Ask a Biltmore Lake resident what they live on and most will say the lake. Check the state's own water quality paperwork and the lake is still called something else. Drive two minutes past the gate and the bar everyone's been talking about since December is named after something older than either title. This stretch of Candler has collected three names over the last century, and residents move through all three of them most weekends without giving it much thought.
That layering is worth pausing on, because it explains more about how this neighborhood actually functions than any clubhouse brochure does.
The Lake Was Never Actually Renamed
The community itself is branded Biltmore Lake, a name Biltmore Farms gave the property after it bought the land from BASF Corporation in 2001, using it as the site for its next master-planned neighborhood following Biltmore Park in South Asheville. BASF had acquired the land in 1985 from the American Enka Corporation, the Dutch textile firm that arrived in 1928 and built what became the nation's largest rayon plant nearby. The 62-acre lake at the center of the neighborhood predates all of that branding: it was built to supply the Enka plant with water, and a lake club opened on it decades before Biltmore Farms ever bought the surrounding acreage.
The name never actually changed. A 2018 state hearing notice on water quality still refers to the community's request as the "Biltmore Lake Association's" petition to reclassify Enka Lake, and Wikipedia's entry on the area notes that Enka Lake is now simply part of the private Biltmore Lake HOA community, not renamed by it. A longtime Enka-area resident put it more bluntly in a 2007 Mountain Xpress letter, insisting that despite the marketing, "the name of the lake is still ENKA LAKE." Biltmore Lake is the name on the sign at the entrance. Enka Lake is the name on the paperwork.
And Before Enka, This Was Scratch Ankle
Enka itself wasn't the first name for this corner of Buncombe County. According to newspaper archives cited in a recent history piece from Asheville's 828 News NOW, the land around what's now Enka Commerce Park, home to the still-standing Enka Clock Tower, was known locally as Scratch Ankle as far back as 1892, when an Asheville Daily Citizen court report used the nickname in its own headline. The name stuck around informally for generations, tied to a rural landscape thick enough with underbrush that, as one local business later explained, "biting insects and thick briars and brambles" left everyone scratching at their ankles.
That's not a footnote anymore. It's a business name.
Saturday Still Starts at the Clubhouse
None of this history changes what a Saturday actually looks like inside the neighborhood. The clubhouse remains the hub, with two hard-surface tennis courts that offer a clear view of Mt. Pisgah and a Pickleball Players group that keeps the courts busy most weekend mornings, according to Biltmore Lake's own recreation page. A full-length lakeside basketball court sits just downhill. At the boathouse, residents check out cedar strip canoes, kayaks, paddle boats, and sunfish sailboats, and fishing is popular enough that several streets in the community are named after lures, according to Allen Tate's own neighborhood guide. Four miles of shaded, dog-friendly trails wind through the hardwood forest and connect up toward Scott's Ridge, giving walkers an actual climb rather than a flat loop.
Friday Night Belongs to the Pavilion
Friday has its own rhythm, and it belongs to the Pavilion, where outdoor concerts have become the standard way residents kick off the weekend before Saturday's courts and trails take over. The venue exists because residents pushed for it. One community member, describing the project in Biltmore Lake's own materials, said simply that she was involved in "creating a performance pavilion down by the lake." That kind of resident-driven build is part of why the weekend calendar feels lived-in rather than handed down from a developer's original site plan.
| When | Where | What's happening |
|---|---|---|
| Friday evening | The Pavilion | Live concerts open the weekend for residents |
| Saturday morning | Clubhouse courts | Tennis and the Pickleball Players group, with Mt. Pisgah in view |
| Saturday afternoon | The boathouse | Canoes, kayaks, and sunfish sailboats on the water |
| Saturday or Sunday | The trail system | Dog-friendly walks toward Scott's Ridge |
| Saturday night | Smokey Park Highway | Dinner at Griff's or a set at Scratch Ankle Fillin' Station |
Ninety Seconds Down Smokey Park Highway
Dinner out has long meant Griff's Kitchen and Bar, a spot within walking distance run by husband-and-wife team Ian and Gina Griffin, who built a contemporary American menu around backyard-sourced ingredients, including a Bulgogi sandwich, homemade ricotta gnocchi, and a lemon-buttermilk crumb cake regulars order by name.
What changed the calculus is what opened next door. Scratch Ankle Fillin' Station opened to the public on December 12, 2025, at 811 Smokey Park Highway, and it's been open Monday through Saturday from 1 to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 8 p.m. ever since, according to 828 News NOW's coverage of the opening. Instead of a kitchen, it runs a rotating food truck lineup that has included Benny's Pizza, 6 Pigs, Bell Buoy Seafood, and Faithful Flames. It's also become a regular stop on the region's live music circuit, with a Friday set logged as recently as August 7 on LiveMusicAsheville's calendar. An early visitor summed up the appeal directly: "Candler really needed this."
The Bar That Put the Old Name Back on a Sign
The name wasn't an accident. Construction permits filed ahead of the opening identified the project as Scratch Ankle Pub from the start, a deliberate nod to the area's pre-Enka identity rather than a cute throwaway. It's a strange thing to sit at a bar named after a joke about biting bugs and brambles from an 1892 police blotter, in a neighborhood whose lake still carries its 1928 company-town name on state paperwork, inside a community that's marketed itself as Biltmore Lake since 2001. All three names are still doing work here. Residents just don't usually stop to notice they're using all three in the same evening.
The Costco Saga Across Sand Hill Road
The other thing residents have been tracking sits just across Sand Hill Road from the neighborhood: Enka Commerce Park, where Costco spent most of last year trying to build its first Western North Carolina store. The retailer submitted plans for a roughly 160,000-square-foot store with a 32-pump fuel station and tire center, and the project moved through the city's Technical Review Committee in November before facing formal opposition in December from the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County, which argued the site should stay zoned for manufacturing rather than retail, according to Asheville Watchdog's reporting. The zoning hearing was pushed to April after developers asked for more time to resolve infrastructure questions.
It never got that far. On February 19, 2026, Costco withdrew its application entirely. The city manager told council members the retailer had cited rising project scope and cost as the reason, and BPR's coverage of the withdrawal noted that the Biltmore Lake neighborhood, with more than 800 homes at the time, sits just across Sand Hill Road from the site in question. For now, the corridor's future stays with the warehouses and the clock tower Samet Corp. has committed to preserving, not a big box retailer.
Putting the Weekend Together
None of this required the neighborhood to change what it already does well. The Pavilion still opens the weekend, the courts still fill with Saturday regulars, and the boathouse still sends canoes out onto water that's kept its original name longer than the community around it has kept its marketing one. What's different is that the social radius now stretches to a bar that decided the area's oldest name was worth putting back on a sign, and that the biggest question mark down the highway resolved itself this winter, at least for now.
With more than 750 homes now built across the community, according to Biltmore Lake's own current listing page, there's a wide range of what a home here is actually worth depending on which section, trail access, and lake view you're weighing. If you're curious how your own place fits into a neighborhood that's still sorting out its identity three names deep, James Pitman tracks these shifts as closely as the Friday concert schedule. Get Your Instant Home Valuation whenever you're ready, no obligation attached.
