National Register of Historic Places

Flat Top Estate

Blowing Rock, Watauga County, North Carolina
Listed
December 24, 2013
Type
District
Period
Listed
Ref No.
13000978

About this property

The Moses H. Cone Memorial Park is a country estate in honor of Moses H. Cone in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. It is on the Blue Ridge Parkway between mileposts 292 and 295 with access at milepost 294. Most locals call it Cone Park. The park is run by the National Park Service and is open to the public. It contains 3,500 acres (14 km2), a 16-acre (65,000 m2) trout lake, a 22-acre (89,000 m2) Bass Lake and 25 miles (40 km) of carriage trails for hiking and horses. The main feature of the park is a twenty-three room 13,000-square-foot (1,200 m2) mansion called Flat Top Manor built around the early 1900s. At the manor, there is a craft shop and demonstration center, along with an information desk and book store. The activities in the park are walking, hiking, cross-country skiing, and horseback riding. More people use the park for hiking and horseback riding than any other activity. There is also fishing available at the two nearby fishing lakes. Many people also do amateur and professional photography, especially in the autumn. The park is open year-round and sees 225,000 people each year being the most visited recreational place on the Blue Ridge Parkway and second in visitors after the Folk Art Center that sees 250,000 visitors. Together with the Julian Price Memorial Park, it is the largest developed area set aside for public recreation on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Moses obtained advice from noted conservationist Gifford Pinchot, the pioneering forester at the Biltmore Estate and First Chief of the US Forest Service, on planting white pine forests and hemlock hedges. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 as Flat Top Estate, a national historic district. The district encompasses four contributing buildings and two contributing sites. They include the historic landscape, Flat Top Manor house (1899-1900), carriage house (c. 1899–1905), Cone Cemetery (1908), Sandy Flat Missionary Baptist Church (1908), and the apple barn.

Location

Blowing Rock, Watauga County, North Carolina
36.15893, -81.70399

Categories

ARCHITECTUREINDUSTRYLANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURESOCIAL HISTORY
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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The Land
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Geology
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LiDAR Terrain
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Conflict & War
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The Civil War
The Civil War on this ground, 1861 to 1865: who held it, and the battles, camps and regiments nearby.
The Soldiers
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Native Heritage
The Native nations who held this land, mapped across time from before European contact to today.
Settlement
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The Community
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Nearby Historic Sites

Westglow
Industrial
1.5 mi
Bollinger-Hartley House
Industrial
2.3 mi
Randall Memorial Building, Former
Industrial
2.4 mi
Vardell Family Cottages Historic District
Listed
2.7 mi
East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad Locomotive No. 12
Industrial
3.3 mi

Nearby Battles

Stoneman's Raid — Boone NC
1865Civil War
4.3 mi

Questions about this property

When was Flat Top Estate listed on the National Register?

Flat Top Estate was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 24, 2013.

What type of historic resource is Flat Top Estate?

Flat Top Estate is classified as a district in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Flat Top Estate?

The period of significance for Flat Top Estate is recorded as the listed era.

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