The audio version of this article was first shared in Episode 45 : A Bookchat about The Premonition at Withers Farm with Jaime Jo Wright & a Review of Above the Fold by Rachel Scott McDaniel
Todays’ Pinch of the Past takes us to the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, to explore the history behind a little hidden gem called the House of the Fairies.
Louis Voorheis
In 1928, a successful businessman from Cincinnati, Ohio, wanted to create a mountain retreat, away from the crowds. Louis Voorheis settled on a 100-acre piece of land in the Smoky Mountains, about a mile away from Gatlinburg, TN, owned by Harve Oakley. The land included several mountain springs, as well as two creeks, Mill Creek and Scratch Britches Branch. (Incidentally, he ended up changing the name of Mill Creek to Le Conte Creek.)
An inventor who enjoyed playing with waterpower, Mr. Voorheis’ first project was to build a dam for hydroelectric power. And he was just getting started. He loved channeling the natural flow of the water on the property, using native stone and rustic wooden bridges. He built a swimming pool fed by the mountain waters, as well as stone fountains to decorate his gardens.
Stone retaining walls were built with the flow of the land. Everything was supposed to look beautiful, yet rustic and natural. He had a water-powered mill, an apple orchard, vegetable and flower gardens, and a horse barn.
The National Park
The land was already within the boundary of the proposed National Park when Mr. Voorheis purchased it, although it’s unknown whether he discovered that fact before or after he purchased the land.
However, as a businessman and a philanthropist, he came up with a solution. He worked directly with the Tennessee Park Commission and the National Park Service and arranged to donate his land, securing a lifetime lease on the estate for himself and his widow, if he died first.
In 1933, Twin Creeks Orchard became the only private property to be donated for the National Park. It was appraised at the time for $100,000, and the appraisal records, among other things, fourteen structures, a pump house, three septic tanks, 1800 feet of piping and valves, machinery in a shop, two 750-gallon water tanks, and a stone springhouse–the House of the Fairies.
The People on the Estate
The Oakleys and some of their family actually stayed on at the property as caretakers. Louise Cole Little, daughter of Homer Cole who cared for the orchard and vegetable garden and granddaughter of the Oakleys who sold the property, said in an interview in 2016 that Mr. Voorheis “cared very much for the people who worked for him.”
He built homes for his employees, as well as for guests. They ate food grown on the land, attended Mr. Voorheis’s wedding on the property in 1934, and when the land was donated, were allowed to live there until they could find employment and homes elsewhere.
Link to interview with Louise: https://www.knoxnews.com/story/life/2016/11/06/louise-cole-little-recalls-childhood-estate-s-now-national-park/93133738/
The Legacy
Mr. Voorheis died in 1944 at the age of 69, sixteen years after first buying the land for his mountain retreat. He was cremated in Cincinnati, but one of the caretakers of the estate, Clifford Oakley, stated that he buried the ashes on the property behind the Voorheis mansion. The exact location is unknown.
Some of the buildings still stand, serving the National Park Service as offices. Most of the beautiful landscaping has been overtaken by the woods, but the most notable remnant still preserved is the stone springhouse, hidden on a hillside behind the Resource Center and other buildings off Cherokee Orchard Road.
If you enjoy an easy hike, look up the Twin Creeks Trail and see if you can find your way to the House of the Fairies. (Or ask one of the helpful park personnel in the Resource Center.) It’s a quiet place, moss-covered and rundown. A piece of a man’s dream-come-true blending in with the woods around it.
Story of the estate: https://www.nps.gov/articles/featured_stories_voorheis.htm