Overlook Castle, or Seely Castle, was built for Fred Loring Seely atop Sunset Mountain from 1912 to 1914. Built from 1912 to 1914 for Fred Loring Seely, the son-in-law of Edwin Wiley Grove, it sits on ten acres his father-in-law gave him on top of Sunset Mountain. You can imagine the ambition that produced a house later added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 22, 1980.
This home has had five known owners. The Seelys lived here until 1942, when Mr. Seely died at age 70. In the winter of 1949 Evelyn Grove Seely offered to sell her former home to Asheville-Biltmore College; the college occupied the castle from 1949 to 1961, until they outgrew the limited area and moved to their current site on the northern edge of Asheville. A later steward, Jerry Sternberg, upgraded the heating from coal to oil fuel and put a new roof on the structure. He planned to turn the house into a museum, a plan that never came to fruition, and he sought to turn the facility over to a non-profit organization.
Picture those ten acres of Sunset Mountain that Edwin Wiley Grove once gave his son-in-law, still stretching out beyond this castle's walls.