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"You come to nature with all her theories, and she knocks them all flat.
~ Pierre Auguste Renoir
ABOUT THE INN ON MILL CREEK
Escape the hustle and bustle and
find serenity two miles inside Pisgah National Forest at
our
Black Mountain area Bed & Breakfast in the North
Carolina mountains. We're not your typical
B&B. Ten minutes off of Interstate 40 is a scenic drive
curving through western North Carolina's Pisgah National
Forest that brings you to the Inn on Mill Creek, where you're
completely surrounded by the calmingly beautiful scenery
of the rhododendron-filled forest {our rhododendron
blooms white in the summertime, by the way}. Our neighbors have
names like Indigo Bunting, Carolina Chickadee, Swainson's Warbler, and
Whip-Poor-Will, and so we're also a site -- one of the few
private properties, in fact -- on the
North Carolina Birding Trail, Mountain Region.
 Two laurel-covered
mountainsides inside Pisgah National Forest, Bernard Mountain and Horse Ridge, flank
our seven private acres to the east and west,
respectively. On the Horse Ridge side of the property is
our fruit orchard, with its view of Green Knob {site of
a fabulous trail and cool fire tower} on the
Blue Ridge Parkway to the north.
This aerial view taken the first
weekend of November in 2009 shows the property, with the
Main House {tucked behind trees} and Lake House next to the
pond on the left side of the road, and the Inn's orchard
on the right. [Photo credit:
Nick D'Amato]
A quarter-mile from the south end of the
grounds are two Forest Service access roads, which are
vehicle-free, unpaved pathways into the National Forest.
Additionally, the Inn is a short drive from miles of
walking, biking and hiking trails, as well as Chimney
Rock State Park, Biltmore Estate and Asheville,
shopping and dining in Black Mountain, Montreat College
and Warren Wilson College, the entrance to the Blue
Ridge Parkway, 12 local microbreweries {with Sierra
Nevada coming soon!}, and more. Use the Inn as your base
of operations for your vacation and see more
things to do on our
Area Activities
page.
Looking for a getaway where you can
do "a whole lot of nothing"? We can help with that, too.
After breakfast, if you want to stick
around and relax on the property, you can enjoy:
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A comfortable,
private room where you can take it easy during the
day and rest your head at night {pick
your room}
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A two-story Great
Room with floor-to-ceiling windows and plenty of cushy couches
{and a 5'x9' projection HD-TV}
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Free wi-fi
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A DVD and VHS movie library
and board games
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A library loft with books
that you can borrow during your stay
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Outdoor decks with plenty of
seating, and a grill available for guest use
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A large firepit
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Seven acres of grounds,
including a fruit orchard and garden spaces, great for
casual strolls
[Download/print
a brochure]
At the Inn on Mill Creek, we strive for a relaxed, casual
atmosphere. The Inn is situated at 2,300 feet above sea
level, so you'll experience fresh and clean mountain
air, months of flowering plants in spring and summer, a
six-week fall season that will knock your socks off, and
winters that typically arrive around Christmas and
depart with the arrival of daffodils in March.
A LITTLE BIT OF LOCAL
HISTORY
The land around the Inn on Mill Creek
was home to members of Cherokee and Catawba Tribes until the
Revolutionary War era, when settlers moved westward from
what is now the town of Old Fort {the westernmost outpost of
the American colonies}. The small towns around us feature
museums and points along hiking trails that showcase this
period of our nation's history. In addition to the Revolutionary
War, Civil War history is also present in
historical markers at the
Swannanoa Gap near our exit off the Interstate, where
skirmishes took place near the end of the war. You can
also find tombstones
of unknown Confederate and Union soldiers along the
'stagecoach road' off the Point Lookout Trail near the
Inn.
By the late 1800s, the area's
railroad, owned by the Southern Railway Company, still went no
further west than Old Fort, and passengers and cargo had
to be transported along the stagecoach road to reach
rail lines in Asheville
and points west. Colonel Alexander Boyd Andrews, an engineer and
then Southern Railway Vice President, successfully
lobbied the North Carolina legislature to authorize
money and, more importantly, prison labor, to help push
the railroad to the Swannanoa Gap, now known as
Ridgecrest.
The treacherous terrain required 13
miles of track, with seven tunnels, connecting Old Fort to Ridgecrest.
There are no railroad crossings along the stretch of
rail near the Inn, only trestles. {Nowadays, the trains
pull freight on an irregular schedule, and 'singing
rails' can be heard as they round the curves of what is
known as the Loops of Old Fort.}
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A resort hotel called the Round
Knob Hotel was
built by the railroad company in the late 1800s, and included a
prominent fountain
as a tribute to the workers who had died
building the railroad. In order to get water for the
manmade "geyser", a dam was built to create a water
reservoir and cast iron pipe was laid along two miles, to the fountain, where gravity {approx. 500
feet of elevation change} and pressure sent the water
shooting 80 feet in the air.
In
1903, an ember from a train burned down the Round Knob
Hotel. The 'Fathers
of Old Fort' didn't want to lose the hotel and
the geyser, so in 1911, a wealthy New Yorker and
friend of Colonel Andrews, George Fisher
Baker, rescued the geyser. |
Mr. Baker was one of the original founders of
what is now Citibank and one of the wealthiest
individuals of his time. He
was also a philanthropically-minded man. For example, he
paid for his son's alma mater, Harvard, to build a
business school, and the university's library bears his
name. Even though he used his great deal of wealth for
various good deeds, he did not "toot his own horn" so to
speak, and many of his projects were often announced in
the press with very little fanfare or weren't noted at
all, other than in historical documents. One of these
little-mentioned good deeds included fully financing the
purchase of land around the geyser in Old Fort, North
Carolina, which he enjoyed seeing on his train trips
through the mountains. He had the geyser relocated a
short distance across the creek {off of railroad
property}, where it was redesigned, deeded to the town
of Old Fort, and named in
honor of Mr. Baker's good friend, Colonel Andrews.
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The postcard to
the right shows
the Andrews
Geyser as it
looked around
the time of its
dedication in
1912. It remains
in this spot
today, now part
of a public park
owned by the
historic town of
Old Fort. Mill
Creek runs
behind it, and
on a hill above
it sits a
building that was formerly a vacation lodge
{called
Round Knob
Lodge} for
railroad executives during the era of the Round
Knob Hotel. The Inn on Mill Creek,
surrounded by the protected lands of Pisgah National
Forest,
is situated two miles north, at the site of the dam, still-working valve and water
reservoir {now a serene pond}, and our Lake House is on
the site of the former Andrews' Geyser caretaker's cabin. |
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THE STORY OF THE INN
George and Ruth Shrode
of Florida bought the seven acres of private property in
the 1970s, renovated the former Andrews Geyser
caretaker's cabin, planted an orchard across the road,
and put in a swimming pool. They also worked with local
residents and the town of Old Fort to refurbish the
Andrews Geyser, which had fallen into disrepair after
passenger rail ended in the 1960s. The Geyser was
rededicated in 1976. Around 1980, the Shrodes built what
is now the Inn's beautiful Main House, with rough hewn
cedar ceilings, a commercial kitchen for Ruth {an avid
cook, we hear} and plenty of space for their grown
children and grandchildren to enjoy.
In the late 1990s,
the home was bought by the Carillon family and converted
the private home into a four-room Bed & Breakfast,
converted the swimming pool into a perennial garden, and
the Inn
on Mill Creek was founded in 1999. After a few years,
the Carillons expanded the Inn, adding three rooms to
the renovated Lake House in 2001. Dave
and Brigette Walters bought the
Inn on Mill Creek in early 2007, brought along the
now-popular innpugs,
Csaba and Bugsy, and have been
sharing it with guests ever since. Recent improvements
include the complete renovation to the North Terrace
Room, and the addition of a walking labyrinth and
firepit to the outdoor spaces. The orchard is also
currently undergoing rehabilitation, with the plan to
add pear, cherry and persimmon trees, as well as
muscadine grapes. Keep up with the Inn on our
Bed & Breakfast Blog
and on
Youtube.
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