Hygiene that takes a full hour
Sixty minutes with the same hygienist every time, ultrasonic and hand scaling, and a gum chart you get to see. $110–$155, or included in membership.
Montford Avenue · Asheville, NC
Serious dentistry in a deliberately unclinical room.
Fernhill is a three-dentist practice in a 1912 brick house off Montford. Six treatment rooms with north windows and real plants, ceramic crowns milled and fitted while you wait, and sedation for the people who have been putting this off for a decade.
110
minutes from prep to a fitted ceramic crown — one visit
Why we look like this
We spent the renovation budget on the rooms, not the lobby.
Most dental offices are built for the equipment. Fernhill was built the other way round — we found a 1912 house with tall north-facing windows and then worked out where the chairs could go.
That means no fluorescent tube overhead, no view of a suspended ceiling for forty minutes, and no drill noise carrying down a corridor of open bays. Every operatory is a room with a door, a window, and something alive in it. The handpieces are electric, which is roughly the difference between a hairdryer and a jet engine.
2016
Opened on Montford Avenue
1,900
Active patients, and we cap it
3 + 3
Dentists and registered hygienists
90 min
Every new-patient first visit
I could not, in good conscience, keep asking frightened people to be brave in a room designed to frighten them. So we built a different room.
Dr. Marisol Reyes, DDS — founder, on why Fernhill exists
How it goes
Four steps, and you can stop after any of them.
We are appointment-only and we don’t take walk-ins, which means the day runs on time and nobody is sitting in the waiting room resenting us. Here’s the whole arc of becoming a Fernhill patient.
01
The phone call
Ten minutes with Delphine, who has been at the front desk since 2017 and can usually tell you within a minute whether we’re the right practice for you.
02
Ninety minutes, once
Your first visit is a full hour and a half. Exam, X-rays, gum measurements, photos, and a proper conversation. We do not clean and treat on day one unless you’re in pain.
03
A plan, on paper
You leave with a printed plan: what needs doing, what can wait, what it costs, and what your insurance is likely to cover. Written down, so you can think about it at home.
04
At your pace
Some people want it all done in a fortnight. Some want one thing a year. Both are fine. Nothing gets booked that you didn’t agree to.
Treatments
The things people actually come here for.
For the anxious
Three levels of “I’d rather not be awake for this.”
- Nitrous oxide — on and off in five minutes, drive yourself home. $75.
- Oral sedation — a tablet an hour before, you’ll remember very little. $290.
- IV sedation with a visiting MD anesthesiologist, second Thursday monthly. $650–$900.
One appointment
110 min
Ceramic crowns, milled in the building
We scan, design and mill your crown on site. No goopy impression, no temporary that falls off over the weekend, no second visit three weeks later. $1,250–$1,590.
Implants, veneers, Invisalign
Dr. Anand is a board-certified prosthodontist, which means the complicated cosmetic and reconstructive work stays in this building instead of being referred across town.
The Fernhill Plan · no insurance required
Roughly the price of one dinner out a month.
$39/ month, per adult · or $390 paid annually
About a third of our patients are self-employed — builders, potters, musicians, line cooks. Dental insurance is a bad deal for most of them: high premiums, a $1,500 annual cap, and a waiting period before it covers anything expensive. So we made our own.
Children under 14 — $29/mo
Perio maintenance — $59/mo
What $39 gets you
- Two cleanings a year with the same hygienist, an hour each
- Two exams with a dentist, not a screening in a hallway
- All X-rays including the annual panoramic
- One emergency visit a year, exam and X-ray included
- 20% off everything else — fillings, crowns, implants, whitening
No deductible. No annual maximum. No waiting period — the 20% applies the day you join. Cancel with a month’s notice; we won’t make it awkward. Not insurance, and not a substitute for it.
In their words
Reviews we didn’t ask for.
We’ve never sent a “please rate us” text and we never will. These came in on their own.
4.9 average across 312 reviews · Google & Healthgrades
Got it, there.
Your request is with Delphine at the front desk. She’ll call you back before we close today — or first thing tomorrow if you sent this after 4:30pm.
- Reason for visit
- —
- Preferred window
- —
- Under the name
- —
If it’s urgent and you’d rather not wait, call (828) 555-0142 — someone picks up.
If you’re nervous
Tell us in the box. It changes the whole appointment.
Write “I’m terrified” in the notes and three things happen before you arrive: you get the first slot of the morning so there’s nobody in the waiting room, you get Dr. Thorne, and nobody will pick up an instrument on the first visit unless you say so.
We also do a thing we call a nothing appointment — you come in, sit in the chair, look at the room, ask questions, and leave. No charge. About one in fifteen new patients starts that way.
- Monday – Thursday7:30am – 4:30pm
- Friday7:30am – 1:00pm
- Saturday & SundayClosed