In the kingdom of cookie carpentry, Michael and Julie Andreacola are essentially Chip and Joanna Gaines—if Chip wielded a laser cutter on molasses dough and Joanna crafted shiplap from fondant. Alongside an elite circle of diehards known as the “Ginger Friends,” they approach gingerbread house construction with the intensity of a sugarplum special-ops unit; in their world, only the strongest royal icing survives. And they’re here at the Omni Grove Park Inn & Spa in Asheville for the 2025 National Gingerbread House Competition, surrounded by more than two hundred edible McMansions.
“We won in 2018,” Michael tells me, scrolling through photos of that year’s entry on his phone. Gearing Up for Christmas featured a tech-forward Santa, a tricked-out sleigh, and a fully functioning clock made entirely of gingerbread—gears and all. “It took 960 man-hours.”
But what will it require to take the cake this year? Founded in 1992, the competition has long drawn masters of minutiae: engineers, interior designers, artists, and other detail obsessives. (Michael and Julie, who converted their daughter’s old bedroom into a full-time gingerbread workshop, are both former IT professionals.) “It really is the Olympics of gingerbread,” says Grier Rubeling, a Cary, North Carolina–based competitor and former second- and third-place winner in the adult age group.
But last year, for the first time, the ovens went cold. Hurricane Helene forced the 2024 competition’s cancellation—a gut punch to devoted Ginger Friends. “There were tears,” says Chloe Jennings, who’s competed since age nine, placing in the top ten six times and winning Best Use of Sprinkles in 2023 for a needlepoint-like rug made of thousands of pearl sprinkles applied with tweezers. While the hotel shifted to a Gingerbread Trail of Giving in light of the storm, the resumption of the traditional format this year has emphasized its communal spirit. “It’s always a reunion,” Rubeling says, “but this year is extra sweet because we haven’t seen each other in two years.”
Outside the Vanderbilt Ballroom, the tradition of “ginger-gating”—camping out for hours before the winner announcements—turns the Grove Park Inn’s halls into a festive gathering. Ginger Friends swap photos and trade secrets, like how Heather Nadeau of Cary, North Carolina, used catgut sutures to suspend a pendant and built The Birch Mouse Burrow from ramen noodles and dark chocolate. Tricks like that are fair game—so long as the builds remain at least 75 percent gingerbread and entirely edible.
By day’s end, the sugar dust settles and the podium fills with familiar faces. Nadeau’s whimsical mouse burrow earns second place in the adult group. Even sweeter? Her daughter, Bailey, takes first in the youth category for her Muddlefoot’s Mushroom Madness.
As for the overall winner, that honor goes to Mary Hulsman of Concord, North Carolina, a full-time accountant whose design, Tiny Gnome Builders, features a series of five topsy-turvy homes made to “fastidious perfection,” in the words of Omni Grove Park Inn & Spa sous pastry chef and judge Jae Park. It will sit on a rotating display podium in the hotel for a year—a festive welcome for what’s anticipated to be 20,000 visitors this season.
“I started my piece last year before the storm,” Hulsman says. Hurricane Helene forced her to scrap her work, but when the hotel announced the National Gingerbread House Competition’s 2025 return, she embraced the challenge and decided to rebuild.
Omni Grove Park Inn & Spa’s official 2025 gingerbread display begins on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, and will continue through Sunday, January 4, 2026. Guests not staying at the resort are invited to view the display after 6:00 p.m. on Sundays or anytime Monday through Thursday, excluding holidays and the following dates: November 27, December 7, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, and January 1. All Fridays and Saturdays are reserved for registered resort guests and those with confirmed dining reservations.
