A Neighborhood Beyond the City Line
Gillespie Heights is one of those small, easy-to-miss residential communities that reveals itself slowly. Located in the Leicester area northwest of Asheville, the neighborhood is part of the broader Asheville metropolitan landscape while retaining the rural character that has long defined western Buncombe County. Its homes sit among wooded hills, open slopes, and winding roads, offering a quieter pace than the city without putting downtown Asheville far away.
The neighborhood is commonly identified with Gillespie Drive and nearby residential lanes in Leicester. Public property records show homes in the subdivision dating from the early 1970s onward, with additional houses added through the 1990s and 2000s. That pattern gives Gillespie Heights a layered, lived-in quality: older ranch-style houses and manufactured homes share the landscape with newer construction, gardens, workshops, and wooded lots.
Unlike Montford, Biltmore Village, or other formally designated Asheville historic districts, Gillespie Heights is not known for a single grand architectural style or a written founding charter. Its story is more modest and more typical of the countryside around Asheville: family land gradually becoming a residential community as roads improved, automobiles became essential, and more people sought a home within reach of the city.
Why “Gillespie”?
The name appears to come from Gillespie Drive and the Gillespie family name associated with the Leicester area. The exact date when the subdivision received the name, and the identity of its original developer, are not clearly documented in the readily available public historical record. That absence is itself familiar in rural Buncombe County, where roads and neighborhoods were often named through local usage rather than through a heavily publicized development process.
The Gillespie name belongs to a long tradition of family names shaping the map of western North Carolina. In Leicester and the surrounding townships, roads, farms, churches, and communities frequently carried the names of families who had lived in the area for generations. Gillespie Heights should therefore be understood not simply as a subdivision name, but as part of a landscape where family history remains embedded in place names.
For longtime residents, names such as Gillespie, Leicester, Sandy Mush, and Turkey Creek are not abstract labels. They point to old home places, church connections, school districts, cemeteries, and roads that once served farms long before modern subdivisions appeared.
Leicester Before Gillespie Heights
To understand Gillespie Heights, it helps to look back at Leicester’s earlier history. The community was first known as Turkey Creek, and a post office began operating there in 1829. Around 1850, British-born merchant Leicester Chapman settled in the area with his wife, Sarah, opened a store, and became an important local leader. In 1859, residents petitioned the North Carolina General Assembly to incorporate the community as Leicester. The new town celebrated its incorporation on July 4 of that year.
For decades, Leicester was one of Buncombe County’s important agricultural communities. Farmers brought produce, livestock, herbs, and other goods to local stores and markets. The community also served as a religious and educational center for the surrounding countryside. Its location along an important road helped connect farms in Leicester, Sandy Mush, and nearby valleys with Asheville.
The town’s charter was repealed in 1905, but Leicester continued as a recognizable rural center. Even today, the area’s identity is shaped by that history. Gillespie Heights may have taken form during the era of suburban expansion, but it occupies land connected to a much older network of farms, roads, churches, and community institutions.
Camp Academy and the Turkey Creek Campground
The most important historic landmark near Gillespie Heights is Camp Academy, also known as Camp Forest. The two-story brick building was completed in 1897 on New Leicester Highway and served as a private academy and teacher-training institute until 1913. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is recognized as the only surviving tuition academy building in Buncombe County.
Camp Academy grew out of an even older tradition. The surrounding land had been associated with the Turkey Creek Methodist campground, where revival meetings and religious gatherings took place during the nineteenth century. Local historian Greg Brookshire notes that 21 acres connected with the campground were donated to the Methodist Church in 1827. The property later became associated with the Leicester Community Center and other community uses.
Over the years, Camp Academy had several lives. After its school years, it was reportedly operated as the Camp Forest Hotel in the 1920s, later became an apartment house, and was used as a medical clinic in the late twentieth century. Its survival is a reminder that rural landmarks often endure by adapting to new needs rather than remaining frozen in one period.
From Farm Country to Residential Community
Gillespie Heights emerged during the decades when Leicester began changing from a primarily agricultural area into a collection of rural residential communities. The 1970s brought new homes to Gillespie Drive, and later construction continued as families looked for larger lots, mountain views, and a country setting within commuting distance of Asheville.
The neighborhood’s evolution is visible in its housing. Some properties reflect the practical simplicity of the 1970s, while others show the larger footprints and varied materials favored in later decades. Mobile and manufactured homes are part of the community’s history as well, reflecting the importance of attainable housing in rural areas. Large lots, mature trees, outbuildings, and gardens preserve a connection to the working-landscape tradition that came before the subdivision.
There is no central commercial strip or formal neighborhood park defining Gillespie Heights. Instead, its sense of place comes from the surrounding landscape and from nearby institutions. Residents rely on New Leicester Highway for travel and services, while the Leicester Community Center, Leicester Branch Library, churches, farms, and small businesses provide gathering places for the wider community.
The Leicester Branch Library, located on Alexander Road, is especially valuable to the area. The branch offers library services, meeting space, and views of the surrounding mountains, continuing Leicester’s long tradition of valuing education and community life.
What Makes Gillespie Heights Special Today
Today, Gillespie Heights feels less like a planned development and more like a neighborhood woven into the countryside. Its roads lead through a landscape of ridges, trees, and open ground rather than a tightly arranged suburban grid. Morning fog settles in the valleys, summer gardens flourish beside older homes, and the sounds of traffic on the main highway give way quickly to birds, wind, and the occasional tractor.
Its heritage is not concentrated in one historic house or monument. It lives in the continuity of the land: the family names on roads, the old academy above New Leicester Highway, the campground traditions remembered by local historians, and the enduring role of Leicester as a place where neighbors still gather.
For those of us who appreciate the quieter edges of Asheville, Gillespie Heights offers something increasingly rare. It is close enough to the city to be connected, yet far enough away to retain a sense of independence. The neighborhood’s history is still unfolding, but its character remains rooted in the old Leicester values of land, family, education, faith, and community.