Jackie and Todd, owners of Furnish Me Vintage in St. Petersburg, Florida, are golly maybe my most favorite people in the world. I visited their store last year. This mid mod power couple has gone and done something absolutely fabulous again: They purchased a time capsule A-frame chalet in Gatlinburg, Tennessee… spiffed it up… decorated with fab finds … and now have the place available for rental. It’s retro… it’s cheeky… it’s sexy… hubba, it’s: The Shaggin’ Chalet. The Shaggin’ Chalet’s website is officially launching today — and we get the exclusive! UPDATE: Jackie & Todd sold the Shaggin’ Chalet and got going on renovating and decorating the Groovy Getaway — see that amazing transformation here. The Chalet is no longer for rent — but I’ll keep this story up so we can remember the deliciousness!
I asked Jackie — Mrs. Furnish Me Vintage (FMV) — for a few tidbits on the whyfore and such.
She told us:
The why:
Our house hunt started as a mission to find a second home to flee the Florida heat. We stumbled upon Gatlinburg. Turns out this place is Tut’s tomb of MCM vacation homes. Downtown looks like a 1960s Alpine village — charming as the day is long. Realized this was the perfect opportunity to create the vacation home of our retro-loving dreams. We wanted to whip up a vintage retreat that felt as cozy as grandpa’s mountain lodge. A place where Elvis would go to escape the Graceland doldrums.
Design inspiration:
It’s a chalet atop a mountain in a forest. Our goal was to make it feel like a time capsule family vacation home. Mr. FMV loves mid-century Bavarian gothic. Not sure if that is a legitimate genre or if he made it up. It’s the stuff you might find in a 1950s/ 1960s dad’s rec room. Knotty pine, conquistador paintings, Witco wall art, cypress clocks, Syroco plaques with knights and torches. Man vintage. We became obsessed with finding retro rustic pieces for the cabin. I never knew I would develop such an admiration for Bob Ross knock-off landscapes. Nearly all the furniture, paintings and accessories came from our store. In fact, a few curtains were made from left-over upholstery fabric from furniture restorations. We took the haul up in two separate trips, 12 hours each way in a U-Haul. It was tough designing from a distance (Florida to Tennessee). We met only once with our contractor to get him on course and came back a month later to work side by side on the finishing touches. We think it worked out, but the renters will be the judge.
The cool thing about man cave 1970s decor — it’s not widely trendy (yet) and there was a lot of it, so you can get great deals… and, it packs a heckuva design wallop.
I showed my husband — who I guess I should now call Mr. RR — and heck yeah, he wants to sign right up for a week or two in this giant retro man cave. Take a look:
I asked Jackie about the kitchen floors. She said:
There was a beige commercial carpet on the kitchen floor.
We ripped this up to prep for the parquet tile application.
Funky original flower pattern carpet was then unveiled. It had some unforgivable stains so we were unable to salvage it.
The easy to clean, non-flammable parquet tile seemed more practical for a kitchen anyhow. [It’s Armstrong peel-and-stick, straight from the Home Depot.]
It helped create a more retro feel than the previous beige carpet.
Also helped bring out the green-tint to the pickled finish on the kitchen cabinets.
Foosball! I was recently on a family vacation — played some foosball just like this with my nephews. It was incredible fun. THE KIDS LOVED IT. It got them right off their galldarned video games! How to get your kids offffff the video games: Get a real foosball table!
This place is so sweet that there may be occasional, uninvited guests…
RC and Veronica Mears, fauxriginal owners
Jackie also told me about the fauxriginal (I made that word up, do you like it?) owners of the Shaggin’ Chalet. That is, they are fabricated people.
Mrs. FMV wrote me this poem-like email:
Did you see the section, “Meet the Mears?”
Those are fictional previous owners of the cabin.
It all started with a Cypress clock we found.
The clock had the name “Mears” and a Free Masons compass logo.
We knew we wanted it for the cabin so we figured we’d have to work that into a story some how.
Then about a week later we bought the female portrait from one of our suppliers.
Bingo! This was going to be Mrs. Veronica Mears, matron of the chalet.
Somehow Todd knew that as soon as he saw the painting.
We decide we would hang up the portrait in the cabin with a fictional bio framed beside.Bought the cabin, did some work.
Driving home, picking along the way.
Stop in Central Florida. Digging through a nasty heap.
We find the portrait of the Marco Rubio looking gent.
Voila! We have our Mr. Mears. Brought him up to the cabin on the next trip.I fabricated the bios based on some of the local history, features and attractions.
The name of the play that made Mr. Mears famous is “Granny’s Cookin Coon Soup — The Musical.”
Funny to anyone who pays attention as their driving the main strip of nearby Pigeon Forge (main route into Gatlinburg from the South or West).
There’s a silly sign in front of the Hatfield McCoy dinner show that incessantly flashes the phrase “Hungry? Granny’s Cookin!”
Hatfield McCoy dinner show is one of the top dinner theatre attractions in Pigeon Forge.
You two just crack me up. Thank you, Jackie and Todd, for letting us share your joyful decorating. Good luck with the chalet!
Link love:
- The Shaggin’ Chalet – now sold so no longer available for rental, but I’ll keep these photos up for the history.
- Furnish Me Vintage
Sandra says
You should switch the portraits so they look toward each other here on the page.
I’ll never fit the 70’s. Nice colors they had, but make me look jaundiced.
Those primary, secondary, and terciary 50’s colors fit me better.
jeanne says
Love it! Love the idea, the Chalet name, the location and the Fauxriginal bios and portraits! Next time I’m in St. Pete, I plan on stopping in the store (I’ve been there before pre-RR exposure). Growing up we spent summers in St. Pete (my family still lives there). We used to take 3 days to drive down (from Michigan) and stay in Motels (a very 60s thing to do) on the way. My dad always found one with a pool. I remember staying in Gatlinburg a few times. Such a nice vacation town! I still have some sourvenir trinkets from there in my childhood treasure “stash.” 🙂
linda h says
I still (after reading early this morning) can’t believe they named it the”Shaggin’ Chalet”, but it does look like fun. I guess I should visit the website to see how many people it can handle.
Ada says
I LOVE Furnish Me Vintage! I found them on facebook and love seeing all their ‘finds’! I’m always so sad that I’m not near them to visit the shop, but I’m just down the road from Gatlinburg! Next time some friends and I are looking to rent a cabin, there shall be only one option! This makes me so happy! Gatlinburg is quickly becoming as bland as the flooring selection at Home Depot, but this cabin shall be an imaginative, colourful, stylish oasis in the vast desert of mass produced, plastic, pseudo-hillbilly rubbish! Well done, Mr. and Mrs. FMV!!!
Pam says
Love the Shaggin’ Chalet! Looks like Veronica burned her bra.
Douglas Camin @ House on Rynkus Hill says
Pretty cool!
chutti says
Ah, Gatlinburg has sure changed a LOT, so I am glad to hear you’re preserving some of the mid century good times.
I spent a few summers there as a kid in the hey day….back when they turned on the one stoplight for summer and turned it off when winter came.
My grandma’s brother was quite the entrepeneur there, building all manner of tourist traps and anything he could to do with fiberglas.
The only one still left is the Gatlinburg Space Needle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatlinburg_Space_Needle
I spent a summer living with Grandma at Mystery Hill. I can still remember a lot of the sideshow barker style patter—“See gravity DEFIED, see water run UPHILL!” but my job as a little kid was to walk the parking lot with a big roll of bumper stickers that said “Where the H— is Mystery Hill” and put them on cars. No one would hit a kid, riiiight?
http://64.37.48.20/~oldgatli/Mystery_Hill_Pamphlet.html
Don’t get me started on the joys of playing pee wee golf all day, or the infamous “Earth Auger” ride at one of Uncle Bill’s golf courses in Pigeon Forge.
Yes, by all means, do keep some of the Gatlinburg glory days alive. It was really something to see back then. Your place sounds like the PERFECT spot to do it in!
Annie B. says
What a swingin’ place! It’s “Cal-Neva Lodge plus foosball”.
Stephanie Wheeler says
For once, I am within driving distance from one of these amazing places! You can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be getting some friends together to rent this place in the fall.
Robin, NV says
Aw yes, the Cal-Neva Lodge should definitely be on any MCM road trip agenda. Maybe I’ll head up there for my next weekend getaway. Across, the lake (Lake Tahoe, that is), Stateline has a nice little collection of mid century roadside motels complete with original neon signage. I should go up there and take a bunch of photos to post on my blog . . .
I love this Chalet cabin. Hopefully vacation renters will groove on the style and and not mistreat the place because it looks “old” or “dated.”
Robin, NV says
Oops, meant to reply to Annie B.
Annie B. says
Robin,
Please take those photos!
Liz says
LOVE IT! My basement is looking more 70s man cave these days…and I really can appreciate all that stuff as well as the 50s/60s MCM. Also as a side note, we have a cottage in a place called Mears. When I saw the picture I at first thought to myself, “Oh my gosh!! I wonder if that is the Mears from our area!”. LOL. Apparently not…but such a good story! 🙂