Brexton House

Brexton House

Brexton House

Brexton House

33 Starnes Avenue
Asheville, NC  28801 

With many tourist arriving by train to Asheville, NC for the cool mountains, many boarding houses were built. One of these was the Brexton Boarding House which was built around 1895. The Brexton House is a three-and-one-half story vernacular Queen Anne style dwelling with symmetrical massing and pitched pressed-metal roofs and "half-timbered" gables.

In 1906, St. Joseph's Hospital owned the house and operated a sanitarium for tuberculosis patients. The hospital added sleeping porches and two engaged three-story porches to the building. The porches provided plenty of sunlight and mountain air which was believed to provide tuberculosis patients with natural therapeutic medicine.

Brexton Boarding House began serving tourist again after 1910. In 1924, the boarding house was turned into the "Osborne Apartments," as more single tourists were looking for year-round occupancy. The house remains an apartment building with 11 units, each retaining its historic "therapeutic" porches.