For three decades, the third weekend of October in Black Mountain meant one large festival at Lake Eden. This year that weekend has come and gone without it. In its place came a smaller reunion on the same land. The rest of the town's fall calendar is spread across a train depot, a century-old retreat house, a history museum, and a municipal golf course that dates to 1929.
LEAF has not simply ended. The 2026 calendar shows its pieces landing with older Swannanoa Valley institutions, and next weekend shows clearly what Black Mountain's fall looks like now that it has no single festival at its center.
What Happened to LEAF Between August and Now
On Aug. 20, Leaf Global Arts announced it would "cease operation in its current form" the next day. Black Mountain News reported that the board's post, signed by board president Mike Hale, cited financial challenges. That report also noted that the October festival had already been moved off Lake Eden earlier in 2026 and then canceled. Jennifer Pickering started the organization in 1995 as the Lake Eden Arts Festival.
Three weeks later, things looked different. WLOS reported on Sept. 10 that Camp Grier, another nonprofit, had absorbed LEAF Global Arts and that LEAF's youth arts outreach would continue. LEAF's own update to its community named the programs that move over: LEAF Schools & Streets, LEAF International, and arts-focused summer camps. It also said key members of the LEAF team have joined Camp Grier. Camp Grier has worked with young people and families since 1952.
The festival tradition went somewhere else. The same update describes a new partnership with Lake Eden Reunion "carrying forward the festival tradition." In the WLOS story, Pickering, who is now a steward of Lake Eden Retreat, put it simply.
"We are dedicated to keeping the festival tradition going and to welcoming people to hold it with us."
The Reunion Looked Back Further Than 1995
The Lake Eden Reunion ran Oct. 16 through 18 and was hosted by Lake Eden Retreat, a private business. It was not set up as a replacement at the old scale. The event page described attendance as "limited to a smaller grouping." It also tied the weekend to the launch of Live Life Like a Festival, Pickering's commemorative coffee table book marking 30 years of LEAF at Lake Eden.
The page also notes who curated the music and sold the passes. That was Grey Eagle Music Hall, which the page calls the original host of festivals at Lake Eden from 1983 to 1989, years before LEAF began. The page counts 80 years of gathering on the land and 45 years as a festival site. So when the October festival fell through, the people who stepped in were the ones who had been there before it.
Black Mountain's wider fall calendar follows the same pattern.
| Who is carrying fall 2026 | Roots | What they hold this season |
|---|---|---|
| Camp Grier | Serving youth and families since 1952 | LEAF Schools & Streets, LEAF International, arts summer camps |
| Grey Eagle Music Hall | Hosted Lake Eden festivals 1983 to 1989 | Music and passes for Lake Eden Reunion |
| Black Mountain Golf Course | Established 1929 | All 18 holes open, restoration funded |
| Quietude Retreat Center | Marking its centennial | Free celebration on Oct. 24 |
| Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center | Established 1989 | Haunted History Tours, Halloween programs, watershed tour |
| Old Depot Association | Runs the annual Art by the Tracks fair | Fall show on Oct. 24 |
Saturday, Oct. 24, Moves Downtown
LEAF used to send the town out to Lake Eden. This Saturday keeps it close to Sutton Avenue and Montreat Road, and most of the day costs nothing to attend.
Art by the Tracks is the Old Depot Association's annual art-and-craft fair. It runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at The Old Depot, 207 Sutton Ave., with more than 50 regional artists and live music. Proceeds help fund grants for art programs in Swannanoa Valley schools. ArtsAVL lists it as a free, one-day regional show.
The rest of the day is easy to stack around it:
- 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Art by the Tracks at The Old Depot.
- 1 to 4 p.m. 100 Years of Quietude, a free centennial celebration at Quietude Retreat Center, 1130 Montreat Road. No registration is required.
- 2 p.m. The Encore Players Senior Readers Theatre performs Joe DiPietro's An Old Fashioned Family Murder at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts. Admission is pay-what-you-can, and the show runs Oct. 23 through 25. At the same hour, White Horse Black Mountain hosts the MaisCéu Trio.
- 6:30 p.m. Flamenco Appalachia at White Horse.
- 7 p.m. The Get Right Fam Jam Band at Pisgah Brewing, listed as a free show.
Friday night leads in. Admiral Radio plays the Center for the Arts at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 23. At 7 p.m. the same night, the Swannanoa Valley Museum's Haunted History Tour walks downtown's historic district. The Oct. 16 tour sold out, and one more date is set for Nov. 6. On Sunday, White Horse hosts Halloween Bingo at 2 p.m.
Halloween Uses the Same Streets
The next Saturday also centers on downtown. The Town of Black Mountain will close several streets to vehicles from 4:30 to 9 p.m. on Oct. 31:
- Church Street
- Laurel Circle
- North Dougherty Street
- New Bern Avenue
- Prospect Street
- Orchard Street
Halloween on Town Square runs from 5 to 7 p.m., with candy, toys, and games from more than 20 booths. A Pet Parade is also planned, but its route and start time had not been posted as of this writing. Later that night, the museum stages Homicide in the Hotel, an immersive 1940s murder mystery, from 7 to 10 p.m. The Land of the Sky Symphonic Band plays a Halloween Spooktacular at White Horse at 7:30 p.m. Families with younger children have an earlier choice. On Thursday, Oct. 29, from 3 to 6 p.m., Monsters at the Museum offers cryptid crafts, a scavenger hunt, and photos inside the old Black Mountain jail cell.
The 1929 Course Is Whole Again
Another long-standing institution came back this fall. When the back nine of the Black Mountain Golf Course reopened on June 24, 2025, after nearly nine months closed, it was the only part of the course anyone could play. Black Mountain News covered that reopening. The course's page on the Town site now says all 18 holes are open. That includes the Donald Ross front nine and the 747-yard, par-6 17th, which the course calls at one time the longest hole in the world.
Reopening is only the first stage. The Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority's LIFT Fund awarded the Town $1,229,982 for the first two phases of a seven-phase restoration. Explore Asheville's project page lists the timeline as Fall 2026 to Fall 2027. The funded work covers a new maintenance building, restored irrigation, cart path repairs, front-nine tees and fairways, and the #9 green.
The Town's announcement adds the baseline that gives the grant its context. At full operation, the course historically hosted 22,000 to 29,000 rounds a year, and an estimated 60% were played by visitors from outside Buncombe County. That puts a downtown course in the same tourism-investment category as larger regional projects. In practical terms, the pro shop takes calls from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily through the fall season at 828-669-2710, and online tee times open seven days ahead. The course's fall event list marks several dates as closed, including two days in September for greens aeration and a police fundraiser tournament on Oct. 2, so it is worth checking with the shop before planning a weekday round.
Two Small Additions at the Town's Parks
The same pattern shows up on a smaller scale. Veterans Park, at 99 White Pine Drive, unveiled a monarch butterfly station on Oct. 9. It is the sixth stop on the Asheville Butterfly Trail and recognizes Black Mountain's role along the monarch migration route. At Lake Tomahawk, Eagle Scout Burkley Reece has been building a 24-by-10-foot accessible fishing pier near the tennis courts and pavilion. The Valley Echo reported on Oct. 7 that construction was underway and nearing completion.
Looking past October, the Soluna String Quartet plays the Center for the Arts on Nov. 8 at 2 p.m. On Nov. 7, the Swannanoa Valley Museum leads a vehicle caravan into the Historic North Fork Valley section of the Asheville Watershed, an area of the valley not usually open to visitors.
Properties around Black Mountain carry value partly through the institutions near them, and following that closely is part of how Marilyn Wright advises clients across the Swannanoa Valley. If a fall weekend downtown has you thinking about your own place in Black Mountain, I welcome you to request a private consultation.
