Worth Driving For: Hendersonville, North Carolina - Travel Curator

When I first arrived at The Horse Shoe Farm, located on the Asheville side of Hendersonville in western North Carolina, reality met my expectations: tidy white ranch-rail fencing surrounded green meadows; a long, meandering drive led past freshly painted farm buildings, and the Blue Ridge Mountains beckoned from every angle. But what I didn’t anticipate was the mix of cool art, good bourbon, clean lines, and even a little woo-woo New Agey-ness that gave the resort its intriguing enigmatic edge…

The farm had the softest of openings. In 2017, after vacationing in this part of the Blue Ridge Mountains for decades, Johnny Turchin and his family purchased an 85-acre horse and cattle farm. After renovating barns and other farm buildings, they began renting rooms, mostly to equestrians competing in nearby Tryon. It was an anomaly: luxury lodging with an onsite boarding stable.