The North Georgia mansion and farm built nearly a century ago by Peerless Mill founder John L. Hutcheson is being redeveloped into a senior residential campus which will include a $14 million assisted living center scheduled to open in early 2024.
Morning Pointe Senior Living, an Ooltewah-based developer of assisted living centers across the South, will break ground next month on an 82-unit assisted living center to be built on part of the 300-acre Hutcheson farm property that Morning Pointe founder Greg Vital acquired last summer next to Ridgeland High School and Rossville Middle School.
"As part of our Chattanooga-area presence, we are excited about serving so many in North Georgia who have connections to the Hutcheson family and Happy Valley Farms," Vital said in an announcement of the new campus in Walker County. "Happy Valley is one of the most beautiful locations with a rich history and legacy, and we will soon become a thriving community of residents, associates and families who will call Morning Pointe home."
Over the next decade, Vital said he hopes to redevelop the former cattle and horse farm into a residential campus with a mixture of residential and senior care facilities built around the historic mansion. The property already has sewer service and Vital said his goal is to preserve about 100 acres of the site with conservation easements.
Over the past year, several old structures have been removed and the site cleaned up since the estate of John Hutcheson sold off the horses that were once on the site.
Vital, who is a Tennessee state representative and CEO of Morning Pointe, said Northwest Georgia continues to grow and the Happy Valley farm site offers a rural-type setting only 10 minutes from St. Elmo and Chattanooga.
The new facility will be the 38th assisted living facility to be opened by Morning Pointe, which Vital and co-founder Franklin Farrow started 25 years ago. Company officials are opening another assisted living facility Thursday in Powell, Tennessee, Vital said.
Staff Photo by Matt Hamilton / Greg Vital poses at Morning Pointe corporate headquarters in Ooltewah on Feb. 18, 2022.The single-story Happy Valley assisted living campus in Walker County will be 67,000 square feet in size and include 58 assisted living apartments and 24 memory care apartments specially designed for residents with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of memory loss. Decorations in the building will celebrate the history of Walker County, as well as the Happy Valley Farm and its legacy, Vital said.
The farm and estate were established in 1935 by John L. Hutcheson Jr. and were the site of an award-winning Jersey cattle and dairy farm before Hutcheson transitioned the property into a world-class American Saddlebred horse-breeding facility. The Morning Pointe campus is planned in the southeast portion of the property across from the Happy Valley Legacy Barn.
The Hutcheson mansion, which was built in 1935, includes almost 8,000 square feet. The property has a 27-foot-tall barn, a pond, swimming pool and pool house, a smokehouse and two small cottages.
John Hutcheson started Peerless Woolen Mill in Rossville in 1905 and built the textile mill into the largest mill for wool products in the nation with more than 3,000 employees by the start of World War II.
A groundbreaking ceremony for the new Morning Pointe facility is planned on the site at 2989 Happy Valley Road on Oct. 18, Vital said.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340. Follow him on Twitter @dflessner1.