The decade of the 1920s was the unmatched high point of architectural development in all of Asheville, a feverish expansion in real estate values that produced many of the downtown's finest buildings of all types. New growth in the downtown was a mixture of the redevelopment of existing lots and the production of new building land through the leveling of the naturally hilly topography. Literally scores of new commercial buildings were erected in the downtown during the 1920s, from plain one and two story shops faced in tapestry brick with wooden shopfronts, limestone trim and metal-sash windows, to elegant glazed terra cotta-clad department stores and office buildings. - NRHP