Always the Mountains
Married for well over thirty years, one thing we’ve always agreed on is our desire to retire to the mountains. As much as we both love the ocean, the idea of waking up to hot, humid, sticky air day after day just doesn’t appeal to us. We’re happy to enjoy a long week at the beach once or twice a year—soaking up the sun under the cool breeze of a Shibumi—but for day-to-day living, we’ve always preferred the twisting, winding backroads, the crisp autumn air rustling through leaves, and the small towns and backwoods of the Appalachian Mountains.
A Dream Deferred
My parents had long planned to retire to the mountains, but sadly, they never made it. Back in the early 1970s, they bought a lot on a small lake high in the mountains outside Waleska—but sold it a few years later. I’m not sure why, but I suspect the financial demands of putting six kids through college and private school had something to do with it. Dad had a solid job at Coca-Cola, but he wasn’t in the C-suite—he earned just enough to keep him from looking elsewhere. When he retired, they built their dream home 45 miles north of Atlanta: far enough from the city to escape the bedlam and high taxes, close to the mountains… but not quite there.
Over the years, we slowly moved closer to the mountains ourselves. When we were first married, we lived inside the Perimeter. Within a year or so, we moved to Duluth—our starter home was in our price range, and the school district was excellent. Eventually, we pushed further out: first to Suwanee, then to Dawsonville, where our home sat near the end of Pea Ridge. So close… yet still just out of reach. Every time we pulled out of our neighborhood, we’d spot Springer Mountain in the distance—and sigh.
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Our cabin, tucked away at the ridge of Burnt Mountain.
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A view of the cabin from one of the trails leading to a rose garden.
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A cute little deck off of our bedroom - so wonderful to sit out here in the morning with a cup of coffee and watch the hawks circle far above the valley floor.
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Alyson, pondering if cabin-life is going to work for us.
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Alyson deciding that yes, in fact, cabin-life is perfect!
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First picture of us on the back deck - what a view!
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Amicalola Lodge is six miles in the distance - during the summer months, it is the only building we can see from our home.
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Looking north, we can identify mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee using an app on our phone during the winter months. We could top these trees since they are on our property; we'll leave them be.
A Detour Into the Clouds
Then, one fall day in 2024, Alyson and I took a different route while visiting her sister and brother-in-law in Ellijay. Normally we took the fastest road between Dawsonville and Ellijay—a scenic drive dotted with horse farms and cornfields. But this time, we turned off toward Talking Rock, and to our surprise, we were in the clouds within minutes.
We shouldn’t have been surprised—Amicalola Falls was right around the corner, one of Georgia’s prettiest state parks and a place we’d visited many times. We knew mountains like this existed here… we just hadn’t explored this particular stretch. (We’d driven all over the mountains of northeast and northwest Georgia—just not right around Jasper.) Enthralled, Alyson pulled off the main road onto a dirt road, and we stopped several times to take in the views—east toward Gainesville, and west toward Kennesaw.
Zillow, a Log Cabin, and a Little Luck
When we got home, she circled the area on Zillow and kept an eye out. It wasn’t long before a small log cabin popped up. As luck would have it, we were heading back to Ellijay the very next morning—so we stopped by during the open house.
The couple selling the cabin were there. They’d owned it for about five years and, now in their late 80s, were ready to move closer to their children. I think they loved the idea that, if we bought the home, we’d be bringing Jean (Alyson’s mom) along. She’d get the primary bedroom on the main floor, and we’d take the loft upstairs.
Standing on the expansive back deck, the view is extraordinary for a private home, stretching across the horizon from roughly 9:00 to 4:00. Mountains rise in layers from North Carolina and Tennessee, sweep past Springer Mountain and Mount Yonah here in Georgia, and gradually give way to the rolling farmland around Cleveland and Gainesville before flattening toward Flowery Branch. We could see from Big Frog Mountain in Tennessee all the way around to Sugar Hill, Georgia—a panorama that took our breath away.
A View Like No Other
It’s a million-dollar view, instantly evocative of the grand overlooks along the Blue Ridge Parkway—and, truth be told, more beautiful than any view I’ve ever seen from the back deck of a private home, including the Biltmore..
I had my Doubts...
But the cabin was more than thirty years old and carried the weight of time. Hundreds of feet of aging, creosote-soaked railroad ties were barely holding the mountainside in place, the small basement had slipped into disrepair, the bathrooms were long overdue for renovation—and, almost unthinkably for a mountain cabin, there wasn’t even a fireplace. I also knew winters would be brutal at over 3,000 feet. And we’d need to sell our home to afford the mortgage on this one. With a pivotal election around the corner, there was no telling what the housing market would do—no matter who won.
On the other hand, Alyson had fallen in love at first sight—and when that happens, it’s usually meant to be.
Not Without Jean
We visited a couple more times that week and brought Jean along to make sure she felt at home. We weren’t going to move unless she felt good about it. As it turns out, she was just as excited - maybe more so - than Alyson was about the prospect of cabin-life at the top of the world.
The Offer That Stuck
So we made an offer—and lo and behold, the owners accepted it over a couple of cash offers! I don’t know if it was because they liked the idea of a multigenerational family moving in, or if they just liked us.
Either way, the road to our new horizon had begun.
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