ABOUT THE CORNER KITCHEN

THE DAY WE OPENED the Corner Kitchen, this house was 108 years old. It was built around 1895 as part of Biltmore Village. George Washington Vanderbilt came to Asheville in the late 1880 s. Taken with the beauty of the area, he purchased a vast amount of land including the town of Best, which was promptly renamed Biltmore Village. He commissioned famed landscape architect, Frederic Law Olmstead to design this charming neighborhood. Vanderbilt built these homes to house the workers he would need to keep his self-sufficient estate running. The first people to live in this house were the Waddells, parents of Vanderbilt s civil engineer. Although the Biltmore House was designed by Richard Morris Hunt, most of the houses like ours were designed by Hunt s architect on the scene, Richard Sharpe Smith. During the last twenty years, the Village has become a thriving commercial center. One of our owners, Kevin Westmoreland, grew up nearby and remembers the days when it was filled with families and small businesses like a barber shop and a grocery store. Our building has been home to three restaurants and an architectural firm. As a result of the popularity of Corner Kitchen, owners Joe Scully and Kevin Westmoreland invested in the next thing which became Chestnut, located in downtown Asheville..