Come See Mountain Crafts in a Gilded Age Mansion

With abundant natural beauty at the Moses Cone estate, the Southern Highland Craft Guild bridges the landscape with its people in a splendor of craftsmanship.

Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock,  preserves the country estate of Moses Cone, a prosperous textile entrepreneur, conservationist and philanthropist of the Gilded Age. In 1901, Cone built Flat Top Manor, the gleaming white 20-room mansion in the grand Colonial Revival style.

Twenty-five miles of carriage trails wind through the fields and forests of the 3,500-acre estate. The trails are available to horse drawn carriages, horseback riding, and hiking. The Craftsman’s Trail is a 20-minute loop walk around the Manor which the Cones are said to have walked together every morning. The estate also contains a family cemetery and a carriage and apple barn.

Moses Cone’s interest in nature and conservation led him to plant extensive white pine forests and hemlock hedges (at the advice of friend and noted conservationist Gifford Pinchot), build several lakes stocked with bass and trout, and plant a 10,000-tree apple orchard.