History

St. Genevieve-of-the-Pines

St. Genevieve-of-the-Pines was established in 1908 by nuns from a French order known as "The Religious of Christian Education." In the beginning, it was both a day school for boys and girls, ages six to thirteen, and a boarding school for girls ages fourteen to eighteen. St. Genevieve's was a charter member in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, or SACS, the accrediting agency for schools in the southeast. "St. Genevieve never lost its accreditation," wrote headmistress Mother Margaret Potts, RCE, in her history of the school, St. Genevieve's Remembered (Carolina Day School, 1991, pp. 12-13).

In 1912, Mother Margaret McSwiney, Ph.D., founded St. Genevieve's College, which offered an intensive two-year course in French, (also known as a Lycée), as well as a four-year liberal arts curriculum. It was accredited by the State of North Carolina, the Southern Association of Women's Colleges, and was a member of the American Council of Education. In 1930, it evolved into a two-year junior college, called "St. Genevieve's Junior College," with two distinct tracks. One was a standard junior college curriculum leading to an AA degree; the other was a secretarial school. In June, 1955, the Junior College closed, but the School for Secretaries, under Mother Zeleznik, RCE, continued until 1980.

Gibbons Hall

In 1949, the boys from the prep school moved into a separate building and "Gibbons Hall School for Boys" was born. The boys school served male day students in grades one through eight. Both St. Genevieve's Prep and Gibbons Hall were still accredited by SACS and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI), and were re-accredited by SACS in 1965 after a grueling two-year self-study.

In 1971, the religious order was no longer able to support both St. Genevieve-of-the-Pines and Gibbons Hall. With the help of  parents, the two schools merged to form St. Genevieve-Gibbons Hall School (SG-GH). SG-GH was an independent, co-ed day school for boys and girls in kindergarten through ninth grade. The new school kept the same standards as the two former schools, and was reaccredited by SACS and DPI in 1976.

In 2013, the Grotto from St. Genevieve's was preserved and moved to its new home at Carolina Day School. Learn more about this move and the alumni who made it possible.

Asheville Country Day School

Asheville Country Day School (ACDS) was founded in 1936 by a group of local parents who sought better high school preparation for their children. First housed on Victoria Road, the K-9 school grew quickly and eventually combined with another local school, the Haseltine School, in 1949. The new school moved to a large building on Merrimon Avenue near the site of present-day Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church. As its reputation grew, so did its student body, and soon the school needed to move again. The Hendersonville Road campus, with its modern building surrounding a triangular courtyard, was designed by architect Bertram King and built on land donated by The Biltmore Company. The new campus opened in 1958. There were 149 students enrolled, and an Upper School division was added over the next two years. In 1970, an extension was built onto the main building to house the primary division (Grades 1-3). Other than that, the campus remained intact through the 1980s. ACDS joined the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) in 1965 and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), the accrediting agency for schools in the Southeast, in 1982. 

Two Premier Private Schools Become One

In 1984, in recognition of the changing Asheville market and the long term sustainability and strength of both schools, SG-GH and ACDS began merger talks. In 1987, the two schools joined forces to merge SG-GH into ACDS and move forward under a new name. The Victoria Road SG-GH campus was sold to Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College (A-B Tech), and the schools consolidated at the ACDS Hendersonville Road campus under the name Carolina Day School.

The schools' new iteration as Carolina Day School began in 1987 with 279 students and has continued to grow to the size it is today. To accommodate this growth, four major capital campaigns have been conducted to date. Made possible by the philanthropic support of the four individual schools' communities, the successful campaigns provided CDS students with new and renovated learning and community facilities, such as Love Hall, Oreck Library, Sgro Athletic Complex (on Sweeten Creek Road), the Upper School building, Stephens Hall, and Nash Athletic Center.

Today CDS continues the legacies and excellence in education of SGP, SG-GH, and ACDS, educating scores of alumni children and grandchildren, as well serving hundreds of Asheville area students each year who are first generation to Carolina Day School and its long tradition of excellence.