Remembering Roseland Gardens

Posted on February 16, 2017

by Timothy Burkhardt / Mountian Xpress Asheville, NC News

Opened in Black Mountain in 1918 by local businessman Horace Rutherford, the Roseland Gardens juke joint’s reputation for lively music and entertainment spread quickly. Soon, African Americans were traveling from Asheville, Old Fort and Marion to socialize at the only venue in the area that was not designated “whites only.”

Rutherford’s granddaughter, Katherine Debrow, recalls Roseland Gardens as a cultural hub for the Black community. “Everybody came here to dance, and I do mean everybody who lived in the community,” she says. “They came here to drink beer and they came to dance.  [I] can talk to any person in Black Mountain who’s my age, or a little bit older, and they will say, ‘Your grandfather had the best music in town.’”

Rutherford reportedly got the idea for the venue when he visited the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. He strove to emulate the style and beauty of that establishment, even outfitting his dance hall with a massive glass chandelier. Some locals speculate that Bessie Smith performed at Roseland Gardens in its heyday, and that her song, “Black Mountain Blues,” was written after a wild night at the bar. Historian Don Talley spent years researching Roseland, and while he hasn’t found proof that Smith performed there, he thinks it’s likely that she and many other blues artists graced the juke joint’s stage.

“The early blues stars were traveling the circuit throughout the South, playing anywhere they could,” says Talley. “So if they were playing in Durham, which was a center for the blues in North Carolina, and the next show was in Knoxville or down in Atlanta, they would need a stop-over. Word-of-mouth would have told them that not only was [Roseland] a place to get food, they could make a little money between the big gigs.”

Roseland Gardens may also have been a front for moonshiners. According to Debrow, patrons called corn liquor “medicine” and referred to Rutherford as “The Good Doctor.” She also recalls a sign on the door that read, “The Juke Doctor is IN” on one side, and, “The Juke Doctor is OUT” on the other.

A small building beside the main edifice had two moons carved above it, Talley says, and, “According to locals, that was a symbol for moonshine.”

Rutherford himself is described as a larger-than-life character who wore a fedora and carried two revolvers to keep the peace. “No one ever got shot,” says Debrow. “There might be some shooting in the air … before the sheriff was called.” She remembers that there were a few times when Rutherford had to pistol-whip someone.

Despite its wild nights, Roseland Gardens was also a place for the children of the African American community during the day. In the 1930s, Black Mountain opened a whites-only movie theater, so Rutherford bought a film projector for his business. He charged 10 cents a ticket and screened movies such as Roy Rogers westerns and The Red Rider.

In 1950, the Asheville Citizen called Roseland Gardens “the largest private recreation center for colored people in Western North Carolina.” Other juke joints sprung up in the region, but none had the the staying power of Rutherford’s space.

While WNC remained segregated, Rutherford — rumored to never turn away business — wasn’t opposed to allowing white people to drink at his bar, and Roseland Gardens may have been the first integrated establishment in the region. “It was an interesting place,” says Talley. “Black and white people couldn’t go to church together back then, but they could go to Roseland and have a beer.”

The dance hall’s popularity dwindled after desegregation in the 1960s allowed local African-Americans to attend other area nightclubs. The juke joint closed in 1976, and Rutherford died in the mid-’80s. Despite attempts to get the building registered as a historic landmark, it was demolished in 2015. The original Roseland Gardens sign, as well as the movie projector, now reside at the Swannanoa Valley History Museum in Black Mountain.

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‘Black Mountain Blues’ at Roseland Gardens

By Anne Chesky Smith, The Executive Director of Asheville Museum of History.

Many around Western North Carolina have speculated that the song “Black Mountain Blues,” first recorded by Bessie Smith in New York City in 1930 and later covered by Janis Joplin and Nick Drake, was written by Smith after she played a gig at Roseland Gardens, a small juke joint in the African American community of Brookside, just outside of downtown Black Mountain.

In reality, though Smith performed it, the song was written by composer J.C. Johnson in New York City. Could Johnson have penned the song after a visit to Black Mountain?

It stands to reason that if Johnson, an African American, did visit Black Mountain, he would have spent an evening – and perhaps a night – at Roseland Gardens, the town’s popular juke joint, one of the only places around that provided entertainment, food, drink and a place to stay for African-American tourists, locals, and performers during segregation.

Roseland Gardens was owned and operated for almost 60 years by Horace Chamber Rutherford. Rutherford was born in 1896 in Swannanoa to a Cherokee mother and an African American father. He inherited the land on which he built his club from his mother’s Native American relatives.

Rutherford built Roseland Gardens around 1920, possibly as early as 1918, when he saw a need for a social gathering place for his friends and neighbors during a time when segregation prohibited the Black community from patronizing area restaurants, bars, pools, lakes and music venues.

“People were coming here from all over, working at Montreat, Ridgecrest and Blue Ridge and of course those people had no way of socializing other than church,” said Rutherford’s granddaughter, Katherine Debrow, then 67, in a 2006 interview with Sally and Garry Biggers. 

“That’s why my grandfather built the juke joint. But he was also a businessman, and so he just came up with all these ideas of ways to make money.”

Roseland Gardens’ reputation for lively entertainment spread quickly, something Debrow understood from watching the activity from her house next door (though she was rarely allowed inside the dance hall). Soon folks from as far away as Asheville, Old Fort, and Marion were regularly making their way up the narrow dirt road to the Brookside community, at the intersection of what are now Flat Creek and Padgettown roads. Taking advantage of Roseland Gardens’ popularity, at least two other small juke joints would open in Brookside during the next 50 years. Neither had the patronage or longevity of Roseland.

Brookside was also home to a church, school, beauty parlor, corner grocery, and filling station. The Grammy-award winning artist Roberta Flack was born not far from Roseland Gardens, though she never performed at the venue.

“Just going through some of his personal things, we know that he (Rutherford) went to New York and visited the Roseland (Ballroom) there,” Debrow recalled. “I think that’s probably how he got the name for his place here … because if you look at some of the old pictures of the Roseland in New York, he had some of the same features in the building, one of them being that chandelier that he had in the dance hall area. I mean, no one else in the area had anything like that.”

A short article in a March 1950 Asheville Citizen identified Roseland Gardens as “the largest private recreation center for colored people in Western North Carolina.” The center was open for the summer and held twice-weekly dances and movies and provided “facilities for picnics, croquet, horse shoe pitching, barbecues, and other forms of entertainment.”

A March 1950 Asheville Citizen article about Roseland Gardens.
“The other thing about the juke joint is that the churches would hold their annual picnics here,” Debrow remembered. “He (Rutherford) had little benches all over the woods. He also had little grills set up so they could grill things if they wanted to.”

The main building at Roseland Gardens provided a large, open space with a wooden dance floor and stage. A smaller cement block building was added in the 1940s and served as a bar. “He had a little concession stand … made out of concrete block,” Debrow said. “He did sell beer. He also had those big jars of pig feet and crackers and all kinds of snacks. All the things that they sold in little country stores then.”

Cut into the wood above the door of the concession stand, visible from the road, were two crescent moons. Similar to those typically seen on an outhouse door, the moons indicated that moonshine was available on premises, according to local musical historian Don Talley.

Debrow described her grandfather as “a very colorful man” who carried two .45-caliber revolvers. “That was his way of controlling what he called ‘riffraff’ that would come through and want to start fights,” she said.

Roseland Gardens closed in 1976, but the building, at left and seen here in 2006, remained standing until it was demolished in 2015.

Roseland Gardens was one of the first public, integrated spaces in Western North Carolina.

“As a matter of fact there were always Caucasian people in and out of my grandfather’s juke joint,” Debrow said. “They came to listen to the music. They came to drink beer. So this was probably about the only place that anybody could come in and sit down in the afternoon and get a cold beer. So I imagine that’s why everybody in Black Mountain remembers Roseland Gardens.”

In the 1930s, a theater opened in Black Mountain for whites only, so Rutherford obtained a used film projector and began showing movies at Roseland Gardens in the evenings and on Saturday mornings.

“My grandfather did that thinking of the children in the Valley not having any entertainment,” Debrow said. “There was no other Black theater in this area. Not in Asheville. Not in Black Mountain. Not in Hendersonville. Not in any area.”

Roseland Gardens closed in 1976. Its buildings stood until just a few years ago. Before it was bulldozed, Debrow donated many items to the Swannanoa Valley Museum, including the movie projector.

“To me it is a very important part of the history of this Valley for the black community, and for the white community as well, because they all socialized in that building together, even though there was segregation during that time,” she said. “Everybody always says to me ‘your grandfather had the best music in town.’"

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