“I did not want it hiding,” Dover explains. “The project brings a uniqueness to the town and Dollywood, making it an asset for the Pigeon Forge community. Families can enjoy being right next to the nearby attractions and return to an experience housed in a private dwelling rather than a hotel room.”
Dover dubbed the project a “traincation” retreat and named the lodging The Smoky Mountain Station.
ALL ABOARD
Guests enter the property through the caboose and are met by a ticket booth on the porch. To provide a sensory element to check-ins, personnel greet vacationers with a recording of railway sounds playing in the background.
Dover relied on abundant wood and original craftsmanship to blend a sense of modern living with nostalgia. She harvested yellow pine and poplar trees from her own property in South Carolina (where she is building a new residence) and had them milled and turned into tongue-and-groove boards for the flooring, walls and ceilings.
Because the caboose had to be stripped to its bare bones to become a livable space, Dover salvaged all the original wood possible. She used its wooden headers for a new fireplace mantel and as window trim in the cupola. To visually separate the historic caboose from the new depot, the wood flooring is heart pine in the caboose and hand-scraped hickory in the depot.
In the caboose, a cozy den with an electric fireplace, bedroom with bunk beds, and bathroom with a shower lined in locally sourced river stone and slate take up much of the space. The kitchen sits directly under the cupola and offers guests granite countertops and custom hickory cabinets.
The depot portion houses the primary suite, which features a hand-carved, king-size bed and direct access to a private deck in the back of the property. Here, visitors find a hot spa, firepit and grill area. Vintage metal straps create a standing screen around the firepit and grill area. Outdoor fabric panels on coated stainless ropes slide like curtains to enclose the hot spa in privacy.
FAMILY TIES
In the primary bedroom, 100-year-old barn tiles adorn the ceiling. Dover’s parents have a retail shop where they sell vintage items they find, and they had a bundle of tin metal tiles from one of their scouting expeditions. The tiles’ tops are silver, but their undersides are a range of burnt red hues. Inspired, Dover chose the exterior paint color of the caboose to match the red in the tiles and installed them in the bedroom with their red side exposed. Small touches inside the cupola, like a toy train, also came from her parents’ shop.
Dover’s brother handmade the bunk beds in the second bedroom, as well as the bathroom vanity. He also made the ticket booth out of items sourced from the project’s scrap wood and job-site rebar.
Dover’s uncle joined the effort too: He built the metal strap privacy fence in the firepit and grill area.
The handprints of Dover’s three daughters are hidden underneath the caboose in the concrete. Dover remarks, “As a female developer in a male-dominated profession, I use my work as a platform to lead by example to my three daughters that women can take the road less traveled in their careers and find gratifying success.”
Ready for her next project, Dover has already purchased the lot next door. Her vision? Source a steam locomotive and passenger car to complement the existing development and become Phase 2 of The Smoky Mountain Station.
PHOTOS: Nick Fitzgerald, Fitztography, unless otherwise noted
Retrofit Team
DEVELOPER: Creative Compass, (864) 992-7642
- Hanna Norris Dover
ARCHITECT: Traditional Concepts Inc., (864) 235-5984
- N. Jackson Thacker
BOOK THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN STATION
Interested in staying in this unique circa 1916 CSX train caboose? Book your stay now.