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Release
RESTORATION
OF THOMAS WOLFE’S CHILDHOOD HOME
PROMISES TO ENHANCE VISITORS’ EXPERIENCE
Now being restored after fire damage caused by an arsonist
in 1998, the Thomas Wolfe Memorial’s “Old Kentucky Home”
is looking very different from the way almost anyone in Asheville
can remember. While the home’s restoration is not yet completed,
longtime residents have recently been surprised to see that the
former boarding house, long painted white with black trim, has taken
on a yellow hue!
Its new yellow color, just one of many changes underway at the historic
house made famous by Thomas Wolfe as “Dixieland” in
Look
Homeward, Angel, will help make the old home more closely
resemble what Wolfe knew as a child. Originally built in 1883 and
added onto twice, the “Old Kentucky Home” is being brought
back to how it looked in 1916. Historians have chosen this date
because it was the last time Wolfe’s mother, Julia, owner
of the former boardinghouse, made substantial alterations to the
house. It was also the final year Wolfe lived there before leaving
for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In Look
Homeward, Angel, Wolfe described “Dixieland”—the
fictional boarding house modeled on the “Old Kentucky Home”—as
“a big cheaply constructed frame house of eighteen or twenty
drafty, high-ceilinged rooms….painted a dirty yellow.”
The house’s new exterior (and interior) paint scheme is based
on a careful historic analysis of the various colors it has been
painted since its erection in 1883.
Besides the yellow exterior color that now makes the house stand
out dramatically from the many contemporary buildings surrounding
it, several other “changes” are being made to make the
“Old Kentucky Home” look more like the way it did in
the years when Thomas Wolfe was growing up there. These include:
- Painting
interior rooms in 1916-era color schemes
- Wallpapering
rooms where appropriate
- Installing
copper shingles and a copper standing seam roof
- Installing
period door/window hardware where missing
- Reinstalling
operable window shutters
- Landscaping
in the style of 1916
These
and other details of the restoration will enable visitors to the house
to more clearly envision what it looked like during the time the young
Tom Wolfe was growing up there.
The Thomas Wolfe Memorial is part of the Historic Sites division of
the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. While the Wolfe Home’s
restoration continues, the site’s visitor center remains open
and features an art display inspired by Wolfe’s writings, along
with an exhibit hall and audiovisual program depicting his life and
works. The site is open Tuesday - Saturday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday
from 1-5 p.m. and closed Monday. Admission is $1 for adults and $.50
for students. For more information on the memorial’s restoration,
please call the site at (828) 253-8304, email wolfe@ncmail.net
or visit the memorial at 52 North Market Street in downtown Asheville.
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