Today’s batch of burning questions, my smart-aleck answers and the real deal:
Question: Dear Answer Man, is the darkness of the pandemic getting to me, or is this awning on a business on 860 Riverside Drive a casket?I’m dying to know. Please find out what deathly secrets this building once housed and put my morbid curiosity to rest.
My answer: I'm pretty sure this building is where my career went to die. Thanks for the heads up. I've been looking for a long time now...
Real answer: This is indeed an intriguing question, as it sure does look like a casket hanging atop what might've been a loading dock at one point.
The building also has a "For sale or lease" sign on it, with real estate agent Scott Carter's phone number on it. He had some clues about the mystery.
"There was a company down here that made a ton of caskets," Carter told me, probably not realizing a ton of caskets would probably only be five or six. "They used to manufacturer them there. We're talking probably back in the 1940s."
Most recently, the building was used for a cabinet company and a discount store, but way in the back, a couple of caskets remain.
"We've had some fun with that a little bit, when people come to look at the building," Carter said. "Sometimes a husband and wife will joke around about it — 'I'm going to put you in there if you don't watch it.'"
Carter did not know who put the casket over the old loading dock area, or much more about the company. Technically, it looks like a half-casket someone put up there.
If you know something more about the casket, let me know.
Searching for more information,I went to Asheville businessman and river history authority Jerry Sternberg. At age 90, Sternberg has personally lived through a lot of Asheville's history, and he did recall a casket company being down on the river.
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"I'd say it's been 60 or 70 years since they've been down there," Sternberg said. "I think we lost a lot of our woodworking companies when the chestnut trees died out."
The blight killed off pretty much all the native chestnut in the mountains in the 20th century.
After a few minutes, Sternberg came up with a name: National Casket Company.
After Googling that, I got a hit from the UNC Asheville Ramsey Library, Special Collections and University Archives -- specifically, the E.M. Ball photo collection from 1918-69.
Gene Hyde, head of special collections at UNCA, did a little sleuthing and found a "National Casket Company" on Riverside Drive in the 1911 Asheville phone directory.
"There's not a specific address, but the phone number is '58,' if you want to call," he said with a chuckle.
He also found a listing for 1918 for the same company.
Buncombe County property tax records list the main building on the site now as being erected in 1955, so it's not the original building Hyde referred to. Looking at an aerial shot on Buncombe's GIS, and the Ramsey Library photos, it looks like the current main building is farther away from the river than the original building.
The property also currently contains a couple of sizable storage sheds. The assessed value of the 1.47-acre site and the structure is $578,200, and it is in the river's floodplain, according to tax records.
The owner is listed as DKM International.
More:Answer Man: Riverside Drive flooding issue? Why not build up the road?
The property is listed on Zillow for sale for $1.5 million, by the way. Information on the Zillow listing states it's a "Redevelopment opportunity with many options on high traffic location in Woodfin River Arts District along the Woodfin Greenway/Blueway."
It's also "across the street from the French Broad River, adjacent to Zillicoa Brewery, down the street from Ramp Studios (100,000 Square feetof artist, brewery and other maker space tenants) and close to the Silverline Park and proposed Woodfin Wave Whitewater Park."
And, this being Asheville, the real estate folks have to pitch it as a potential brewery.
"Main brick building features high barrel ceilings and a mezzanine, making it perfect for a brewery," the Zillow information states. "Other possibilities include retail, hotel or industrial. Access to rail line directly behind property."
It does not mention the casket, but rest assured a brewery owner could have a lot of fun with that. I'm amazed that Burial Brewery hasn't already snatched this property up.
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Sternberghas bought and sold a lot of property in the River Arts District and adjoining areas, so that $1.5 million price tag didn't shock him.
"That tells you about the Riverside Drive market," Sternberg said. "Everybody wants to be on the river."
He half-joked about buying properties along the river after they flood and then selling them a few years later --after memories of the inundation have died down.
"The French Broad is a mean old woman," he said with a laugh. "She's a beautiful old woman, but she's mean."
This is the opinion of John Boyle. To submit a question, contact him at 232-5847 or jboyle@citizen-times.com
