Preserving A Gatlinburg Treasure
Seated in one of the yellow chairlifts at Gatlinburg’s SkyLift, David Cross surveys the bird’s-eye view of downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and the Gatlinburg Inn, which he now co-owns with 14 other family members. The lift runs adjacent to the Inn and climbs to 1,800 feet above sea level to the top of Crockett Mountain.
As the chairlift inches along the suspended cables, he talks about how Rellie “Rel” Maples began building the inn in 1937 on family land that once produced potatoes and corn. It was the third hotel built in Gatlinburg and is the only one of the three remaining. Rel worked to grow the business and ultimately went searching for a wife to join him after his first marriage failed.
“At one time, my mother’s sister (Wilma) worked here at the Inn,” Cross said. “She and my mother were living in Oak Ridge when she received a letter in the mail from Rel asking her to marry him. She was dumbfounded.”
The letter arrived in 1953, and while Wilma was shocked, she did allow him to court her. They married in 1954 and worked hand-in-hand to continue the success of the Gatlinburg Inn. Wilma was not interested in success at any price. She held tight to the traditions and morals she was raised with, and she wanted to cater to guests who did the same.
“Wilma didn’t like motorcycles,” Cross said. “Also, unmarried couples of the opposite sex could not rent a room here.” In an April 2002 article in The Knoxville Sentinel, Wilma said: “We don’t keep high school kids except with their parents. We don’t allow food in the rooms, and you can’t party at night.”
They also operated fine dining at the inn in the David Crockett Tavern, complete with while linen tablecloths, finger bowls and a dress code. “Wilma wanted Gatlinburg to be more of an upscale destination” Cross said. The tavern, used today for guests to enjoy a free Southern breakfast, closed as a restaurant in 1969.
The Gatlinburg Inn built a solid reputation as a wholesome family retreat that draws guests back year after year.
“We have some guests who bring their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This is the only place they stay,” says Glenda Surrett, who has been greeting visitors at the front desk since 2011. By her side is 85-year-old Bunny Reed, who came out of retirement to work at the Inn.
The ladies have a knack for making newcomers feel like they are family from the moment they walk in the door, which is definitely the atmosphere Rel and Wilma promoted. “We try to be ambassadors for the hotel,” Surrett said. “We’re old school. We acknowledge people. We try to speak to everybody as they go by.”
The Southern hospitality they offer is genuine and Reed says it’s in her blood. “My parents owned a restaurant, and my mother would always tell me to set a good example. I’ve been working in Gatlinburg most of my life, starting at age 12.”
Throw-back to the past
While the newest incarnation of family owners have made impressive upgrades to the 70-room hotel, it remains a time capsule of sorts, with its original maple furniture, framed historical pictures lining the walls, and the Wall of Fame showcasing famous people who once stayed there, including Lady Bird Johnson, Dinah Shore and actor John Cullum, among many others.
The inn is noted as a host of the 1951 Governor’s Conference, and it also provided a home at one time to First National Bank, Gatlinburg City Hall, the area’s first newspaper printed on a large press, and early church meetings.
Back in the days after Rel opened the Inn in 1939, there wasn’t the bumper-to-bumper traffic flow of cars and trucks parading down the main drag, illuminated by the bright neon lights of family attractions like the nearby Ripley’s Believe it or Not and Hollywood Star Cars Museum; mixed in with stores offering homemade fudge and taffy, old-time photo shoots, a plethora of T-shirts and other souvenir type merchandise, as well as eateries, breweries and distilleries. The Gatlinburg Inn sits right in the middle of today’s action—it’s adjacent to SkyLift Park, across the street from the Space Needle, and tucked amid an ever-changing group of stores and novelties like the Crazy Mason Milkshake Bar with its tempting creations featuring candies, doughnuts, cookies and brownies stacked on top of the shakes. While Gatlinburg continues growing and evolving, the Gatlinburg Inn remains a familiar oasis.
In Rel’s day, most of the evening activities centered on swapping stories with guests while sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch. He wasn’t content to just provide lodging and food. He also wanted to provide guests with entertainment.
In the summer of 1950, the outdoor drama “Unto These Hills” opened in nearby Cherokee, North Carolina, and began drawing crowds. It caught Rel’s attention. He thought a similar idea would work for Gatlinburg.
He and Wilma took out a $200,000 loan and built Hunter Hills Theatre on Highway 321 four miles from downtown. They commissioned Kermit Hunter, who wrote “Unto These Hills” to write a play based on the life of General John Sevier, Tennessee’s first governor, to be performed in an outdoor amphitheater.
Hunter named the play “Chucky Jack: The Story of Tennessee.” “Chucky Jack” was a shortened nickname for Sevier, who was known as “Nolichucky Jack” from fighting with Indians along the Nolichucky River. The script focused on Sevier during the years of 1782 to 1796.
The show opened on June 22, 1956, with nightly shows at 8:15 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The inn also began hosting descendants for its first John Sevier family reunion, with the first one taking place in July 1957. Three hundred families from 36 states received invitations to the debut reunion, along with tickets for a special performance of “Chucky Jack.”
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Preserving A Gatlinburg Treasure
The Gatlinburg Inn remains a time capsule of sorts, with its original maple furniture and framed pictures lining the walls.
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Preserving A Gatlinburg Treasure
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Preserving A Gatlinburg Treasure
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Family owners had to decide how to bring the Gatlinburg Inn into the 21st century and still keep its original charm.
Rel transported patrons to the outdoor drama via a “trackless train” that was described in the local paper as a “diesel-type locomotive with two cars.” On July 4, 1959, the train overturned, injuring some of the passengers. While the accident may have played a role in suspending operations, the fatal blow to the play came in the accounting books. It simply wasn’t making enough money to survive. The final show was September 6, 1959.
Even though the outdoor drama closed, Hunter Hills Theatre continued to entertain audiences through concerts and special events during the 1960s. The Washington Ballet performed “Swan Lake,” accompanied a partial group of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra in 1960. A 1962 series called “Music Under the Stars” featured three concerts: Jose Melis and his orchestra performed in June along with the Chad Mitchell Trio. Andy Williams and Liberace were headliners at separate shows in July.
While Rel and Wilma spent most of their time at the Inn, “they also had their own getaway called High Top. They took Liberace there to eat. Wilma cooked for him,” Cross said.
Hunter Hills Theatre also welcomed special performances in the summer of 1964. The final show was September 7 and then the stage fell dark.
The next year, Rel and Wilma decided the Hunter Hills Theatre property would be put to better use by donating it to the University of Tennessee, where Rel had been a student from 1928 to 1932. It was valued at $300,000 at the time.
Rocky Top legacy
It may sound a bit farfetched, but one of Tennessee’s most iconic songs was written—the whole thing, music and lyrics—at the inn in the span of only 10 minutes.
In 1967, songwriters Felice and Boudleaux (pronounced Bood-low) Bryant holed up in room 388 at the Gatlinburg Inn to work on songs for Archie Campbell’s “Golden Years” album. After three weeks of intense work, Felice told Boudleaux they needed to work on something more upbeat than the slower songs they were writing.
In the book All I Have to Do is Dream: The Boudleaux and Felice Bryant Story, Felice related what happened. She asked her husband, “How about a mountain song, a bluegrass thing, something lively and up-tempo and happy?”
They argued a bit because Boudleaux didn’t want to break from writing songs for the Campbell album, but she insisted.
Felice said: “Then he banged out a couple of lines on his guitar and started singing ‘wish that I was on old Rocky Top, down in the Tennessee Hills.’”
“How’s that?” he asked, “We’ll call it ‘Rocky Top.’” Felice said he gave a thumbs up to every line she wrote because he was eager to get back to what they had been doing. They alternated writing lines and wrapped up their new creation in 10 minutes.
“Rocky Top” became a big hit and a signature song for The Osbourne Brothers when they released it in 1967. Since 1972, it’s been known as the unofficial fight song at University of Tennessee football games, and in 1982, the state legislature named “Rocky Top” an official Tennessee State Song. It’s a well-loved sing-along song that celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2017 with the unveiling of a historical marker in front of the Inn honoring it as part of the Tennessee Music Pathway Trail.
The Bryants wrote many of their 6,000 songs (some 1,500 have been published) at the Gatlinburg Inn, and even stayed there when it was closed. While Gatlinburg is a year-round destination now, the inn, like many businesses in the area, once closed from November to April.
Cross says Rel and Wilma would often travel during the winter months, but they’d leave a set of keys for Boudleaux and Felice to come and go as they pleased. It became their “home sweet home” for creativity. Without other guests in the inn, they could take advantage of the peace and quiet as they worked to build their catalogue. They wrote many bestselling hits including “Bye Bye, Love” and “Wake Up Little Susie,” recorded by The Everly Brothers, and “Raining in My Heart,” recorded by Buddy Holly, but that quick little song they wrote on an August evening in 1967 eclipses them all.
Cross opens the door of Room 388 and leads the way inside—the interior is preserved to look just like it did when the Bryants stayed here. Even the bathroom boasts vintage wallpaper—the only bathroom in the inn that hasn’t been remodeled and updated. This room, with a spacious parlor area alongside the bedroom, is one of those spaces where you wish the walls could talk or, even better, that some of the creativity sparked in this room could transfer to new occupants.
Songwriters are flocking to the area August 18-21 for the Gatlinburg Songwriter’s Festival. Gatlinburg Inn serves as one of the host hotels, and offers a Rocky Top Late Night Write for a limited group of songwriters. They’ll work on new songs in the space the Bryants made famous—Room 388.
Change of ownership
Wilma continued running the Gatlinburg Inn after Rel died in 1985 at the age of 79. With Wilma as trustee, Rel left the hotel to his two sons and to his wife’s eight sisters. Wilma outlived the sons, and served as trustee until her death at age 88 in December 2011.
Instructions called for the trust to be liquidated when Wilma died, meaning the inn property was to be sold. Rumors around town circulated that the attorney who served as executor had an offer from a developer who planned to knock the existing building down. The two sides of the family didn’t really know each other, but they put their heads together and offered a successful bid to buy the historic family inn from the trust and operate it just as Rel and Wilma had.
There are 15 owners with four serving on an advisory committee—David Cross and his cousin Allen Barker from Wilma’s side, and two of Rel’s grandsons—Bill Maples and Jack Maples. “Even though we are a four-person board, we’ve never had a tie vote,” Cross said. “We get along remarkably well. We meet monthly and keep track of things.”
One of the biggest changes they initially made after taking ownership in 2013 is that they opened the inn to operate year-round. They also made improvements, including remodeling the bathrooms, upgrading room amenities, installing a new HVAC system, and hiring a management firm to run the place. “We had to decide how to bring it into the 21st century and still keep the charm,” Cross said. “It didn’t even have flat screen TVs when we bought it.”
The ownership team hired Hospitality Solutions, led by Logan Coykendall, to oversee the day-to-day operations.
“They deserve a lot of credit for preserving that hotel for our community,” Coykendall said. “They could have easily cashed out for a lot of money, but they took on the risk to try to revitalize the hotel and turn the business part of it around. We have turned it into a great destination.”
The next big project includes filling in the existing pool on the side of the inn and creating a stage and fire pit area there. Next, they’ll carve out a brand-new pool at the rear of the property. “It will be an attention getter,” Cross said.
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Guests at the Gatlinburg Inn can step out the door and jump onto the Skylift.
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David Cross said the original owner of SkyLift Park, a long-time Gatlinburg attraction, wanted to buy some property to install the lift in 1954. “Rel wouldn’t sell him any property, but he gave him a 99-year lease.” The park later installed the Gatlinburg SkyBridge.
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The SkyCenter overlooks Gatlinburg with sweeping panoramic views into Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
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The Gatlinburg Inn at street level and the SkyCenter above offers guests and visitors the best of two worlds in Gatlinburg.
New heights
Back at the SkyLift Park, Cross said the original owner of this long-time Gatlinburg attraction, Everett Kircher, approached Rel Maples wanting to buy some of his property to install the lift, which opened in 1954.
“Rel wouldn’t sell him any property,” Cross said, “but he gave him a 99-year lease on the adjacent property. We own the top of the mountain.”
The old building at the top burned when flames scorched Crockett Mountain and other areas of Gatlinburg during the 2016 wildfires.
Today, there’s a new building at the top that Cross and his family members own, called the SkyCenter. “We’re real proud of this building,” he said as he gave a tour. The downstairs offers quick snacks and beverages at the SkyCafe, along with souvenir items. The top is a bar with ample seating and incredible views.
In May 2019, SkyLift Park expanded to open SkyBridge, almost 700 feet long with a 30-foot stretch in the middle with see-through glass flooring. It sits about 500 feet above ground. There’s also the SkyTrail, which connects each end of the SkyBridge by a scenic walkway.
When travelers arrive at the Gatlinburg Inn, many just park their cars in the inn’s lot for the duration of the stay and walk to area attractions and restaurants. Then they can retreat from the hubbub, glitz and glimmer of downtown Gatlinburg into the Inn with its hospitable staff, historic atmosphere, complete with fireplaces, rocking chairs on the porch, and boxes of puzzles ready to work at tables inside.
It’s the best of both worlds.
About the author: Marla Hardee Milling is a long-time writer for Smoky Mountain Living. General John Sevier was her sixth great-grandfather.