Susan Saxon prepares to ring the chimes in the lobby of the Manor Inn to call the guests in the adjacent sitting rooms to their afternoon meal. The Manor, a resort with an English inn atmosphere, was begun in 1898 on a 32-acre tract of land owned by William Greene Raoul, a railroad magnate. To compete against the numerous hotels and boarding houses in Asheville, Raoul and his son Thomas Wadley Raoul also developed a village of individually designed cottages adjoining the Manor. This became Albemarle Park, one of the nation’s earliest planned residential parks. When T. W. Raoul sold The Manor to E. W. Grove in 1928, the Asheville Citizen of 6/01/1928 printed an open letter of thanks from Manor employees to Mr. Raoul. One of the signatures was Susan Saxon, who at that time had been a Manor employee for 19 years.
NC Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library
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