Pisgah View Ranch, a dude ranch in Candler about 16 miles southwest of Asheville, is expected to officially become North Carolina’s 40th state park next week.
U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn Jr., whose family has owned the ranch since 1790, described it to the Asheville Citizen-Times as “a unique piece of property. It has over two miles of ridge line, it has its own watershed, it has headwaters, it looks like it’s surrounded by mountains in a bowl.”
The resort’s website says it offers rustic guest cottages or cabins, swimming pool, a restaurant with ” large old fashioned dining room,” game room, scenic horseback rides, hiking “with the beautiful Mt. Pisgah as your backdrop,” a pioneer museum dating to 1790 and a “unique ‘barn loft’ banquet room for family reunions, wedding receptions, conferences and special events.”
Above, the main ranch house at Pisgah View Ranch.
According to Cogburn and the Citizen-Times there are also mountain biking trails, tennis courts, fishing ponds, and a “long-closed campground.”
Transfer of 1,600 acres and the resort to the State Parks system is authorized by a bill approved by the Senate and the House and sent to the printer on Monday. Rep. Brian Turner, D-Buncombe, who sponsored the bill in the House, told the Citizen-Times on Monday that Gov. Roy Cooper could sign the bill next week.
The Pisgah View Ranch was opened to the public in 1941 by Ruby and Chester Cogburn, the Citizen-Times says. It is to be run as is through the end of the year and restored once it becomes a state park, though it is unclear what amenities will ultimately be offered to the public.
The purchase price was reported as approximately $18.2 million over five years, with the first phase beginning after the contract closes at the end of 2019.
There are 39 state parks in the North Carolina system, including five parks in Western North Carolina – Chimney Rock, Gorges, Grandfather Mountain, Lake James and Mount Mitchell. Pisgah View would be the first state park in Buncombe County.
The Pisgah View Ranch Property
The Pisgah View Ranch property line is a north-south running ridge that connects with Pisgah National Forest near Mount Pisgah. It also abuts the Blue Ridge Parkway and state game lands spanning the Pisgah Ridge and Great Balsam Mountains.
The Asheville-based Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy has worked for nearly 20 years to engineer conservation for the scenic ranch’s mountains, meadows, headwater streams and wildlife corridors.
The land ranges in elevation from 2,500 feet above sea level along South Hominy Creek to more than 4,600 feet at the Buncombe-Haywood line, Hanni Muerdter, SAHC conservation director, told the newspaper.
It contains the Spring Mountain/Pisgah View State Natural Area, which includes a wide variety of landscape types from exposed cliffs on dry ridges, to oak-dominated forests, mesic coves and wetland areas.
(Main building photo via Citizen-Times; map via pisgahviewranch.net)
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