Is the up and coming vacation rental hot spot located in city of Rocky Top?
The Lodge at Rocky Top has already become popular as an Airbnb-type rental property, especially with visitors to the Windrock trails in the area, says owner Jason Deel. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Deel and his wife, Natalie, recently spent a few months completely rehabilitating an older home in Rocky Top’s downtown area to offer to tourists as an Airbnb-style short-term rental property.
Known as The Lodge at Rocky Top, the three-bedroom house that was spiffed up to look like a modern vacation cabin has already proven to be popular with out-of-town guests.
Deel said it’s been booked most weekends and lots of weekdays since he and his wife opened it for guests several weeks ago.
It’s been so successful, he said, that he has bought another house close to it that he and his wife are now restoring to become the second property in their Coal Creek Rentals (coalcreekrentals.com) business.
“This journey Natalie and I decided to go on in Rocky Top has been more rewarding than we ever imagined,” Deel said. “So, we have bought another one now.”
He said the renovation of The Lodge has created a beautiful property in the heart of Rocky Top.
“We worked on it for four or five months,” he said. “Before we started, it was the eyesore of the town. It was miserable, things you would not expect to see in any downtown area. It’s a prime location, across from the Splash Pad and the [elementary] school.
“We kept the original four walls, but it’s all new inside. We used 24-inch rough-cut timber that termites will have no way of eating through. Everybody that I brought up there before we started said, ‘You should tear this house down.’
“But I said, ‘No, I want to preserve it,’ and I said somehow we’ve got to save it.”
Now, he’s glad he did.
“It’s been rented every weekend since Oct. 7, the first weekend we had it available,” Deel said. “We’re the first overnight rental to get the short-term rental permit Rocky Top now requires.”
With its three bedrooms and assorted sleeping couches, The Lodge at Rocky Top can sleep up to nine people “comfortably,” Deel said.
For now, The Lodge rents for $152 a night.
On the Coal Creek Rentals website, it says of the property:
“Fantastic lodge conveniently located near Windrock Mountain ATV routes in Rocky Top. Drop your trailers and ride to the trails from the house. Only minutes away from Norris Lake, the University of Tennessee and so much more.”
Deel said people “are loving it.”
“They can park their truck and trailer, take off their side-by-side, and never have to move the trailer while they’re here,” he said.
“Everybody without fail has said, ‘We will be back. We will stay here again.’ Forty- to 50-percent of them have come for the trails. But during football season, some came for the UT games, as an alternative to staying in Knoxville. And some were just visiting the area.”
The second property, on Church Street just across from The Lodge, will be called The Cottage, Deel said.
“Here again, we’ve had to rip everything out of it, down to the subfloors,” he said.
Deel doesn’t plan to confine his investments in Rocky Top to rental housing, although he does plans to build more.
“I already have one downtown building in the works that I’m trying to get bought,” he said.
“I can do one house at a time, and probably can do 15 to 20 in total. But there is only so much I can do.”
For Rocky Top, it’s a good start on renewal, the Deels believe.