Transition to Lake Eden - Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

Black Mountain College thrived at the Blue Ridge campus, but after several successful years of renting, the college became concerned that they would lose their lease. In June 1937 BMC purchased over 600 acres of land on the north side of the Swannanoa Valley; this would become their eventual new home. The property had been developed by E.W. Grove as a summer resort for residents of his nearby Grovemont neighborhood, and it had a number of buildings already in place, including a dining hall, sleeping lodges, several cottages and other structures, as well as a small lake. The property was quite different from the Blue Ridge campus, but it was distinctively wonderful in its own way. The major issue with the Lake Eden campus was that it lacked a building large enough to house classrooms, faculty offices, and student studies. 

Initially the college engaged with architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer to design a large campus complex overlooking the lake (above), but they were unable to raise the needed funds. Next, the college asked American architect A. Lawrence Kocher to design a simpler structure (below) that could be built by the college community. Over the next few years BMC worked to winterize the existing Grove buildings, establish a working farm on the property, and construct one wing of the large, Kocher-designed Studies Building complex for classrooms, faculty offices, and individual studies for each student. In the fall of 1941, the college finally moved to its new home at Lake Eden, where it would remain for 16 years.