Back in 1927 the University of North Carolina at Asheville began as the tuition-free Buncombe County Junior College. It is the designated liberal arts institution in the University of North Carolina system and serves as the member and headquarters of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. Here you can sense a lineage that began in 1927, when the school was founded as Buncombe County Junior College as part of the Buncombe County public school system, notable as the first tuition-free public college in North Carolina.
Its early home was the Biltmore School in south Asheville on Hendersonville Road (U.S. 25); that original Biltmore School building was later recognized by the Save America's Treasures program in 2001. During the Great Depression the college began charging tuition. In 1930 it merged with the College of the City of Asheville (founded in 1928) to form Biltmore Junior College; in 1934 it was renamed Biltmore College, and in 1936 it became Asheville-Biltmore College when control transferred to the Asheville City Schools.
In 1949 the college relocated to the 20,000-square-foot Overlook Castle. Overlook Castle, 20,000 square feet, became the college's home in 1949.