An Interview with Scott and Sheri Schmidt, owners of Cabin on the Rocks…

We live in Illinois. We’ve owned an excavating company since 1984 and also farm. We are the seventh generation on our family farm. We love to travel and have been to several different places over the past years but we have always loved Tennessee, especially the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area. We as a family decided we wanted to build a log cabin there.

We picked the Wears Valley area – it is so beautiful. We bought 3.5 acres of woods, and we put in the driveway and cleared the land for the home and dug the basement ourselves in September 2020. The best part about it is that it is secluded and peaceful but yet just about a 15-minute beautiful drive to Pigeon Forge or about 30 minutes to Gatlinburg. We have a beautiful view of the Smoky Mountains and of Wears Valley.

We have always loved staying in real log homes. We have stayed in several cabins and liked certain things about each one, so we came up with our own plan, had an architect draw it up. We stayed in our friends’ log home built by Honest Abe and was very impressed with it. We then took our plan to Wayne Brady, the sales representative at Honest Abe’s Crossville, Tennessee, model home and sales center, who our friends recommended to us. SO glad we did. Wayne was so wonderful and helpful to work with. We would absolutely choose Wayne and Honest Abe again.

We loved the Crossville model home – the dovetailed D-logs and especially the color. Our final home plan included 8” logs and a truss and heavy timber roof system with 1,450 SF on the main level and a loft that brings the total to 1,750 SF.

We were very lucky to find our contractor, Hunter Construction from Wears Valley/Sevierville, who did an awesome job. Before finding him, we ran into quite a few issues with subcontractors. We suggest to others building a log home that they find a contractor who is familiar with the log home rough-in process.

In March 2022, there was a large fire in Wears Valley on Hatcher Mountain, which is the mountain we are on. The fire started about 1/4 a mile from our home, approximately 3,700 acres were destroyed and hundreds of structures were destroyed. Our home was fully framed and in the process of inside completion. Many homes around us were burnt to the ground. Somehow ours was spared. We are thinking it was saved because of the new construction site, from having dirt and rock all around it and prayers from our family and friends.

We love Aspen wood, so both of our bedroom sets are Aspen wood and a few other pieces.

We found a bear-themed cast iron loft railing and brought it from Illinois. We brought our mantel for our fireplace from Illinois also and built the stone around that piece.

Our living room has 22’ vaulted ceilings with cross beams. We have large windows in the living room, and both bedrooms have glass sliding doors to walk out to the deck for a panoramic view.

The house was finished in February 2023. Our favorite things about the cabin are the view from the deck and the cozy, log cabin feel. We go as often as we can, but we also have it as a Rental through Auntie Behlam’s Cabin Rental.