ASHEVILLE, NC.- The Asheville Art Museum presents Lasting Legacies: Architecture in Asheville by Richard Sharp Smith, Albert Heath Carrier, and Douglas D. Ellington, on view from September 19, 2025 through January 18, 2026.

Travel writers christened Asheville, North Carolina “the Paris of the South” in the early twentieth century in appreciation of the city’s striking architecture and its growing reputation as an epicenter for art, literature, and culture. Lasting Legacies shines a spotlight on two of the architectural firms that helped inspire the honorific, highlighting the significant contributions of Richard Sharp Smith and Albert Heath Carrier, of Smith & Carrier, and Douglas D. Ellington to Asheville’s built environment between 1895 and 1935.

Working at the turn of the twentieth century, Smith & Carrier were instrumental in popularizing the British Arts and Crafts Movement in Asheville, adapting it to the region’s aesthetic sensibilities. Two decades later, Ellington led Asheville’s embrace of Art Deco, embedding its highly decorative style across the city’s vista. Smith & Carrier’s impact can be seen in Biltmore Village, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, and private residences in Albemarle Park, while Ellington was the architect for the famed Asheville City Building, Asheville High School, and First Baptist Church, to name just a few of many buildings designed by the two firms. The exhibition traces these distinct aesthetic contributions across civic, commercial, religious, and domestic spaces in Asheville and its surroundings. Alongside architecture and design materials, the exhibition showcases the parallel revival of craft and decorative arts in Western North Carolina, exploring how artistic dialogues crossed genres and found expression in everyday life. Featured decorative arts include materials produced by well-known makers such as Biltmore Industries, Brasstown Carvers, and Dodge Silver.