The Edelweiss - Mountain Views

Edelweiss is our house in Gatlinburg. We bought it because it already had a story and a life in it. We kept it when we could have walked away with a pile of money, because our family was in love with it. We still get here several times a year. When we are not here, we offer it to people who want the same experience we found. This is not a vacation rental, and it is not the white stick-built house with matching fixtures down the street.

It sits on nearly two acres of wooded mountain at the end of Edelweiss Drive. You don’t get land like that up here. On a clear night you can barely make out a glimmer of light from the next house.

Plaster, stone, brick, reclaimed wood, concrete and steel. The finishes change as you walk through, and they still belong to the same house. It is not drywall and the same baseboard in every room. In that way the place will always be a work in progress. Not unfinished. Not unready. Just more layers than a house that was completed in one pass and closed up.

We come as a family of five, often with other families and friends dropping in during the stay. Coffee on the top balcony in the morning, then seven minutes down to a trail in the National Park with the kids. After that the day stays in the great room: about 700 square feet of kitchen, dining, and living, and a balcony of about 400 that is really just more of the same room, looking toward Mount Le Conte. The master suite opens off it — roughly another 600 square feet, with its own seating, a kitchenette, and room to spread out. Two long leather sofas face each other. That is where we do movie nights, with Sonos and an LG OLED. The kitchen is the reason we can feed a full house: two tall fridges, two dishwashers, a CAFE range with a double oven. The building is mostly concrete and steel, so you don’t hear the other floor the way you do in a wood cabin. At night people drift back to the balcony, or downstairs to sleep or to be alone. Fire on the balcony when we have said it is all right.

One family can take the whole house. So can a few households, or several couples. Four bedrooms, three baths. The floors already split that way.

Layout:

Top: great room, kitchen, dining, master suite (seating, kitchenette, sofa, space), balcony. Gate at the top of the stair. We have always kept our babies up here with us.

Main: two bedrooms, foyer for shoes and hanging coats, long hall closets, hall bath, washer and dryer. Both bedrooms open to a generous balcony.

Lower: bedroom with a large double-headed shower, hanging chairs, glass into the trees, patio. The room opens to the stair. It is not closed off.

A couple of rooms are ours and are not part of the stay.

The drive up is mountain. So is the land: woods, slope, the patio downstairs, a balcony on each of the two upper floors. Ober Mountain is close. Downtown is about six minutes.

If you care about the story, here it is. Carl Bacon built this. Engineer — he helped build Douglas Dam — and a professor in Nashville. He was one of the early people on this mountain and he worked on the land for decades. We bought it from his estate after he died. He cared a lot about materials. Spanish tile, oak, or cherry underfoot. Stone, plaster, brick, or reclaimed wood on the walls. Beams and trim from an old Knoxville country club. We put in a few things we needed for the way we live here. The rest is the house he spent most of his life on.

Keyless check-in. After you book we will send the lock info. Text or email if you need us.

Before you book:

Long driveway. Two cars sit easily. Five means shuffling and backing out.

Ask us before you start a fire. This mountain is particular about that.

No pets, no smoking, no parties.

If you want the new drywall cabin, this is not it. If you want a house with a past, land around it, a kitchen that can feed everybody, a great room people actually live in, and the sense that the next corner still has something in it — this is the one.