More of the pretty and somewhat unusual, older homes in Grovemont, Swannanoa NC. Here's the explanation of Mr. Grove's intentional community.
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(Updated at 9:00 am)
Someone even has a tree house on rather rickety trees.
In 1924, developer E.W. Grove had his hands full with two major projects — the construction of the Battery Park Hotel, which was completed that September, and the far more ambitious undertaking of Grovemont-on-Swannanoa, billed as America’s first planned community.
Reports of the latter were announced in The Sunday Citizen on June 15, 1924. The paper declared that the 500-acre tract, located half a mile east of the town of Swannanoa, was designed with more than 500 residential lots and 100 business lots in mind, along with properties reserved for churches, schools, a town hall, library and post office. In addition to these future structures, the paper wrote, “The entire mountainsides and valleys will be converted into a fairyland of lakes, parks and floral gardens.”
... Throughout 1925, the paper continued to report on sales of both residential and business lots, alluding to the imminent construction of drug, grocery and general merchandise stores, as well as two garages and an automobile supply shop. Meanwhile, similar notes were struck in Grove’s ongoing advertisement campaign.
Yet things took a turn in 1926. On March 7, The Sunday Citizen reported on Grove’s recent plans to construct his newest home in the Grovemont-on-Swannanoa development. In addition to joining the community, Grove offered to finance the first 50 homes built on lots under his ownership. “Plans for building in Grovemont have assumed large proportions, it is said, and Mr. Grove’s offer will start a remarkable growth in that section, it is thought,” the paper read.
Growth, however, remained stagnant throughout 1926. And in the following year, on Jan. 27, 1927, Grove died at the age of 77. His death, followed by the 1929 market crash, ultimately killed the project.
According to Anne Chesky Smith’s 2013 book, Images of America: Swannanoa, 19 homes were constructed in the planned community. Today, 15 of the properties remain. “Though E.W. Grove’s dream of a quaint English village … was never fully realized,” Chesky Smith writes, “the Grovemont of today is still a web of streets anchored by a central park, which has been rebuilt to feature a playground, a walking path, and a playing field,” as well as the Swannanoa Library.
