When John and Lisa Barnhardt moved from Raleigh, North Carolina, to the side of Lookout Mountain, they had no idea downsizing would be so difficult – or how much they would come to love their new city and their new, smaller space.
When their daughter, Julia, moved with her husband Jared and their first child to Chattanooga, the Barnhardts went back and forth between Raleigh and the Scenic City for a couple of years, visiting frequently. Realizing they could make a mortgage payment with the amount they were spending staying in hotels and vacation rentals, and both having recently retired, the couple decided they were ready to downsize and move closer to their daughter, then pregnant with her second child.
One of Lisa’s colleagues in Raleigh had a sister living on Lookout Mountain who offered to show her around. She took Lisa and John to a home she had lived in for 30 years before selling it to her next door neighbor 20 years prior – who was planning to move but hadn’t listed the house yet.
John, who wanted to live either downtown or in Riverview near their daughter’s family, agreed to look at the home “as a courtesy,” he says, but was won over immediately upon walking in the door. The couple liked that the home, located near the Cravens House and Ruby Falls, was “cottage-y and cute,” says Lisa, who was also drawn to the boulders dotting the landscape of the spacious yard. “There’s not many places, particularly this size, that have a big yard like that,” she says.
Stone steps lead up the mountainside to a hot tub and rope hammock nestled among the lush greenery and massive boulders, which remind her of her childhood rock collection now displayed on a shelf on the back patio. Since trading their large dining room table from Raleigh for a four-top in their new home, the couple now hosts many of their dinner parties al fresco, where the table accommodates six.