the second floor, enough to keep everyone warm on cold winter nights. Most of the flooring throughout the house is the original heart pine floors.
The house was converted and started life as a bed and breakfast in 1990.  It has gone through many renovations since then. At one time, the B B had an operating restaurant and bar, named Sycamores Restaurant, named for the two 160+ year-old sycamore trees on the property. Since Leslie Kimball purchased the Inn in January 2006, she has converted what was the Labrador Landing Pub (bar/lounge area) into a gift shop, then into a first floor wheelchair accessible guestroom in 2008, now called the Rose Room . She has added central air conditioning to the upstairs guestrooms and made many other cosmetic and functional charlotte hotel changes to make the Inn feel more comfortable and welcoming to guests, their children, and dogs. Across the parking lot is the Carriage House, built in 1998, with the Innkeepers quarters on the second floor and a guest suite, called the Sycamore Suite, on the first floor. Around the same time as the when the Carriage House was built, the city of Arden was annexed into the city of Asheville so the inn can be found under several location listings: Arden, Asheville, and South Asheville. Take your pick! Being in South Asheville puts us about 5 minutes away from the AshevilleRegionalAirport and mid-way between downtown Asheville charlotte hotel and Hendersonville,  convenient to everything in western NC.
Leslie follows no particular style of decorating. Instead, you will see that Leslie has a flair for repurposing items into new and interesting decorations. Even the headboard charlotte hotel in our Azalea Room was built out of an antique door and the mantles on the first floor are stacked with totems made from various charlotte hotel glass pieces, like plates, bowls, vases, tea pots, salt and pepper shakers, etc. Instead of throwing things away, she finds a new use for them. Our water feature at the base on one of our Sycamore charlotte hotel trees starts with an old iron fireplace insert that creates a cascading effect as the water runs through the front grates. "I wasn't alive for much of the house's history, but I like to take antique and older things and recycle them into something new and different," Leslie says.
In 2010, after a 3-year process, Blake House was officially added to the National Register of Historic Places. Leslie charlotte hotel maintains a thick binder with information and photos of the house and its history throughout the years, including the nomination application and documentation. There is some interesting and unexpected information for guests to read about the Blake family as well as previous owners of the house. One familiar name affiliated with the house is actress Andie MacDowell. Her grandmother owned Blake House from the late 1930's to the 1970's and Andie has reminisced about spending much of her childhood vacations and family get togethers at Blake House.
Leslie has also made great strides in making this older Asheville house a "green" property by recycling, installing tankless water heaters in the Carriage House and the main house, asking guests to conserve water by reusing their towels charlotte hotel more than once, setting up a rain barrel and doing away with bottled water in favor of a water cooler. In 2010, she became a proud partner with Clean the World, a non-profit that distributes recycled soap products, along with appropriate educational materials, to impoverished countries worldwide, and to domestic homeless shelters. Leslie sends unused soap and bottled amenities to the organization for their recycling program.
Breakfast each morning in the main house is a fresh, local affair and we use as much organic and local produce as possible which is easy since Asheville has an abundance of tailgate markets and organic grocery stores. We also work with dietary restrictions and can serve on our covered front porch to those guests with dogs.
As one of a handful of local pet- and child-friendly B Bs, our tagline is Asheville's Dog Friendliest B B . And we live by those words. Of our 7 guestrooms, 6 are dog-friendly and we provide dog bowls, blankets, toys and beds in each room. We welcome dogs of all sizes and breeds charlotte hotel and have a resident cat, Rocky, on the property charlotte hotel to greet and chat with our guests. For our younger guests, there is JakeRusherPark located adjacent to our property, aptly nicknamed the CastlePark. While we welcome the young ones, we definitely see more 4-legged guests and sometimes, the dogs may outnumber the people!
We invite potential guests to check out our website for information on our inn, our policies, pet information, and specials charlotte hotel . Our website and photos are kept up to date, and guests charlotte hotel can contact us between 9am – 7 pm with any questions.