Zealandia (Asheville, North Carolina)


Zealandia is a historic home located at Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina. It was built in 1908, and is a three-story, "T"-plan, Tudor Revival style dwelling. It features a three-story porte cochere, projecting masses, steep gables, heavy wrought iron entrance gates, and massive chimneys. It was built for Philip S. Henry, an internationally prominent diplomat, scholar and businessman.
The newer house was the second with that name. John Evans Brown, described "as vigorous an entrepreneurial cowboy as Asheville has ever seen", built the original Zealandia in 1884 on Beaucatcher Mountain. Brown spent most of the 1840s in Asheville before going west in the California Gold Rush. Brown then became a rancher and moved to New Zealand, where he got married and raised sheep. After his wife's death, Brown returned to Asheville and built his house. In 1930, 35 years after Brown's death, Henry bought the house, with several additions made, and turned it into a museum, which has since been torn down.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.