The Tryon Years
The Golden Age of Tryon & Tryon’s Country House Era
The Golden Age of Tryon
During the late nineteenth century and continuing through the first decades of the twentieth, Tryon became one of America's most remarkable mountain retreats.
Unlike Asheville, with its grand hotels and Vanderbilt estates, Tryon developed quietly. It attracted people who preferred privacy over publicity—writers, artists, musicians, industrialists, diplomats, scholars, physicians, and social leaders who wanted refinement without spectacle. They came for the climate, the scenery, and an atmosphere that encouraged conversation, creativity, and intellectual life. The railroad made the small mountain town accessible from Charleston, Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, allowing prominent families to spend entire seasons here.
The result was an unusually sophisticated community for a town of only a few thousand residents.
A Different Kind of Resort
Tryon never aspired to be Newport.
It was not a place of ostentatious mansions lined along the shore, nor was it designed around grand hotels and fashionable promenades.
Instead, substantial private homes were tucked into wooded hillsides overlooking the Blue Ridge foothills. Days revolved around riding, gardening, literature, chamber music, afternoon tea, fox hunting, painting, and entertaining house guests.
The pace was slower. Conversation mattered. Architecture mattered. Books mattered.
It was a community where one was as likely to encounter an accomplished novelist, painter, or composer as a banker or industrialist.
The Artists' Colony
By the early twentieth century, Tryon had developed a national reputation as an artists' colony.
Painters established studios here. Authors came seeking quiet. Musicians found inspiration in the landscape. The Lanier Library became one of the intellectual centers of the community, while local clubs and private homes hosted lectures, concerts, literary gatherings, and exhibitions. The town became known for combining rural beauty with an unusually active cultural life.
Distinguished Visitors
Over the decades, Tryon welcomed an extraordinary list of visitors and seasonal residents.
Among those associated with Tryon during its most celebrated years were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, First Lady Grace Coolidge, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, James Earl Fraser, Margaret Mitchell, William Gillette, and Nina Simone.
Many were drawn by the same qualities that continue to define the area today: privacy, natural beauty, and an atmosphere conducive to thoughtful work and gracious living.
Dunwyck Hall’s original owners, Herbert Cushman Metcalf and Mae Holmes Metcalf, hosted visitors in the 1920’s, 30s, and 40’s including F. Scott Fitzgerald, First Lady Grace Coolidge, composer George Gershwin, actor J. David Niven, and socialite Lady Nancy Astor.
The Equestrian Tradition
The Golden Age of Tryon coincided with the rise of one of America's oldest equestrian communities.
The Tryon Riding & Hunt Club, founded in 1925, helped establish the area's enduring reputation for fox hunting, horse shows, and sporting life. Horses became woven into the town's identity, a tradition that continues today through the world-class competitions at the Tryon International Equestrian Center.
For guests of Dunwyck Hall, that continuity is especially meaningful. A century after Tryon's first sporting visitors arrived by rail, today's equestrians continue to discover the same landscape and hospitality.
Dunwyck Hall Within This Tradition
Started in 1926, Dunwyck Hall belongs to the final flowering of Tryon's Golden Age.
Its architecture reflects a period when houses were designed not merely as residences but as places for gathering, entertaining, and conversation. English country houses provided inspiration for many American architects during this era, emphasizing permanence, craftsmanship, generous proportions, and rooms intended for gracious living.
The Great Hall, library, dinning room and the Snug, comprise a carefully composed sequence of reception rooms that embody the ideals that were already becoming rare even when the house was new.
Rather than standing apart from Tryon's history, Dunwyck Hall is one of its architectural expressions.
Why This Era Still Matters
Although nearly a century has passed, the qualities that first attracted visitors remain remarkably unchanged.
The Blue Ridge foothills still offer cooler summer evenings. Horse farms continue to define the landscape. Historic homes remain scattered among mature forests. The pace of life still favors long conversations over hurried schedules.
For many guests, staying in a historic house like Dunwyck Hall offers more than luxury accommodations. It offers a chance to experience the atmosphere that once drew America's writers, artists, statesmen, and cultural figures to this small corner of North Carolina.
Mills House in Tryon, photographed in 1938 by noted architectural photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston
Tryon's Country House Era
Between the turn of the twentieth century and the Second World War, Tryon experienced what might best be described as its Country House Era.
Families from Charleston, Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, and other eastern cities discovered the remarkable climate and scenery of the Blue Ridge foothills. Many came initially for the fresh mountain air or to escape northern winters. They stayed because Tryon offered beauty, privacy, culture, and an unhurried pace of life.
Unlike America's grand resort destinations, Tryon evolved as a community of privately owned country houses rather than large hotels. Homes were designed for extended family visits, house parties, riding weekends, musical evenings, and thoughtful conversation around generous fireplaces.
Houses Designed for Living Well
The houses built during this period were never intended to impress from the street alone.
They were designed to unfold gradually—through welcoming entrance halls, libraries lined with books, gracious staircases, intimate sitting rooms, and soaring reception spaces that encouraged gathering. Gardens blended naturally into the surrounding forests, creating the feeling that each estate had emerged from the landscape rather than been imposed upon it.
Many of these homes drew inspiration from the English countryside, where centuries-old manor houses emphasized craftsmanship, permanence, and comfort over display.
English Inspiration
No architect shaped this character more than J. Foster Searles, whose work helped define much of Tryon's architectural identity during the 1920s. His designs interpreted English vernacular farmhouses and cottages through the lens of the Blue Ridge Mountains, incorporating Tudor Revival details, half-timbering, steep roofs, hand craftsmanship, and informal gardens suited to Tryon's wooded setting.
Rather than copying English architecture exactly, these homes adapted its principles to North Carolina—creating buildings that felt both timeless and entirely at home in the mountains.
A Community of Culture
The Country House Era was about more than architecture.
Tryon became known for attracting authors, painters, musicians, physicians, educators, diplomats, and civic leaders who valued intellectual life as much as recreation. Private homes frequently hosted concerts, literary discussions, dinners, and charitable gatherings, while nearby institutions such as the Lanier Library became centers of cultural life.
It was an unusually cultivated community for a town of its size, one where hospitality and conversation were considered arts in themselves.
The Sporting Tradition
The same decades saw Tryon emerge as one of America's distinguished equestrian communities.
Horse farms spread across the foothills, fox hunting flourished, and the founding of the Tryon Riding & Hunt Club in 1925 firmly established the area's sporting traditions. Visitors often divided their days between riding, social gatherings, and evenings spent in the great rooms and libraries of private homes.
That tradition continues today through the international competitions held just minutes from Dunwyck Hall.
Dunwyck Hall
Completed in 1926, Dunwyck Hall belongs squarely to this remarkable period.
Its Great Hall, Minstrels' Gallery, library, richly detailed interiors, and English-inspired architecture reflect the ideals that shaped Tryon's finest country houses. It was conceived as a residence where family, friends, and invited guests could gather in rooms designed not merely for beauty, but for conversation, hospitality, and enduring comfort.
Nearly a century later, those qualities remain remarkably intact.
To stay at Dunwyck Hall is not simply to occupy a historic house—it is to experience one of the surviving expressions of Tryon's Country House Era.