The Heart of the Home

When cofounders Kreis and Sandy Beall decided to purchase Blackberry Farm in 1976, it wasn’t because they were dazzled by the property’s main building. Originally built in 1941 on a 140-acre plot bordering the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the dilapidated white clapboard

and stone building was hardly a showstopper. Lined with cracked wallpaper and crowded with old furniture, from the lower level you couldn’t even see the magnificent mountains which were blocked by the tall trees. “It was not in good shape,” says Kreis Beall. But the couple had visions of opening their own inn, where they could host and cook, and Blackberry Farm seemed like the perfect place to do it. They were young (23 and 26) and just starting out with a four-month-old son (Sam), but they knew it had potential. “We were risky dreamers,” says Kreis, who had looked over to Sandy and said, “Yeah, we can do this.”

They took out two bank loans and hatched a plan to redo the house in the scrappiest way possible. To help redecorate on a shoestring budget, they enlisted the expertise of Kreis’s mother – a former New York runway model with impeccable taste. Kreis had always said, “I...