The Battery Park Hotel is the name given to two hotels in Asheville, North Carolina. The one standing today is 14 stories tall and was built in 1924 by Edwin W. Grove, during a time of increased tourism in the North Carolina mountains. It replaced a Queen Anne style hotel which stood 125 feet tall. The name came from the fact that Confederate forces used the site for batteries of artillery.HistoryThe original Battery Park Hotel was built in 1886 by Colonel Frank Coxe. It was designed by Philadelphia architect Edward Hazlehurst (1853-1915) in "spectacular" Queen Anne style. It was the first hotel in the South with an electric elevator, and one of the first with electric lighting.Once the railroad reached Asheville in 1880, the mountain town attracted 20 passenger trains a day from the nation's largest cities, and people found out what a wonderful place the community was to visit. One reason for visiting Asheville was the clean mountain air, which helped problems such as tuberculosis. Fine hotels were built, and Coxe's Battery Park Hotel was the best of these. For one thing, its location on Asheville's tallest hill provided magnificent views.The Rockefeller and Lorillard families were among those who stayed in the Battery Park. Another notable guest was George Vanderbilt, who from his window could see the land that would one day become Biltmore Estate.
