(NOTE: The following material was originally posted during the six-month period following the Gatlinburg fire, which took place on Monday, November 28, 2016. We are leaving it as originally posted, so you get the immediacy of the situation.)
If you have been following the saga of All Decked Out, you know that the cabin was destroyed by fire on November 28, 2016. After the fire, and after working through the process of filing insurance claims, cleaning up and selling the lot, we made the decision to close our overnight rental business. We completed all our direct connections with Gatlinburg in 2017. The next time we return, it will be as guests … just like you. We look forward to experiencing something we have rarely done since our honeymoon in the fall of 1961 – a vacation in the Smokies!
Since the fire, we have visited Gatlinburg three times in 2017 – twice in March and once in May. We have now posted information and photos from those visits.
We know many people – including our family – have wonderful memories of vacations at All Decked Out. We hope you will cherish those memories as we do.
If you want to go to Gatlinburg and need help finding a place to stay, please contact us. We are still part of a group of about 65 owners who rent out their own cabins. Most of these folks did not lose their cabins and are ready to help you. You can save money by dealing directly with the owner. Please write back to us (click here to Contact Us). Give us your arrival and departure dates, the number of people in your party, the number of bedrooms you want, and the best way for these owners to contact you. If you have a preferred location or any special amenities, please pass that along to us as well. Also, note that many of these cabins are pet-friendly.
As always, you can Contact Us to give us your comments or ask any questions. Meanwhile, we appreciate you staying with us as we have been on this journey. We wish you many more happy times in Gatlinburg and the surrounding area.
Some have asked how badly All Decked Out was damaged. So we are posting pictures. Please scroll down to see pictures and our reports of our six-month ‘adventure’ from the night of the fire through early May 2017. In addition to the loss of All Decked Out, you will also find pictures of Smoky Mountain Tower, which we sold in February 2015. Unfortunately, it was also destroyed.
Everyone involved in the Gatlinburg fires has a story. On Sunday morning, December 11, 2016, our Sunday School teacher asked us to share ours. The easiest way to do that is to post it here. Please click here to open a PDF of our story. It will only take you about 5 minutes to read the whole document.
We want to start on a positive note. Denny Spell and his family stayed at All Decked Out many times during the 20 years we owned the cabin. His daughter even got engaged in Gatlinburg during one of their trips. The Spells spent Thanksgiving weekend 2016 at All Decked Out and left Sunday morning, Nov. 27 – just 36 hours before the fire. They were the last people ever stay at All Decked Out.
Below are photos taken by Denny – the last ones ever taken. Thank you, Denny, for helping to preserve our memories of All Decked Out.
One of the best pictures ever taken of the front of All Decked Out!
Looking down Village Loop Road (left side of All Decked Out. The right side of All Decked Out.
The houses at the end of our private road. Of course, they were all destroyed, too.
Now, here are pictures taken after the fire.The map below from the National Park Service and Sevier County shows the magnitude of the fire in Chalet Village North. The red circles show houses destroyed. The green circle show houses “affected” (probably damaged, but still standing). I count less than a dozen “affected” properties, out of a total of 550 homes.
The private drive on which All Decked Out was located. Left is a Google Maps view, right is after the fire. The white arrow points out All Decked Out in both pictures.
From the above right photo, this is a cropped image to show a closer view of what\’s left of All Decked Out. 
Village Loop Road from the Club House down to our private road. All Decked Out is in the lower left of the photo, where the road makes a sharp turn. You can see the triangle in front that had the large bush and some flowers.
Village Loop Road, with the North Club House at the top. Follow the road down to the T. All Decked Out is not shown in this photo – it is out of the picture to the bottom right
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Smoky Mountain Tower. This shows all of Oakley Way (bottom part of photo), with every house destroyed.
From the above photo, this shows Smoky Mountain Tower (top left) and Bob Ward\’s house (bottom right). Bob is the realtor who sold us both All Decked Out and Smoky Mountain Tower. The large square box at Smoky Mountain Tower was the sound room.
The Welcome Center sign. This is on the right side of the Parkway (Spur) as you are driving south from Pigeon Forge. This picture says it all – before, during and after the fire.
Marcia and Angie (our daughters who worked extensively on our rentals at All Decked Out) went to Gatlinburg on December 11. Then Marcia and her husband, John, went back on January 2, 2017. Between them, they took about 350 photos, most of which we are not going to post here. But some have asked what All Decked Out and Smoky Mountain Tower look like now, compared to how they looked before the fire.
Smoky Mountain Tower All Decked Out
All Decked Out neighborhood view – before and after.
Here are several pictures of different angles of All Decked Out – before the fire and after the fire.
March 7, 2017 – our first visit to Gatlinburg since the fire. It is quickly clear to us that photographs don\’t really show the full extent of the damage. The good news is that we see almost no evidence of damage in the City of Gatlinburg (or Pigeon Forge). Areas earlier reported as destroyed (such as Hillbilly Golf) are still there. Damage to Arrowmont has been cleaned up and rebuilding is well underway. You can still enjoy all your favorite shops and amusements in Gatlinburg!
But as soon as we get off the main Parkway, the damage is very evident. We drive up Ski Mountain Road and across Wiley Oakley to Chalet Village North, then down Village Loop Road to All Decked Out, where we meet our next-door neighbor, Darren Phillips. We have stayed in close touch with Darren and he is a huge help in working through many details. He is also interested in buying our lot. We are happy to see that many of the lots around All Decked Out have already been cleaned up and grass is growing. We make arrangements with Marshall Wolfe to clean up the All Decked Out lot.
March 21, 2017 – we return to Gatlinburg for very important event. We have worked out details and Darren is buying the lot on which All Decked Out stood. He intends to build a handicap-accessible rental cabin on the site. We close the deal, then go to All Decked Out to check on the clean-up. It\’s good to see that much of the trash has been removed from inside the foundation. One of the bright spot is a few places where we find flowers blooming.
We also use this opportunity to visit the property of our former rental property – Smoky Mountain Tower. Unfortunately, the people who bought Smoky Mountain Tower had to declare bankruptcy. So, this property is now in the hands of an out-of-state trustee, and nothing has been done to the lot. The good news, though, is that almost every other lot on the street has been cleaned and two owners are already rebuilding!
May 8, 2017 – on our way to middle Tennessee for high school graduation of two of our grandchildren, we make a quick trip through Chalet Village North. It\’s great to see that many properties have been cleaned up and a few are starting to rebuild. There is a lot of construction traffic on Wiley Oakley from the Gatlinburg Welcome Center up to where All Decked Out was located.
Our former lot isn’t completely clean, but everything has been removed from inside the foundation. The biggest thing we notice is that there is not a single living tree in the area around All Decked Out. Only a half-mile away, there are trees starting to get new leaves at the top. But every tree around All Decked Out is dead. We have been told that the fire was probably the hottest in this area and, even though the trees don’t look burned, the heat boiled the sap – thus killing the trees.
March 7
Darren, Dave, Phyllis at All Decked Out lot.
Interior, showing clean-up progress.
March 7 March 21 May 8
March 21
After the All Decked Out lot closing, we visited the Smoky Mountain Tower lot. The metal structure is what’s left of the sound room.
May 8 – a quick visit
Grass is growing on the lot, but there is not a single living tree.
Good news! All Decked Out now has one of the best views in the Smokies. That’s Mt. LeConte in the center (with the bright clouds).
We leave you with one final photo. It shows a ‘memory wall’ that we built in our garage at home. We always hung our big Christmas wreath on this wall. At Christmas, we took it over to All Decked Out and hung it in the main room.at the top of the steps. When Marcia and Angie visited the fire site about two weeks after the fire, they brought several things home to us as ‘mementos.’ Looking at the wreath hanging in our garage, we decided to make that wall our ‘memory wall.’ It has a few things from both our cabins that we salvaged, along with pictures that show where those items were before the fire. So we close with our ‘memory wall.’