100 Reynolds Road
Asheville, NC, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Reynolds House

Statement of Significance:

The Reynolds House was erected in the mid-1850s by "Colonel" Daniel Reynolds, a locally prominent farmer and former hotel owner, who only recently had waged an unsuccessful campaign against kinsman Zebulon Baird Vance for a seat in the North Carolina House of Commons. The house was originally a double-pile plan brick structure, a conservative but substantial plan type built only by the most prosperous of western North Carolina's citizens before the Civil War. The relative prosperity surrounding the Reynolds House declined markedly during and after the War; and by the time of his death in 1878, Daniel Reynolds's estate had been reduced to fairly modest proportions. The house was subsequently owned by Asheville businessman William Taswell Reynolds, whose son, Robert Rice ("Our Bob") Reynolds, would one day become one of the most colorful and controversial members of the United States Senate. It is very likely that Senator Reynolds spent at least some time at the Reynolds House during his youth; and it is virtually certain that he visited there frequently as an adult, during the years that the house was owned and occupied by his mother and uncle. Reynolds's uncle, Nathaniel Augustus Reynolds, undertook an extensive renovation and expansion of the Reynolds House soon after paying off an existing mortgage in 1904. These alterations included the addition of a third floor with a mansard roof and dormers, the addition of Colonial Revival porches and interior woodwork, and the installation of bathrooms. Nathaniel Reynolds lived there from about 1930 until his death in 1950. The house remained in the Reynolds family until 1973. For the past decade it has served as the residence of three separate owners. It is currently being rehabilitated for use as a "bed and breakfast" style inn.