Architecture

Photo of exterior of Homer Ellertson's home and studio called El Taarn

El Taarn

Soon after avant-garde painter Homer Ellertson returned from a trip to Europe in 1923, he bought a large lot for his new home and studio. El Taarn (“Taarn” is Norwegian for “tower” and “El” is a wordplay invoking both “Ellertson” and the Mediterranean) is a three story tower with a panoramic mountain view, designed by the artist himself and inspired by the strong form of an old donjon he had seen in Touraine.

History

Photo from Across the Burning Trestle

Across the Burning Trestle 1914 Silent Movie

Early on, prominent theatrical and entertainment personalities came to the Tryon colony, so it’s no surprise Western North Carolina’s most technically-ambitious silent film of the pioneer era was made there. Richard Ridgely, director of Thomas Edison’s film production company in New Jersey, brought his best actors and crew down in spring, 1914.

Biography

Crop of Sassoon painting of backstage performers

The Worldly Sassoons

How such an unusual Jewish couple, she born in India and he in Malaysia, migrated to distant Tryon is a plot-line a novelist surely wouldn’t concoct. Yet history offers us their story which actually happened — a tale more interesting than the stereotypes — and people alive today recall fondly the impact Stella and William Sassoon had on their little community in the North Carolina mountains.