Watauga County, North Carolina

Watauga County is the High Country proper. Boone, the county seat and home of Appalachian State University, gives it a year-round pulse, while Blowing Rock adjoins the Parkway's Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, with its 25 miles of carriage trails and Flat Top Manor, now the Parkway Craft Center. Between them, the Valle Crucis valley follows the Watauga River past the Mast General Store at the center of North Carolina's first rural historic district.

An exceptional property here is defined by its setting: a residence in Hound Ears Club or the Blue Ridge Mountain Club between Boone and Blowing Rock, a retreat minutes from Appalachian Ski Mountain, a riverside farmstead in Valle Crucis, or a high estate with Grandfather Mountain filling the view.