Elevation Lofts sits directly over a funky gallery in artsy downtown Asheville, surrounded by cool craft breweries, farm-to-fork restaurants, chic indie boutiques and lively music venues.
Planes
Regional flights from major US hubs serve Asheville Airport, 20 minutes from the hotel. The nearest major international option is Charlotte Douglas Airport, around two hours’ drive through mighty mountainous state parks.
Automobiles
You’ll need your own wheels for getting to and from the airport, and you might even want to bag yourself a convertible for cruising the epic Blue Ridge Parkway: top-down, wind in your hair, North Carolina jazz blasting on the stereo. There’s designated parking in the lot behind Elevation Lofts, including two spots assigned to the largest apartment. Just park up then follow the painted rail track that leads the way to the building’s graffitied rear entrance.
Worth getting out of bed for
If the art in your loft has whet your appetite, you’ll be pleased to discover that the gallery responsible for curating it is right beneath your feet. Spread across the building's first two floors, Momentum Gallery contains 15,000 square feet of prime paintings, prints and sculpture from (mostly) emerging artists. And, like the pieces adorning your apartment walls, everything is for sale.
Just window shopping? It’s your lucky day: there are 20-plus galleries and museums within stumbling distance of Elevation Lofts, chief among which is the Asheville Art Museum, where rotating exhibitions reflect the wider collection of 20th- and 21st-century American art. The museum’s focus on paintings, sculptures and handmade objects by Cherokee artists and other natives of Western North Carolina and Southern Appalachia is ideal for anyone looking for maximum immersion in Asheville’s rich cultural heritage.
Art aficionados (and keen photographers) will find yet more of interest in the nearby River Arts District, a technicolour jumble of old riverside factory buildings, now housing studios and independent galleries that showcase the best in artisan Asheville pottery, sculpture, glassblowing and other forms. Make for the vast Biltmore Estate, where ogling original artworks by Renoir and Rembrandt is just part of the fun. This châteauesque Golden Age confection is the largest privately owned house in the US and also boasts a winery, a tropical conservatory and thousands of acres of formal gardens and wild Blue Ridge Mountains backyard to explore: on foot, by bike and on horseback.
Dip a toe into Asheville’s legendary live-music scene. Cult venue the Orange Peel has hosted superstars from Blondie to the Beastie Boys, while over in the River Arts District the Grey Eagle pairs up-and-coming local bands with Mexican food, margaritas and a quite staggering selection of ales from this, the North Carolina capital of craft beer.
Local restaurants
You’re unlikely to go hungry here in downtown Asheville, where there’s barely time to work up an appetite en route to the innumerable pizza joints, steakhouses, burger bars and fine-dining restaurants on your doorstep.
One of the very closest options to Elevation Lofts is also one of the best in the area. Strada is a traditional Italian trattoria seemingly plucked straight from a Tuscan village and dropped in the heart of downtown Asheville. Pop by the cosy, wood-panelled eatery to have your mind blown by prosciutto-wrapped figs stuffed with whipped goat cheese and basil, followed by short-rib bolognese and creamy tiramisu (from an old Italian family recipe, natch) to finish.
French bistro Bouchon picks up the baton marked ‘friendly neighbourhood restaurant’ and runs with it. Born and raised in a small farming community near Lyon, chef Michel Baudouin has brought the farm-to-table concept beloved of his hometown eateries to the good people of Asheville, serving up French comfort food like escargots, breaded chicken breast with prosciutto and gruyère, and his must-try signature: duck à l’orange with a hint of chocolate.
Local cafés
We all know that feeling: you wake up with a fuzzy head after a few too many craft ales and can’t even muster the energy to make your own coffee. Help is at hand thanks to Rowan Coffee right next door to your apartment, where you’ll be as grateful for the no-nonsense menu as that first hit of freshly roasted local brew.
For something a little more substantial, Izzy’s Coffee Den is a home-away-from-home with more exposed ventilation-ducts and local artworks to ogle while nursing your coffee and bagels. Or mosey on down to the Rhu for some good old Southern comfort food with your cup of joe. We’re talking buttermilk biscuits with sausage gravy, pastrami bagels and pimiento cheese grits. In other words, the kind of hangover brunch from which dreams are made.
Local bars
It’s all about the craft beer in Asheville, where there are said to be more craft breweries per capita than in any other US city. In real terms, that means you could easily sample 100 or more unique brews in a single day, assuming you have the constitution of Ernest Hemingway, that is.
In 1994, the Highland Brewing Company became the first brewery to make beer in Asheville since Prohibition, and is as good a place to start your beer-y odyssey as any. Head to the taproom inside the art deco S&W Cafeteria building, where Highland’s signature amber Gaelic Ale is the one to go for. But don’t let that stop you trying all the others too. A handful of independently run food stalls on the main floor beneath the Highland Brewing Co’s mezzanine bar should help steady your legs if you’ve hit the 5.8 per cent ABV Thunderstruck coffee porters a little too hard.
Hi-Wire Brewing has three locations in Asheville, the newest of which is a veritable playground in the River Arts District. The Asheville RAD beer garden is built from upcycled shipping containers that have been given a vibrant mural makeover by local artists. The quite literally dizzying selection of 24 on-tap brews runs the gamut from seasonals to sour and wild ales, while food trucks, pinball machines, open-mic nights and more serve to keep the punters entertained and well-fed.
