Your home base while you're at The Bascom
Welcome to Highlands. While you're teaching, speaking, or taking a workshop at The Bascom, you are welcome to stay with us at Highlands Biological Station — a 24-acre field station and botanical garden less than a mile from the studios. This page is everything you need to know about our accomodations before you arrive.
- <1 mi
- To The Bascoma few minutes by car from either campus address
- 1 PM
- Self check-inyour arrival email names your building and address
- Noon
- Check-outon departure day; keys go in the designated classroom space
Where you sleep
Highlands Biological Station
265 North Sixth Street, Highlands, NC 28741Howell, Wright, and Deacon Cottages
888 Horse Cove Road, Highlands, NC 28741Valentine House and the Duplex
Use the address for your building — check your arrival email, and enter it before you set off. Cell signal drops on the approach to Highlands. Directions to the Station
Where you make
The Bascom
323 Franklin Road, Highlands, NC 28741A Center for the Visual Arts
828-526-4949Main line · Ceramics studio 828-787-2892
Studio hours, your materials list, and the workshop schedule come from The Bascom. thebascom.org
What to expect
The Station is a working research campus, and its housing is simple and practical rather than hotel-like: shared bedrooms, shared bathrooms, and a shared kitchen. It works because everyone cleans up after themselves. Here is the short version of our Visitor Information Guide.
Beds & linens
Every bed is an XL twin in a shared room. Bring XL twin sheets, a blanket, and a pillow, or rent a linen set from us for $50, arranged in advance. Towels and toiletries are yours to bring. Nights are cool even in summer; pack a real blanket.
Kitchens & meals
Meals are not included. Your residence has a fully equipped kitchen — cookware, dishes, coffee maker — and Highlands has restaurants within a mile. If you plan to cook, buy groceries before you drive up the mountain: the one store in town charges resort prices. Label anything you put in the fridge.
Cleaning
A cleaning service comes Tuesday and Saturday for shared spaces only — bathrooms, kitchen, common rooms. Cleaners don't enter bedrooms. In between, the house is ours to keep: wash what you use the day you use it.
Laundry
Free, and useful after a week in the studio. Bring your own detergent and empty the lint trap. Cottage residents use the Weyman Building; Valentine and Duplex residents use the machines in Valentine House.
Wi-Fi & phone
Wi-Fi is free across campus; bring your own device and join the network below. Cell coverage is patchy on the Plateau and can vanish on the drive in — download directions before you leave. The Station office is 828.526.2602; press Option 2 outside business hours.
- Network
- Coker
- Password
- 5268282797
Shared spaces
Bathrooms are shared by everyone on your hall — keep your things in your room, not on the counter. Old walls and bunk frames carry sound, so earplugs are worth packing. Tell staff at the Administration Building when soap or paper runs out.
What we provide, and what you bring
Your workshop materials and tools are a separate list from The Bascom. This one is only about the house.
Waiting for you
- A bed — every bed is an XL twin
- A fully equipped kitchen: range and oven, microwave, toaster, coffee maker, refrigerator and freezer
- Pots, pans, baking dishes, knives, and utensils
- Plates, bowls, mugs, glasses, cutlery
- Dish soap, sponges, dish rack
- Free laundry and campus-wide Wi-Fi (network Coker, password 5268282797)
- Cleaning of shared spaces, twice a week
You bring
- XL twin bedding and a pillow, or a $50 rental set arranged in advance
- Towels, washcloths, and toiletries
- Groceries if you're cooking, bought before the climb
- Coffee and filters, spices, oil, condiments
- Food containers and a marker for labeling
- Laundry detergent
- A warm layer for evenings, and shoes you don't mind wearing in the studio
Leave at home
Cookware. Every season, guests haul pots, pans, and place settings up the mountain and never take them out of the car. Every residence has a full kitchen. Bring food, not equipment.
Expectations of a private room. The Station is small, and we assign residences to make the best use of it. We can't accommodate requests for private rooms, but we'll do our best to place a workshop group together.
The shape of a studio week
The Bascom sets your workshop schedule; this is the house side of it.
Arrival · from 1:00 PM
Find your building
Self check-in. Arriving early? Park and walk the Botanical Gardens or visit the Nature Center until your room is ready. Then label your food and claim a shelf.
Mornings
Off to the studio
A few minutes' drive to Franklin Road. Pack a lunch or plan to eat in town — the studio days run long, and the kitchen is a mile away.
Evenings
Back on campus
Cook, share the porch, walk the gardens before dark. Alcohol inside residences only, per university policy, and nothing edible stays outside overnight.
Departure · by noon
Leave it ready
Strip your bed, clear your shelf, take everything you brought, and work through the departure checklist with your group. Keys go in the designated classroom space.
Studio materials stay at the studio
Please don't rinse clay, glaze, plaster, or paint down the residence drains — clay sets in pipes, and the plumbing in our older buildings is not built for it. Use the studio sinks at The Bascom for that. Knock the worst of the mud off your boots on the porch, and a towel across the back seat will save the car and the house both.
House rules
Most of these exist because of bears. The rest exist because the Station is a public campus shared with gardeners, Nature Center visitors, and researchers.
- Never leave food or trash outside, on a porch, or in a vehicle overnight.
- Alcohol inside residences only, per university policy.
- Label all food with your name and departure date; unmarked items are discarded.
- Clean up after yourself in kitchens, bathrooms, and common rooms.
- Quiet after hours. Researchers in the next building may be up before dawn for fieldwork.
- Remove everything you brought when you leave, and tell us the day you notice a problem.
Something not working?
A dead burner, a shower that won't drain, a door that won't latch — send a maintenance request and it goes straight to our facilities staff. You'll get a confirmation right away and an email when it's fixed. We would far rather put something right on Tuesday than hear about it after you've gone home.
Unsafe right now? Active leak, sparking outlet, gas smell, someone hurt — don't wait on the form. Call 828-526-2602 (Option 2 outside business hours). In an emergency, call 911 first.
Report it here without leaving this pageWhere it is, what's wrong, and how to reach you. A photo helps.
Highlands Biological Station
Maintenance request
Leaky faucet, dead outlet, a door that won’t latch, a trail step gone soft — tell us where it is and what’s wrong. It goes straight to Mike McMahan, and we’ll let you know when it’s fixed.
The campus is yours to wander
- The Botanical Gardens are open seven days a week — native plants of the southern Blue Ridge, a lake, and trails that start at your door.
- The Nature Center is a short walk from Valentine House and the Duplex.
- The fire pit is first-come, first-served; bring your own wood and leave it clean.
- Highlands itself — restaurants, galleries, and the one grocery store — is within a mile of either address.
We look forward to welcoming you
If something on this page is wrong, out of date, or missing, tell us before you leave — it's rewritten each season from what guests say.
About the house
Keys, kitchens, linens, repairs — Highlands Biological Station
hbs@wcu.edu 828.526.2602About your workshop
Dates, reservations, schedule, materials — The Bascom
828.526.4949 thebascom.org