Given the dominance of this landmark over the heart of the city, you will never be considered Asheville smart until you know the history of the Battery Park Hotel. Of course, today’s Battery Park Hotel looks nothing like the spectacular original Queen Anne version it replaced. That original was built in 1886 by Colonel Frank Coxe to accommodate tourists as Asheville gained recognition as a destination. The Coxe family was one of the oldest and most affluent in the state, and Colonel Coxe was also Vice President of Western North Carolina Railroad. Battery Park soon attracted the rich and famous from across all the United States and Europe. For almost a half century, it was Asheville’s most prominent landmark towering over the city from its lofty perch on the eighty foot high Battery Porter Hill that was formerly the site of a Civil War battery. The hotel was a magnificent edifice, three stories high. Each room had its own fireplace, and verandahs provided guests with extraordinary mountain views. It was the height of elegance for the times and quite advanced technologically, with electric lights and elevators.
When Coxe died, the medicine magnate, Edwin Wiley Grove, who had adopted the city after a visit, purchased the hotel. Although he initially planned to continue its operation, it became clear that after fifty years the old hotel’s day had passed. Automobile tourists were outnumbering train travelers, and it had become too expensive to keep up. Besides, Grove had come up with a brilliant visionary idea. He razed the building, leveled the hill, and flattened the site. He built the Grove Arcade and his new modern hotel, giving his new hotel the same name as its predecessor. The Arcade breathed badly needed new life into Asheville’s city center. Unfortunately, WWII put the business district back to sleep in 1942, when the Arcade was commandeered by the military for war purposes. Twenty years later the buildings were returned to the city, and the Arcade has been reborn to fulfill Grove’s vision of a vibrant hub for commercial activity, tourist shopping and dining and night life in the city.
Built in 1924, the new fourteen story Battery Park was designed by W. L. Stoddard of New York and constructed with reinforced concrete, faced with brick, limestone, and terra cotta trim with a Mission Revival style roof. Its 220-rooms featured the very latest in convenience and terraces provided breath-taking views of the city and surrounding mountain vistas. The design was characteristic of 1920s hotel architecture—a mix of Neoclassical and “Spanish romanticism”. It was according to Asheville’s famous author, Thomas Wolfe, “as being stamped out of the same mold, as if by some gigantic biscuit-cutter of hotels that had produced a thousand others like it all over the country.” The hotel has had its share of notoriety and is reputed to have its own ghost—perhaps more than one. Helen Clevenger, a 19 year-old college student, was found dead in Room 224 on July 17, 1936, having died the night before. She had been shot in the chest and slashed in the face with a sharp instrument. A hall boy at the hotel, 22 year-old Martin Moore, confessed to the murder, and was executed on December 11 of the same year. Over the years following her murder, hotel staff and guests have told haunting stories of seeing her spirit in the halls and of unusual unexplained paranormal events in Room 224. Then in 1943, a U. S. Government Official, Clifton Alheit, jumped to his death off the roof of the Battery Park Hotel in an apparent suicide only to be followed by a similar event in 1972. To this day, people have been known to report seeing ghostly images of something or someone falling from the roof of the building. Today the building is still standing guard over the Grove Arcade; however, it ceased to operate as a hotel on October 30, 1972. Today it is owned by National Church Residences primarily as a residence for senior citizens. There are commercial businesses on the ground floor, but all the upper floors have been converted to apartments for senior citizens.