By W.A. Russell in Crescent City (Fla) Call
A recent issue of the Call contained a view of the summer home of Colonel and Mrs. R.S. Reinhardt at Blowing Rock, N.C, but like all newspaper illustrations, failed to do the subject justice. I want your permission Mr. Editor to ??? what of this summer house.
Blowing Rock in the matter of altitude is the highest municipality in the United States east of Denver. The town proper is on the mountain of the same name, is 4,500 feet above sea level and has about the same population as Crescent City. It is a town of hotels and boarding houses and during our stay was turning away from 50 to 100 guests daily for lack of accommodations. There are three great hotels in the town and its ?? capable of caring from 250 to 500 persons each.
One of these hotels (the larger) is known as Mayview Manor and the property of a development company organized and financed from Charlotte. The company is spending two million dollars in improving its grounds and in an 18-hole golf course. The Blowing Rock Hotel with accommodations for 250 also has beautiful links of its own.
Col. Reinhardt’s house is in the central part of the village, and is one of the most picturesque in its setting in all this mountain section. The beautiful and commodious residence is in the midst of a three-acre park of noble oak and chestnut trees, the ground being a well-trimmed lawn beautified by native flowers and shrubbery. The residence is modern in every aspect and perhaps its outstanding advantage over neighboring homes is its plentiful supply of clear cold water, which is pumped into a great 6,000 gallon tank, maintaining a supply for all purposes. This water is pumped by a gasoline engine to the tank but a flow from the pump itself is maintained for the neighbors who have been given carte-blanche to help themselves. And they are doing it. The water as it comes from the well has a temperature of 41 degrees. No ice needed at Blowing Rock, at least not at Castanea Lodge, as Colonel Reinhardt’s home is known.
Blowing Rock’s summer climate is about like Crescent City in December and January. It went from about 68 in the early morning to 74 at midday. Log fires were comfortable in the evening.
It was our good fortune and great pleasure to enjoy the hospitality of this beautiful mountain home for two weeks and at the end of that time we have a host that actually made you believe he wanted you to stay longer—It was a case of genuine true-hearted Southern hospitality. The two weeks were filled with many pleasures and the times passed all too swiftly. One of the great pleasures were the auto trips to Boone, the county seat named for Daniel Boone its original settler, to Linville and Montezuma. These latter places are reached by a modern road around Grandfather Mountain next to Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the Blue Ridge.
From the front page of the Watauga Democrat, Boone, N.C., September 13, 1923
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