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Founded 1904 psychiatric hospital in Montford where the 1948 Central Building fire killed nine women, including Zelda Fitzgerald
75 Zillicoa Street, Asheville, NC 28801
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Surviving Zillicoa Street buildings (Highland Hall, Rumbough House, Homewood Castle) are private property. The site of the burned Central Building is best viewed from the public sidewalk on Zillicoa Street.
Access
Limited Access
Residential street in a historic district; uneven sidewalks and slopes.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1904 · Founded 1904 by Dr. Robert S. Carroll as Dr. Carroll's Sanatorium · 1948 Central Building fire (nine women killed) · Death of Zelda Fitzgerald · Duke University Medical Library archival holdings
Highland Hospital was founded in 1904 by Dr. Robert S. Carroll as 'Dr. Carroll's Sanatorium,' a private institution for the treatment of mental and nervous disorders and addictions. The hospital occupied a campus in the Montford Historic District north of downtown Asheville and was affiliated with Duke University in its later years.
The writer and artist Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald — widow of F. Scott Fitzgerald — was a patient at Highland intermittently between 1936 and 1948. She had been admitted again shortly before her death and was housed on the upper floor of the Central Building.
On the night of March 10-11, 1948, a fire broke out in the Central Building's third-floor diet kitchen around 11:30 p.m. The flames moved rapidly upward through the dumbwaiter shaft, reaching the upper floors before evacuation could be completed. Screened porches and chain-locked windows — installed to prevent patient suicides — hindered escape from the building. Nine women, all patients, died in the blaze, including Zelda Fitzgerald. Her body was recovered from the rubble of the south wing the following evening and identified by dental records.
A coroner's jury initially exonerated the hospital. Weeks later, night supervisor Willie Mae Hall told police she had intrusive thoughts about setting fires; she underwent psychiatric evaluation and was never charged. The cause of the fire was ultimately attributed to undetermined origins in the diet kitchen.
The Central Building did not survive. Highland Hall, Rumbough House, and Homewood Castle — three earlier campus structures — still stand on Zillicoa Street and remain in active use as private residential and office space. The Highland Hospital papers are held by Duke University Medical Library and document the institution's history through to its eventual closure.
Sources
Asheville Terrors, 828 News NOW, HD Carolina, and the Asheville Grit feature 'Behind the Bars' all report a persistent body of paranormal lore tied to the Highland Hospital grounds and the surviving Zillicoa Street buildings.
Most sightings cluster around the location of the burned Central Building. Reports include cold spots in the surrounding grounds, soft footsteps and voices, and the apparition of a tall woman in mid-century dress. Tour operators commonly identify the figure as Zelda Fitzgerald, though no firsthand contemporary record of a Zelda apparition exists — the identification is folkloric, anchored to her well-documented death in the 1948 fire.
Additional accounts describe disembodied voices and fleeting shadows in the surviving structures (Highland Hall, Rumbough House, Homewood Castle), and some visitors to the surrounding sidewalk describe heaviness or grief near the site of the fire. The Asheville Museum of History's reporting frames these accounts within the historical weight of nine women dying behind chain-shackled windows rather than as sensational paranormal entertainment.
The surviving buildings are private property. Ghost-tour content is delivered from the public sidewalk on Zillicoa Street; access to the buildings themselves is not part of the standard tour experience.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
View the surviving Highland Hospital buildings (Highland Hall, Rumbough House, Homewood Castle) on Zillicoa Street in the Montford Historic District from the public sidewalk. The Central Building burned on March 10-11, 1948; the site of the fire is now part of the surrounding grounds.
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