John Chiles was the son of Jake and Leah Chiles and lived in Chiles House as a young boy. During that time, his family employed a cook, a chauffeur and “yard man.” After the death of his father in 1925 the family’s assets were sold on the courthouse steps for $1200 and the family was forced to leave Chiles House. Years later, John Chiles was building scenery for the Asheville Community Theatre when he met his wife, Anne, and they eventually married, moving back into Chiles House together. Their friends got together and loaned them furniture to place in their new home, which they dutifully catalogued and returned when they bought furniture of their own. John and Anne’s oral history of his parents and his time at Chiles House is preserved in UNC Asheville library.
Chiles House 