Yes, I’m pimping myself. I wrote this week’s cover story for Mountain Xpress on Echo Mountain recording studio’s expanding entertainment empire.
Here’s an excerpt:
Echo Mountain Studios bought the 9,600-square-foot Fletcher School of Dance building in 2006 from the school’s director, Ann Dunn, for $850,000, according to tax records. Scores of Asheville girls (and quite a few boys) danced there during its 34-year tenure at 175 Patton Ave.
The second-floor dance area that endured years of pounding from pointe shoes will now feel the stomping of boots and pounding of drums as musicians perform and record their work in Echo Mountain’s new studio—which happens to be next door to Echo’s original location.
“I was mostly interested in her parking lot,” Wilmans says. “Ann Dunn told me, ‘You have to buy the building if you want the parking lot.’ So I did.”
