Tuten/Penland family that has run antiques and auction business for more than 50 years on the river prepares to move

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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The Tuten and Penland auction house will hold its last sale this Friday in an old warehouse that the family has called home for more than 50 years. Here’s a snippet from a recent story I wrote about the auction for the Asheville Citizen-Times:

The sale at the old warehouse on Craven Street near the French Broad River is coming to an end. There are plans for a big New Belgium Brewing brewery to be built on a site known as the former WNC Livestock Market, a site that includes the dilapidated warehouse that’s been home to a Penland family business for more than 50 years. So the Penland family auction will soon call a Swannanoa shopping center home.

That’s a crying shame for the auction’s fans. Penland’s father, Grover Penland, opened Penland’s Used Furniture in the late 1950s with two stores — one on Haywood Road and the other in the Craven Street warehouse. In 1985, Grover and his wife, Willie, retired and Johnny and his wife, Ann, started the auction. Their son-in-law, Tommy Tutuen, joined the business in 1988. And in 2002, Johnny and Ann officially retired, and Tommy and his wife, Beth, assumed ownership.

The warehouse location is just classic old-school family fun. Come out Friday and wish these folks well in their new Swannanoa location.