By Glenda Winders

Like most other travelers headed to Asheville, North Carolina, my companion and I had put the Biltmore, the estate built in 1895 by industrialist George Vanderbilt, at the top of our must-see list. And see it we did, but not before we came across and fell in love with another, more modest home: Carl Sandburg's Connemara Farms.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Lincoln biographer moved here in 1945 from chilly Michigan so that he could have solitude for writing and his wife, Lilian, a world-renowned breeder of goats, could have room for her work, too. The house had actually been built before the Civil War as a summer home for Christopher Memminger, who would later become secretary of the Confederate treasury under Jefferson Davis. One of its best features is a wide, comfortable porch with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

"When you look out at the scenery, you can see why they decided to call this home," said National Park Service guide Sarah Perschall. "They owned 2.5 acres of land and a million miles of sky."

Inside, the house remains exactly as it was when the family lived there — right down to the typewriter sitting on an orange crate. Sandburg borrowed this idea from Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who was said to have used such crates for laying out his maps and planning military strategy.

All of the furniture is original, and every wall is covered with bookshelves to house the 17,000 books Sandburg owned. (Some 12,000 remain; the rest are in the Library of Congress.) There's a 1950s-style kitchen complete with chrome dinette set and a living room with piano and guitar where the family gathered to play and sing. Upstairs is the poet's workroom and adjoining bedroom because he liked to work late into the night and sleep in the mornings. Lilian's bedroom is downstairs so that she could slip out to the barn at daybreak. The goats with which visiting children can still play are descendants of Lilian's herd.

Sandburg lived at the farm for the last 22 years of his life and produced a third of his work here. When he died, his wife sold the house to the National Park Service and walked away with only her personal belongings, knowing what a treasure-trove the home would be for literary scholars — and travelers like us.

Our rich Sandburg experience motivated us to look for another literary home, that of Thomas Wolfe, author of such novels as "Look Homeward, Angel" and "You Can't Go Home Again." We did make it to the big yellow house on Spruce Street, but it was after 5 on a Saturday afternoon, so we missed out on taking the tour.

Nevertheless, we got a nice feel for what life must have been like for the young Wolfe growing up in his mother's boarding house. We sat in the swing on the wraparound porch and photographed our feet next to Wolfe's bronzed size 13s out by the sidewalk.

It wasn't yet dark, and there was one more place we wanted to go on our literary pilgrimage: Wolfe's grave. But another surprise awaited us — he wasn't the only famous person buried in Riverside Cemetery. Nearby was the grave of William Sydney Porter, better known by his pen name, O. Henry. And the biggest surprise of all was that his simple tombstone was piled with pennies and quarters. This homage from visiting fans recognizes the first line of the author's most famous story, "The Gift of the Magi": "One dollar and eighty seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, known for such Jazz Age novels as "The Great Gatsby" and "Tender Is the Night" stayed for two years in Asheville at the Grove Park Inn while his wife, Zelda, was being treated for schizophrenia at the Highland Hospital, where she died in a fire. But writers aren't the only ones who have been drawn to Asheville.

Another not-to-be missed area is the River Arts District, a series of reclaimed industrial buildings where visual artists both live and have their studios. Their creations range from baskets, photography and paintings to mosaics, metal sculptures and jewelry. I came home with a bouquet made of handmade buttons and recycled items by Celia Barbieri, known as "the button florist."

Co-founder of the group, Pattiy Torno, is another artist who lives and works here. Her background is in fashion design, but she does several different types of artwork, including what she calls "photopiecings" — photographs she has taken, cut apart and then put back together in unusual patterns — much like the quilts she also makes.

"The main thing about Asheville is that I am in awe of the nature on a daily basis," she said. "The beauty that exists in nature is what compels me and nourishes me and informs my work. Being able to see amazing sunsets and the way the light is first thing in the morning — those things are critical to me."

We had noticed the same qualities, so our next stop was — naturally—- the North Carolina Arboretum, which offers 60 acres of gardens designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the same landscaper who was responsible for Central Park in New York City. There are also 10 miles of forested hiking and biking trails and inside a permanent art exhibit. On the sunny day when we visited our favorite exhibits were flower gardens planted to look like patchwork quilts.

And yes, at last we made it to the Biltmore. It deserved to be at the top of our list for a number of reasons. The building itself remains the largest private residence in the United States with 250 rooms and 43 bathrooms — all for Vanderbilt, his wife and daughter.

We entered through the conservatory and wound our way through the mansion with the help of an audio-guided tour. Of course there's a banquet hall and organ loft, a salon and tapestry gallery, library and rooms named for their contents, such as the Damask Room, the Tyrolean Chimney Room, the smoking room and the Claude Room with prints of paintings by Claude Lorrain on the walls. Two original paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir remain from Vanderbilt's father's collection.

The servants' quarters below stairs brought to mind "Downton Abbey," with tiny bedrooms, servants' dining hall, pantries, walk-in refrigerators and laundry room. But the family and their guests also came down occasionally to use the swimming pool, bowling alley and gym.

The grounds are as beautiful as the home, and it came as no surprise that they had been designed by the aforementioned Olmsted, the so-called "father of American landscape architecture." Gardens, pools and greenhouses were abloom for as far as we could see.

We had thought the tour would take a couple of hours, but we ended up staying there for the better part of a day. The owners have cleverly built Antler Hill Village on the way out, and this collection of tasteful buildings enticed us to make just one more stop for wine-tasting, shops and a museum.

It was a wonderful day at a wonderful place, but if I could choose between living there in the castlelike surroundings or in Sandburg's cozy, book-filled farmhouse, I know which one I'd pick.

WHEN YOU GO

For general information: www.exploreasheville.com

Carl Sandburg's home: www.nps.gov/carl

Thomas Wolfe's home: www.wolfememorial.com

River Arts District: www.riverartsdistrict.com

The Biltmore: www.biltmore.com

Glenda Winders is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.