Highlands North Historic District

Highlands is an incorporated town in Macon County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located on a plateau in the southern Appalachian Mountains, within the Nantahala National Forest, it lies mostly in southeastern Macon County and slightly in southwestern Jackson County, in the Highlands and Cashiers Townships, respectively. The permanent population was 1,014 at the 2020 census.

The Highlands Inn is a historic hotel at the corner of 4th and Main Streets in Highlands, North Carolina. The main block of the hotel is a three-story late Victorian structure built in 1880, with a two-story porch across the main facade. Over the course of the 20th century a number of alterations and additions have been made to this structure, to increase services and rooms. It is one of the oldest continuously operating hotels in the highlands of western North Carolina. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

The Church of the Incarnation built in 1896 is a historic Carpenter Gothic Episcopal church building located at 111 North 5th Street in Highlands, Macon County, North Carolina. The Rev. John A. Deal, the first Episcopal missioner in Macon County, was responsible for founding the Church of the Incarnation as well Saint Agnes Episcopal Church in Franklin, the county seat. Its first building, a Victorian Gothic Revival wood-frame building, was built in 1896; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. In 2002, a new sanctuary was built on the property and the 1896 building became the chapel. In 2020, the parish commissioned Cram & Ferguson, the well-known ecclesiastical architectural firm, to undertake a significant renovation of the church. The project aimed to enhance the worship experience by expanding seating capacity in the main sanctuary, achieving architectural consistency throughout the building, incorporating Christian iconography into the main sanctuary and Nave, and opening our doors to the community (including the installation of a new door to the sanctuary and bell tower on Main Street). The Church of the Incarnation is still an active parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina. The Rev. Bentley Manning is the Rector of the parish.

The Hotel Edwards was a historic hotel building at Main and 4th Streets in Highlands, North Carolina. The main block of the hotel, a three-story brick structure, was built in 1935. It was attached to a c. 1880 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, which was operated for many years as a boarding house or hostelry, and is now the historic main inn for Old Edwards Inn and Spa. The brick block was designed by Linton H. Young, and was built after the construction of the Highlands Country Club brought an influx of summer visitors to the area. The property was operated as a hotel by the Edwards family from 1914 to 1970 and is now owned by Art and Angela Williams (A.L. Williams) of Palm Beach, FL. . The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

The First Presbyterian Church is a historic church at 471 Main Street in Highlands, North Carolina. The single story wood-frame church was built in 1883–85, and occupies a prominent site in downtown Highlands, surrounded by a period picket fence. It is the oldest church in the city, and was built by Marion Wright, a local master builder. It is stylistically a vernacular interpretation of Italianate architecture, which is most prominent in its belfry tower, which features a flared roof with extended bracketed eaves. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

The Baldwin-Coker Cottage is a historic house at 266 Lower Lake Road in Highlands, North Carolina. The Rustic-style 1+1⁄2-story log house was designed and built in 1925 by James John Baldwin, an architect from Anderson, South Carolina. The cottage is important as a prototype for a number of later houses that were built by members of the construction crew. The walls are constructed of notched logs, whose ends project at random-length intervals, both at the corners of the house, and from the interior, where logs are also used to partition the inside space. The house is topped by a side-gable wood shingle roof. The main gable ends, and the gables of the dormers, are clad in board-and-batten siding. A porch with naturalistic limb-and-twig railings spans the width of the main facade. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

Harris Lake is located just outside Downtown Highlands, North Carolina. It is a popular spot for fishing and picnicking. Harris Lake is home to many geese, swans and ducks. Harris Lake is located at 35°03′00″N 83°11′37″W. The town of Highlands operates Harris Lake Park.

The Satulah Mountain Historic District is a residential historic district in Highlands, North Carolina. It is located in the southwestern part of the city, bounded on the north and west by Walhalla Road, on the east by properties on Satulah Road. The area is located on the slopes of Satulah Mountain, and was most significantly developed in the early decades of the 20th century, although the earliest development took place not long after Highlands was founded in 1875. There are a number of log houses, and rustic styling using log and fieldstone elements is common in the area. Many houses have Craftsman features. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

Cabin Ben is a historic log house at 115 Cullasaja Drive in Highlands, North Carolina. The house consists of two rectangular sections, joined at an offset. The smaller of the two sections houses a large living room, while the larger section houses the kitchen, dining, and bedroom areas. The house was designed by Clemson University professor of architecture Rudolph Edward Lee for a family friend, Miss Anne England, and was built in 1932 by Joe Webb, a locally prominent builder of log houses. It is a relatively unaltered example of Webb's work, having been designed to house relatively large family gatherings. It has remained in the hands of England descendants. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

The Playmore–Bowery Road Historic District is a residential historic district composed of a collection of summer resort houses in the hills east of Highlands, North Carolina. The principal estate in the area, called Playmore, was established by the Ravenel family in 1879–80; it is situated on 140 acres (57 ha) south of Horse Cove Road. Bowery Road roughly parallels Horse Cove Road to the north, and is lined with a series of wood-frame summer that were built between about 1880 and 1930.The district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

The Thomas Grant Harbison House is a historic house at 2930 Walhalla Road, just outside Highlands, North Carolina. The two-story wood-frame house was built in 1921 for the botanist Thomas Grant Harbison (1862-1936), who was responsible for some of the surviving plantings, including a stand of the endangered Torreya taxifolia, on the extant 3.3-acre (1.3 ha) property. The south (street-facing) facade is five bays across, with a two-story porch sheltering the center three bays and the entrance. The north-facing facade has a similar porch that is only a single story. The house remained in the Harbison family until 1985. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

The Cliffside Lake Recreation Area is located in Nantahala National Forest in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. It offers both fishing and swimming and is less than ten miles northwest of Highlands, North Carolina, on State Road 28.