Saturday, August 06, 2011

Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site

What better way is there for literary friends to celebrate than to tour the home of an author? We visited the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, NC (south of Asheville and Hendersonville).


We had to climb a quite steel 3/10 of a mile trail to get to the home. It was pouring down rain. We are thankful for umbrellas. About halfway up, we got our first glimpse of the home.


This is a view from the front porch of Connemara.


One of the many shelves of books in the house. There are over 12,000 books in the house (although 4 bookcases in one room had been removed for dusting). We learned that Carl Sandburg liked all sorts of books except for one kind -- mysteries. How sad! That's my favorite genre. We made a comment that we were certain that we had seen some in his legacy library on LibraryThing. The guide told us they belonged to his daughter. There were some in the house.


This table had rather interesting provenance. Apparently the wood came from the Lincoln White House.


Connemara. The home was named by its previous owner, a Charleston businessman who summered in Flat Rock. He named it Connemara because it reminded him of the hills of Ireland.


The lake. It's very near the parking area.


This is a splendid mountain view from one of the windows in the upper floor of Connemara.

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