Rob Neufeld

Columnist

Bon Marche, Asheville’s premiere department store for decades, moved to its third and final downtown Asheville location, 33 Haywood St. (pictured here), in 1937. Solomon Lipinsky first established the store in 1911 at 19-23 Patton Avenue after having operated its precursor, Lipinsky and Ellick, at 30 South Main St. for 21 years. In 1880, Lipinsky, age 24, lived with his wife and brother-in-law in a boarding house on Woodfin Street, according to “The Family Store: A History of Jewish Businesses in Downtown Asheville, 1880-1990.” He got his start as a clerk at S. Whitlock & Company. From Patton Ave., Bon Marche moved to the site of the present-day Haywood Park Hotel in 1923. The 1937 store featured a layout that followed a “scientific traffic study,” a press release said, along with a 22-foot long soda bar; a downstairs lounge with chrome and leather furnishings and a coral, mulberry and chartreuse color scheme; columns paneled with mirrors; fashion displays; and a loudspeaker system. Lipinsky was a major civic leader and founding member of Temple Beth Ha-Tephila. Bon Marche established a Westgate Mall location in 1956. The downtown location, after being sold by the Lipinskys, closed in 1979. Photo by E.M. Ball, from the D. Hiden Ramsey Library Special Collections, UNC Asheville.

—Rob Neufeld, RNeufeld@charter.net, @WNC_chronicler