The House at 92 Woodfin: Spoiler Alert- It Was Julia’s House All Along
By late 1879/early 1880, William Oliver Wolfe (WO) moved from Raleigh to Asheville with his second wife, Cynthia Hill. Cynthia suffered from tuberculosis, and the couple sought to relocate for the benefits of Asheville’s healthful and restorative mountain air. Cynthia opened a millinery store as WO worked to establish himself as a stonecutter in the area. Julia later recalled that in the first couple of years in the city, WO and Cynthia occupied two rented rooms on North Main Street, near her store, before construction began on the Woodfin House.
Buncombe County Deed records show that WO purchased the lot on Woodfin Street from J.M. and S.E. Israel for $300. With the assistance of several hired men, it’s believed that WO completed the house by Christmas of 1882. By late February of 1884, after a decline in health, Cynthia passed away. Julia Elizabeth Westall moved into WO’s house on Woodfin following their marriage in January, 1885.
It was no secret that Julia felt a bit out of place in the Woodfin house, a house she felt had been built for another woman. She later said “nothing was mine. A second-hand house, second-hand furniture, a second-handed husband.” According to her daughter Mabel, even the trees and flowers were known as Cynthia’s.
But who actually owned this “second-hand house?” Even though it was often referred to as “Papa’s House,” or “Gant’s House” in Look Homeward, Angel, it’s extremely interesting to note that Julia actually purchased 92 Woodfin from her husband in October of 1886. According to the Buncombe County Deeds records, Julia paid WO $2000 for the property.
Further research failed to yield any other mentions of the sale and Julia’s subsequent ownership, despite clearly occurring as noted in the recorded deed. Although much is known of Julia’s many real estate transactions and land speculation, spanning from the 1880s through the 1920s, it’s interesting that her outright ownership of this significant piece of property, within both the Wolfe family and Wolfe history, isn’t documented in other sources.
Although entirely speculation, one could easily deduce that this transaction was made in an attempt to provide extra safety and security for Julia and any subsequent Wolfe children. The deed itself notes “Julia E. Wolfe and her bodily heirs.” With the purchase happening on October 26th, 1886, WO and Julia had been married for a little over a year and nine months. At this point, the couple had already welcomed their first child, Leslie, and said an untimely and tragic goodbye as she passed from infant cholera. In Hayden Norwood’s The Marble Man’s Wife, Julia noted that within two months of their marriage, she realized the extent of her husband’s drinking and proclivity for violence when fueled by alcohol. This largely appears as common knowledge about WO by neighbors and friends, and Thomas doesn’t shy away from this as he incorporates those same traits into the fictional Oliver Gant of Look Homeward, Angel. Purchasing the house from her husband provided Julia with a needed safeguard (and most certainly still aligned with her real estate and property ownership desires).
Julia first obtained property in Asheville on Chestnut Street at just 23 years old. The deed notes she purchased the property from Ephraim Clayton on April 25th, 1883 for $150. With the help of her father and brothers, she built a small home for herself, where she resided until her marriage to WO a couple of years later. Her parcel of land on Chestnut was divided and sold in 1886 and 1887, and it appears Julia used her profits to purchase a southeast corner lot on Pack Square in January of 1887 for $1000, on which a permanent location for WO’s monument shop was constructed. Thus by 1887, Julia owned, outright, all the significant properties of the Wolfe family.
A Walk Through 92 Woodfin:
The house at 92 Woodfin was a practical, well-built two-story home with seven rooms. Described as notable in Asheville for the time, the home depicts early use of a cement exterior designed to resemble brownstone. A large, raised porch extended across the front and along both sides. Beneath the house was a dirt-floor cellar used for storing fruits and vegetables.
The first floor included four rooms. Upon entering the front door from the porch, the parlor was on the right. It was furnished with upholstered seating, decorative items like shells and bric-a-brac, and a mantel with figurines. A marble-topped table sat beneath a hanging crystal lamp, and the floor was covered with a patterned Belgian carpet. Ceiling medallions in both the parlor and hallway were made by WO.
Directly behind the parlor was a living room, which had originally been a bedroom, with a door leading to the side porch. Back at the main entry and to the left, across the hall from the parlor, was the dining room, which held a large extendable table that could seat up to fourteen people. The kitchen was located behind the dining room.
Upstairs were three bedrooms. Julia’s room was at the front of the house, with WO’s across the hall. The children’s room was at the back behind Julia’s room, above the living room, and may have had a staircase leading down to the back porch. The house was heated by four fireplaces: 3 downstairs and one upstairs in Julia’s bedroom, and it did not have indoor plumbing.
In Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas wrote of “the tumultuous, unhappy, warm centre of his home,” noting:
“Oh, ever to wake at morning knowing he was there! To feel the fire full chimney-throat roar up a-tremble with the blast of his terrific fires, to hear the first fire crackling in the kitchen range, to hear the sounds of morning in the house, the smells of breakfast and the feeling of security never to be changed! Oh, to hear him prowling like a wakened lion below, the stertorous hoarse frenzy of his furious breath; to hear the ominous muttering mounting to faint howls as with infuriate relish he prepared the roaring invective of the morning’s tirade, to hear him muttering as the coal went rattling out upon the fire, to hear him growling savagely as the flame shot up the trembling chimney-throat, to hear his giant stride racing through the house prepared now, storming to the charge, and the well-remembered howl of his awakened fury as springing to the door-way of the backroom stairs he flung it open, yelling at them to awake.”
The front yard was small and steeply inclined from Woodfin street below, and was planted with an abundance of flowers and shrubs. Steps from the porch led to a walkway that ran to the front picket-style fence.
The backyard was much larger, extending some 250 feet behind the house. It included fruit trees, a vegetable garden, and a swing, providing space for the children to play. A small one-room playhouse, built by WO in 1900, was connected to the house by a wooden walkway. The playhouse was furnished with chairs, a stove, a blackboard, an atlas, and an organ that Julia had owned before her marriage. The children spent a great deal of time there, and often climbed from an upstairs window onto the playhouse roof and then down to the ground.
The Later Years of Woodfin:
The couple spent roughly eleven years in separate households after Julia and Thomas relocated to the Old Kentucky Home in 1906, leaving WO and a handful of her older children a couple blocks away at 92 Woodfin. By 1917, and after a rapid decline in health, WO relocated to a back corner bedroom at the boardinghouse where he spent his last years battling cancer. WO passed on June 20th, 1922, at the age of 71.
Just prior to WO’s passing, Julia sold 92 Woodfin on April 24, 1920, for $6500. Less than two weeks later, she sold WO’s monument shop on Pack Square for $25,000. Later that May, Thomas’ older brother Fred wrote him of the news at Chapel Hill:
I suppose that you are acquainted with the sale of the Woodfin property and the Wolfe Building. As to what our personal opinions are — regarding either — now is no time to cry over spilt milk. I had nothing to do with either deal, nor was my advice asked. I would suggest that nothing be said to worry Papa, he was not the power behind the throne in the sales. My main hope is — that he will be made comfortable for the remainder of his days (long or short?) on Spruce St.
92 Woodfin underwent some fairly drastic changes in appearance during its last 35 years, before the house was razed in 1955. The Asheville News and Asheville Citizen featured articles on the demolition of the home with interviews from Thomas’ sister Mabel Wolfe Wheaton, who posed for photos inside her old childhood home.
The old house groans, torn down by foes
Its days are numbered, but it knows
There was a time when it was new —
Hot life beat strong within its walls,
Then Tom went forth, the world to view . . .
Soft sighs the old house as it falls
-Laura Millar Hearne, Asheville News, 1954
Sources:
- Historical Research Report — “Thomas Wolfe and the Old Kentucky Home,” by Wilson Angley
- The Wax Cylinders: Interviews with Julia Wolfe, by John Skally Terry
- The Marble Man’s Wife, by Hayden Norwood
- Thomas Wolfe and His Family, by Mabel Wolfe Wheaton and Legette Blythe
- Buncombe County Register of Deeds
- Buncombe County Special Collections
