PIKEVILLE, Tenn. – Wanda and Jack Carver, a retired pastor, were walking around downtown Pikeville one April day in 2018. The couple, from Hendersonville, Tennessee, were spending a long weekend at the Lodge at Fall Creek Falls right before it closed down for renovations.
(READ MORE: Tennessee Gov. Lee opens new $40.3 million Lodge at Fall Creek Falls)
It was a good getaway for the couple who had been struggling to find the ideal place to retire. They knew what they wanted: a peaceful place with woods and a place to walk and pray.
“We were hiking around Fall Creek Falls when it started to rain,” Wanda Carver says. “So we decided to go find a place in Pikeville for a sandwich. Neither one of us had ever heard of Pikeville before.”
But before the month was out, they’d sold their house in Hendersonville and were the new owners of a historic, 150-year-old home along Pikeville’s Main Street with a 200-year-old cabin out back.