Madison County
Trim Carpentry in Mars Hill, NC
Mars Hill is a college town built around Mars Hill University, chartered in 1859 and the reason the town exists at all — the downtown grew up following the campus, not the other way around.
The historic core was added to the National Register in 2015, and a lot of the residential streets around campus carry the same 19th- and early-20th-century detail: trim profiles and siding reveals that a standard yard doesn't stock.
It's high country, roughly 18 miles north of Asheville and up into Madison County's ridgelines, which means the same freeze-thaw cycling as the rest of the region's elevated towns, usually working on wood that's already a century old.
Around town
Mars Hill University
A college founded in the nineteenth century, with a historic downtown alongside it.
The downtown district was listed on the National Register in 2015 — older frame buildings on original profiles.
What this ground asks for
FAQ
Local questions
- Does downtown Mars Hill's historic listing affect exterior work?
- The 2015 National Register listing itself doesn't carry the same mandatory design review Asheville's local historic districts do, but the homes around campus are old enough that matching the existing profile is usually the right call regardless.
- Does the elevation up here affect exterior wood the same way it does around Asheville?
- Yes, if not more — Mars Hill sits up in Madison County's ridgelines, and the freeze-thaw cycling on old wood up here is at least as hard as anywhere closer to Asheville.