Thomas Wolfe Memorial

The Thomas Wolfe Memorial is the literary heart of Asheville and a surprisingly moving visit even for people who have never read Wolfe. The novelist, born in Asheville in 1900, grew up in this rambling, yellow, gabled boardinghouse that his mother, Julia, ran under the name Old Kentucky Home — and then made it famous, and his hometown furious, as Dixieland in his 1929 autobiographical novel Look Homeward, Angel, which portrayed the house, his family and recognizable townspeople with unsparing candor. Asheville eventually forgave him, and the house is now a North Carolina State Historic Site. The building survived a serious arson fire in 1998 and was meticulously restored, with many original furnishings returned. Guided tours run at the bottom of each hour and lead you through the boarders' rooms, the family's cramped quarters and the kitchen where Julia fed her lodgers, with guides who draw the line between the novel and real life. Admission to the visitor center is free; the guided tour costs a modest fee (only a dollar or so for kids), making it one of the best-value hours downtown. The visitor center has a good exhibit hall and film on Wolfe's life, a display of art inspired by his writing, and a bookshop. The memorial also publishes a self-guided downtown walking tour of Wolfe sites, and seasonal programs include tours of Riverside Cemetery, where Wolfe and O. Henry are buried. Practical notes: open Tuesday through Saturday, closed Sunday, Monday and major holidays; the house is a short walk from Pack Square. Fit: first-timers who like history with character, couples on a downtown afternoon, literary travelers, and families with older kids.

Wolfe's relationship with Asheville is part of the story: his portrait of the town in Look Homeward, Angel was so recognizable that he stayed away for years, and he wrote that "you can't go home again" in a later novel whose title became a proverb. When he did return in 1937, he was welcomed as a celebrity. He died the following year at 37 and is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Asheville's Montford neighborhood.