Our Location

Authentic experiences in Big East Fork Valley's protected hardwood forest

Our Mission

Immerse yourself in the sustainable oasis of Fork Inn Retreat, where we embody a mission centered on four key principles:

1. Stewardship Experience: Whether you choose an entire house or a room within a shared space, explore the Center for Sustainable Stewardship's Farm Store and Big East Fork Organic Farms. Opt to be a Steward, following our Guest Guidelines for Intentional Agritourism Communities. A dedicated CSS Stewardship Liaison ensures you're aligned with our sustainable mission.

2. Nature-Infused Events: Collaborate with the Center for Sustainable Stewardship to make your event as sustainable as desired. CSS (cssfamily.org) imparts sustainable education, offering farm-to-table dinners, farm tours, animal encounters, guided nature hikes, mushroom hunts, kayaking, canoeing, and bicycle tours.

3. Conservation Partnership: We join forces with the Big East Fork Nature Conservancy to protect the valley and uphold regenerative principles, including fostering forests (Mangroves, Proforestation, Peatlands, Agroforestry, Fire Ecology, Bamboo), rewilding (Beavers), and supporting local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).

4. Community Integration: Forge connections with Nashville/Franklin through our commitment to people, land, and the city. Rediscover a sustainable lifestyle that harmonizes with nature at Fork Inn Retreat.

Our Story

According to McPherson family lore, Cornelius McPherson (b. 1780 in Pasquotank, NC; d. Williamson County; son of Joseph MacPherson , b. ca. 1750, Kingussie, Scotland), was one of four brothers who left Scotland as indentured servants in 1765. Cornelius’ three sons moved moved to the valley in 1809. One of the three brothers owned three thousand acres along Little East Fork Creek (now along Hwy 96) by the Natchez Trace. He couldn’t read or write but loaned money to individuals by using different colored jars with beans or corn kernels to represent the amount borrowed and repaid. Another brother settled along Big East Fork Creek where a natural spring emerged from the side of a hill, the Indian Spring. A sawmill was located across the creek (near the present day Fork Inn Covered Bridge Farmhouse). In November 1864 the McPhersons could hear the cannons from the Battle of Franklin echoing over the hills behind their back porch. It was one of the worst disasters of the Civil War for the South. The battle resulted in devastating losses to the men and the leadership of the Army of Tennessee.

At the McPherson’s 600 acre homestead, hay gathering, hog killing, and corn harvesting were seasonal activities shared by the local community. Fifty pigs were slaughtered around Christmas time. Smoked, they would get the locals through the winter. Farm work was done by hand or the labor of mules; tractors were unheard of. Corn cribs, shaped with broad axes, were built out of poplar logs, some 30 feet long. Fields were separated by split rail fencing made from huge chestnut trees that were once the dominant species in the eastern hardwood forest, before they were wiped out by the great chestnut blight of the early 1900’s.

In 1926, during the Great Depression, the farm was auctioned off and bought by Eric, who purchased the land with a no-interest loan from his father-in-law. Eric ran one of the McPherson stores in Fernvale from age 13 to age 62 and married McPherson’s daughter. He managed the farm, raising hogs and letting them fatten themselves in the fall on fallen chestnuts and acorns they foraged from the forest. Time were tough during the depression, and after the banks foreclosed on all but 50 acres of the homestead, everyone (two families) moved into the now dilapidated house still falling down in front of the Fork Inn Barn. That’s where Sally died and she was buried in front of the Harrisons. The headstone, however, is still across the creek resting by the Covered Bridge Farmhouse, awaiting payment (Now there’s a story!). 

The farm raised corn and hay to feed its pigs, cows, goats, and chickens. Eric lost his leg (buried in the McPherson cemetery) in an accident when he was 32. His daughter became his legs and he harvested his corn from atop his horse. The McPhersons knew that the surrounding hollows were used by moonshiners, but the family ignored and avoided them. Old Joe and his grandfather picked apples from the orchard located by the cemetery and garden area, distributing them to neighbors.

The historic Natchez Trace, a backbone of north-south mountainous ridge, has long served native Americans and traders as a frontier trail. It is a natural barrier, protecting Big East Fork Valley from too much culture and civilization. Because of its isolation, our valley has several colorful associations with music legends. We have long been a haven for inspiration as well as a hide-out for those trying to avoiding the federal “revenuers” (whiskey tax collectors and enforcers of Prohibition). 

Singer songwriter Johnny Seay who lived “over the Hill”, wrote and sang “Willie’s Drunk and Nellie’s Dying”, the sad ballad of Willie York of Big East Fork who lived in front of the Pond Cottage right where the Farm Stand is now. Life Magazine did a feature article on Willlie in 1970. Either he or his brother (no one knows which brother did the deed, but one wouldn’t tell on the other so both were imprisoned in the Old Old Jail in Downtown Franklin) had killed the local deputy who had come upon their whiskey still back in ‘44. After serving 14 years of a 20 year sentence, Willie returned to his wife and children, and scratched out an existence for his poor family by the Pond Cabin.

Poor drunk Willie was visited on occasion by Canadian poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen (“Hallelujah”, “I’m Your Man”, “Everybody Knows”) who lived next door on the Bryant property (Hallelujah Barn) off-and-on from 1969 to 1971. Leonard was introduced to Big East Fork by legendary Columbia Records producer Bob Johnston (responsible for Bob Dylan’s Nashville albums “Blonde on Blonde” (1966) and “Nashville Skyline” (1968), as well as three Cohen albums, seven Johnny Cash Albums, and two with Simon and Garfunkel). Johnston was collaborating with the song-writing Bryants and had produced songs for Johnny Seay.

Cohen lived in the cabin of Nashville’s first professional songwriters, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who wrote many Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison tunes including “All I have to do is Dream” , “Bye Bye Love” , “Wake Up Little Susie”, “Love Hurts”', as well as Tennessee’s informal anthem, “Rocky Top.”). Fred Foster (producer and founder of Monument Records, who signed Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton) lived next door to the Bryants and directly across the road from the McPherson Farm at the Southern Hospitality Ranch. In addition to being the Bryants’ neighbor on Big East Fork, Fred worked in the same building as Boudleaux who had a secretary named Barbara McKee. Fred suggested that a young songwriter he had hired as janitor at Monument Records write a song using Barbara’s nickname, Bobby. That janitor, a promising Rhodes Scholar who had studied English literature at Oxford and had been offered a teaching position at West Point, was Kris Kristofferson. “Me and Bobby McGee,” became a hit and Janis Joplin’s most famous song, topping the singles charts in 1971 in the months following her tragic death. Leonard Cohen’s elegy for Joplin , “Chelsea Hotel #1,” which recalls his encounter with the Queen of Rock in Roll was crafted in the back of a plane as Leonard was flying from Nashville to Ireland for a concert. The lyrics include:

“Then I went down to Tennessee
Sat by the stream listening to nothing else but
Holding my honorable dream
Willie York from the Big East Fork
He came there to talk with me
And we fed the peafowl the bread for their pride
The stream there, it’s still running inside.”

You can still sit by that stream in front of Willie’s old place and reflect Janis Joplin’s life that burned too bright and too short.

In 1973, Joe’s great grandfather sold 600 acres (currently Southern Hospitality Ranch and the Huddleston Property) to Fred Foster (founder of Monument Records, who signed Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton). 

Just upstream, Mike Utley, keyboardist for Jimmy Buffet’s Coral Reefer Band (“Margaritaville”, “Cheeseburger in Paradise”), bought the old Willie York homestead and built the Parrot House (and for his mother-in-law, Chelsea Hotel Pond Cottage). The Barn-by-the Creek used by Willie York was refurbished by Mike and his wife Eva, and many a raucous party was had there in the seventies. Their friends, country singer-songwriter John Hiatt (“Thing Called Love”, “Have a Little Faith in Me”) and his wife Nancy, moved into Joe McPherson’s uncle’s 1910 farmhouse (the Covered Bridge Farmhouse) and adjacent 1820 log cabin which was brought over the creek by local legend Jim Leeson. Jim had previously brought the covered bridge from New Jersey in the ‘60’s. John Kay (“Born to be Wild”), lead guitarist of Steppenwolf lived on the ridge behind the McPherson farm (on Firetower Road). Joe Scaife, Billy-Ray Cyrus’ publisher (“Achy-Breaky Heart”, “Old Town Road”), bought the land around Stevens Lake, site of the 1950’s Boys Industrial Camp and 1970’s Girls Ranch from the Rotary Club. The area around this 7-acre lake is now the Headwaters Park, adjacent to the Lakeside Lodge . Rusted remains of long-abandoned whiskey stills quietly keep their secrets in the back hollows. So there’s a whole lotta music (as well as moonshine) in our hills of the Fork Inn Big East Fork Valley!

We look forward to your stay.

Jonathan and Lee Anne