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
John says
I LOVE this, i am for sure vacationing here
Shiloh says
Very well done…!
Amy Patterson says
Living in St. Pete, Central Avenue is the first place I take out of town visitors once they tire of the beach. Furnish Me Vintage is by far the highlight of the tour. Not just they drool-worthy furniture, but Jackie herself is so nice and engaging. She once spent 20 minutes talking to my NYC design school daughter about art, design and life in The Big Apple. Every few months I stop in to ogle the goods and without fail Jackie asks about my daughter.Such an awesome person with an awesome shop in an awesome town! But sometimes I wish I never ventured into Furnish Me Vintage for after buying a MCM credenza there, I want to Craigslist all my traditional furniture and replace it with treasures from her store. One can dream.
Kelly Wittenauer says
Very cool! Remember seeing another MCM house from the tram in Gatlinburg who’s roof was made from an airplane wing. It was a vacation retreat for airline execs, if I remember correctly.
When in Gatlinburg, check out The Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts. The entrance is nearly across from the aquarium. There’s a nice retail shop on the main road, but be sure to visit the actual school – where visitors are welcomed into the studios teaching everything from woodworking and quilting to photography and glassworking.
Chris Allen says
Absolutely stunning!!!! I am glad to see there are people who love the 1970’s as much as I do!!
Cheryl says
Love this! Our vintage cabin in the mountains has some of the same vintage features, including the stove, except ours is pale yellow! Does anyone know where I could get a new thermostat for it?
Jennifer Dyer says
What a great couple and what a great place!!! Todd and Jackie have outdone themselves on this chalet. I had the pleasure of seeing it before the transformation and you just cant truly appreciate it without seeing it for yourself so if you are ever looking for a place to get away from “it all” this is the place…the views of Mt. LeConte are breathtaking – and living here in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg I see a lot of these views each day…my family and I are honored to call Todd and Jackie our friends and we can’t wait for them to visit…GREAT JOB GUYS-it looks awesome!!!
Sean says
Awesome 60’s house! I love the stools in the kitchen with the slanted counter. Love the orange and paneling too.
Chris says
Too fun! I LOVE Gatlinburg! We vacationed many, many times in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when we were kids. My father absolutely loathed the tourist-trap aspect of Gatlinburg, but we begged and pestered and pestered and begged till we got to go. At least one night, we were able to stroll around in the joyful atmosphere of garish lights, with the smell of caramel corn and taffy in the air. There used to be a candle-makers shop there — I can still smell the scent of that place in my mind! We never got to go to that most wonderful of all places — the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum…. so a couple of years ago, I took my kids! Do any of you remember the Rebel Corner? Now THAT was a souvenir shop!!!!
This article makes me want to go back again! I will definitely look into the Shaggin’ Chalet if we do!
Kathy Merchant says
Wow, that 70’s man cave looks so well done it doesn’t even look like anything WAS done! Great job! Wish I was closer to Furnish Me Vintage but alas I’m in the north-land of Minnesota or I’d drop in to shop! We should have a day on RR where readers list their favorite retro places to shop in their local areas like when readers download photos of their RR stuff on the weekends! Anybody got a favorite Minneapolis/St Paul place to haunt?