The Blue Ridge Assembly Historic District is nestled in a beautiful cove between two heavily forested ridges of the Swannanoa Mountains, a range of the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina. Blue Ridge Assembly was founded in 1912, due largely to the efforts of Willis Duke Weatherford, author and humanitarian. Established as a training ground in religious education for the YMCA and many other organizations, the Assembly became one of the area's most important conference centers, assembly grounds, and religious retreats at a time when Western North Carolina was gaining attention as a retreat mecca. It played a crucial role in the area's economic, educational, and cultural development.

The historical core of the Blue Ridge Assembly Historic District consists of a large and impressive group of Colonial and Neoclassical buildings constructed between 1912 and 1930. Designed by Louis Jallade of New York, the most dominant building is Robert E. Lee Hall, a large three-story frame building with an octa-style portico rising its full height. Flanking this imposing hall are four porticoed, two-story frame buildings forming a large informal courtyard. Behind this group is a series of 19 cottages, most with porches and stone detail, arranged irregularly on serpentine access roads that are informally landscaped with flowering trees and shrubs indigenous to the area. Today, the Assembly is the second oldest conference center in the North Carolina Mountains and continues to serve the southeast as a hub for religious and educational activities.

Information and photos courtesy of the National Register for Historic Places Asheville, NC Travel Itinerary, a subsidiary of the National Park Service.