Our Building - Patla Straus Robinson & Moore, P. A. -- Attorneys

History of 29 North Market Street

The building was constructed during a five-month period in 1924 and 1925 at the corner of Market and Walnut Streets in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. The seven-story, classical office building is brick above the street level of limestone with arched windows and entrance. A 1924 postcard drawing inaccurately depicted the building as having nine stories (at right in picture rotation).

The foundation was started on October 1, 1924, by the (Gustave) Buchholz Construction Company, with the steel frame completed on January 1, 1925. The building was enclosed on February 1, 1925, with completion of the building in Spring 1925. Occupancy of the building began in late 1925 and early 1926.

Initial Owner: Mutual Securities Company
Engineers and architect for the building were V. W. Breese and Company, Charlotte.
Consulting Architect: M. R. Marsh, Charlotte.
Construction: Buchholz Construction Company, Asheville.

The building was initially called the new “Medical Building” and then later, it was referred to as the Gennet Building. The Historical Resources Commission lists it as #40 in Historic Architectural Resources of Downtown Asheville N.C. (Ref. N.C. 975.688 H673).

For more than a generation, partners of the Patla, Straus, Robinson & Moore law firm have been owners of the historic building, where our offices are located on several floors. Diagonal from Thomas Wolfe's Old Kentucky Home, the building is located at Market and Walnut Streets, on Asheville's only remaining block of historic brick-paved street.

Background
Asheville was booming in 1924. It was the Jazz Age. Celebrities and dignitaries flocked to Asheville. The Battery Park Hotel, McCormick (baseball) Field and many other downtown buildings were under construction. Asheville was North Carolina’s third largest city in population.

The building boom included groundbreaking for a new state-of-the-art medical building for doctors’ offices at the corner of Market and Walnut streets, just 50 yards from Thomas Wolfe’s Old Kentucky Home, where he grew up.

The picture (right) shows the crowd at the Wolfe house in 2000 for the U.S. stamp dedication of Thomas Wolfe in the Great American Authors series. You can see the top of our building over the left porch in the picture.

The 1924 postcard drawing, the 1970 building picture and the Thomas Wolf stamp dedication photo are used through courtesy and permission of the North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, NC.