Community News

Ancient spring becomes a historic landmark

The stonework of Lenox Spring dates to 1917, when developer F.A. Sumner formed the Lenox Park subdivision. In the summer of 1919, a newspaper reported that ‘hundreds of people have visited and drank water from Lenox park spring during the past sixty days.’

By Bill Moss, Published: July 10, 2025

Lenox Park these days sees lots of visitors, thanks to the Ecusta Trail, the popular Trailside Brewing Co. and the new Ecusta Market and Café at Lennox Station.

But this is not the first time the small neighborhood around South Whitted Street has drawn a crowd. The attraction more than a hundred years ago was spring water not craft beer.
Historic preservation specialist Sybil H. Argintar presents the history of the spring in great detail in a 28-page report that supported designation of the property as a local historic landmark. The Hendersonville City Council last week adopted ordinances last week designating Lenox Spring and the Gregory House, a 1925 Craftsman bungalow in the 900 block of Locust Street, as historic landmarks.
“While the spring itself dates to ancient times, the stonework construction around the spring, complete with seating, along with stairs to the homes located on the hill above the springs, made Lenox Spring more accessible to both locals and summer visitors,” writes Argintar, owner of Southeastern Preservation Services of Asheville.
More history follows. But first — to pacify alert readers troubled by the first paragraph — here is Argintar’s explanation of the two spellings of the subdivision’s name:

“The spelling of Lenox Spring and Lenox Park is noted with one ‘n’ in deeds, plats, documentary photos, and newspaper accounts including the early signage into the park. Some written documents refer to the area as
‘Lennox,’ specifically in Frank L. FitzSimons’s From the Banks of the Oklawaha. He may have been referring to an earlier spelling but the nearby neighborhood, the spring, and the park are spelled as noted in this report. The fact that Lennox Park Drive uses an alternative spelling may be a reference to this earlier spelling.”
SUBHED
Springwater had ‘medicinal qualities’
In the early part of the last century, the land was owned by Dr. W.D. Whitted, a physician, druggist and surgeon said to be the first to practice medicine in Hendersonville.
“For many years the spring was known as Whitted’s Spring, and in addition to the medicinal qualities of the water there, the land was thought by the Cherokee to be sacred, and that ‘...those who drank the waters from the spring would be cured of all their pains and sicknesses…’”
“The history of Lenox Spring is tied directly to the history of Hendersonville as a popular tourist destination,” Argintar writes. And it was the advent of passenger service, first from the Lowcountry of South Carolina to Hendersonville, and then from Hendersonville to Brevard, that fueled a surge of Blue Ridge Mountains tourism still going strong in the teens.
“It was during this boom in the tourism industry that the development of the Lenox Park subdivision came into being,” Argintar wrote. F.A. Sumner, a real estate developer from Asheville, bought the land and in 1917 formed Lenox Park, bounded by Palmetto Avenue (now Lennox Park Drive), Hebron Street and South Whitted Street. The plat map shows the current triangular-shaped lot as the “spring tract.” A newspaper account reported that Sumner intended to make “some big improvements on the property.”
Sumner’s improvements would include the five-course stone work and concrete wall surrounding the spring plus a seating area and steps that ascend to the homes up the hill. A streetcar at the time ran from Seventh Avenue, then south on Main and west on First Avenue with a turnaround at Lenox Spring.
“As Sumner completed his Lenox Park subdivision and the improvements to the spring,” Argintar wrote, “he noted publicly in March of 1919 that ‘there was little doubt that this section would have more tourists during the coming summer than have ever before come here in a single season.’”
In August 1919, a news report said that “…hundreds of people have visited and drank water from Lenox park spring during the past sixty days” — arriving on foot and in automobiles and “bringing with them some type of container to carry the water back with them.”
A newspaper account the following summer, in July of 1920, reported that “the big, bold spring in Lenox Park is being well patronized these hot days. It is estimated that 2,000 people visited and drank of its pure, ice-cold waters Wednesday. And the owner estimates that at least 500 gallons of water are carried away from the spring each day, by people living in different sections of the city…”
Lenox Spring was one of many springs in the Hendersonville area. When these “mineral-rich springs … were discovered, as Lenox Spring was, they were often marketed to locals and summer visitors,” Argintar writes. Others in use in the early 1900s included Crystal Spring, which opened in Laurel Park in 1909.
The city purchased Lenox Spring in 1942 and created the pocket-sized public park that remains today. Local people and visitors continued to use the spring until 1970, when the city closed access due to concerns over potability of the water.
“In addition, the stone construction around the spring is a notable, intact landscape architectural feature of the property which is worthy of preservation,” Argintar says. Historically, the stone stairs provided access to the spring from the houses on the hill. “While an important feature of the park that allowed access to the spring, this staircase is not currently part of the park property but remains as part of the lot to the southwest at 601 S. Whitted Street.” Although the park boundary does not include these stairs, “it is the desire of the city of Hendersonville to obtain either ownership or an easement to be able to include the stairs as part of the landmark designation at a future time,” the landmark nomination noted.

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Our feature on the historic Gregory House on Locust Avenue will appear in the July 16 issue of the Lightning.