Our story
The Skyline Village Inn has been a landmark adjacent to the Blue Ridge Parkway for 70 years. In 1938 John Greer bought the land next to the Parkway and started making moonshine in a cavern just off the road on what is now NC 226 Alt. The US Government had begun construction of the Parkway only 3 years prior and had plans to construct a bridge over NC 26 (now 226A). John made plans to construct a gas station and store alongside the Parkway. He funded these plans with the money he made selling moonshine.
By 1942 John had completed building the store, gas station, and a residence on the southeast side of the Parkway on a very steep incline falling sharply 2000 feet over 4 miles.
After completing his residence and gas station, John was ready to start excavation for his most ambitious enterprise yet: building the Skyline Village Inn right across the street. According to John’s nephew, Joe Turbyfill, John made a deal with the state that if the state paid for the excavation for the hotel he would concede the right of way. The only problem: John did not want a state contractor discovering his still operation. So John stipulated that his cousin would get the contract.
So they began the project in 1942 just after the beginning of WWII when many supplies for materials were usually either restricted from purchase or rationed. This probably slowed John’s progress, but it did not stop him. He was determined to finish what he started. For example, steel rebar was in short supply, so John substituted what he could find available: Railroad tracks! We have come across several of these in the building walls while doing renovations.
Another story related to building materials surfaced one day when a man named Lee Waycaster came in and introduced himself. In 1947, he was 15 years old and working for John. While trying
to decide what kind of building materials he was going to use for the floors and walls throughout the building, John told Lee about the construction company building the American Thread Plant in the Woodlawn area that might have extra East Tennessee marble they would possibly be willing to sell. John had another idea. He sent Lee to negotiate a deal to trade moonshine for the marble. Lee managed to negotiate the deal and said he made more than a dozen trips up and down what is now NC 226A taking moonshine down and bringing marble back up!
The Greer family suffered the tragic loss of John’s first wife Eva in 1947 when she was struck by lightning while bathing in the second story apartment under the overlook. John continued the building project and opened the inn for business in 1948. The following is a postcard from 1948 showing the gas station and overlook/apartment on the south side of the road.
When completed, the Skyline had 32 rooms. Some of the rooms shared a bathroom. All the rooms were small. Some had no windows and therefore no ventilation. The inn had oil-fired radiator heat in the winter and of course no air conditioning until much later! I was under the impression that John had to move the still because he was venting it from the cave under what was now a busy parking lot.
A few years ago I had a visit from one of John’s nieces and her teenage grandchildren. I showed them around pointing out some of the wood inlay furniture and the paneling that John had made, but I hadn’t mentioned the moonshining. One of the kids picked up a postcard had been inscribed with “Skyline Inn 1948. Built on moonshine money.” They read this and their grandmother said “Yes. Uncle John was known for his moonshine!” I then asked if she would like to visit the cave where the shine was made and she agreed. We showed the kids the cave and I told them John had closed the cave and moved the still when he opened the hotel. She said, “Well… that’s not quite right”. She said further, “He continued making moonshine here for several months and covered the vent hole with a rock around check-in time each day"; I stood corrected.
John died of leukemia at Duke Hospital in Durham in 1962 at the age of 59. His son, Hubert, inherited the business. From what we are told, Hubert discontinued making moonshine, but bootlegged whiskey from ABC stores in Hickory and Asheville until he was finally able to obtain a license to sell beer. The licensing came about sometime in the 1990s. While renovating we actually found a couple of bottles of Hubert’s bootleg whiskey hidden in a firebreak in a bathroom wall. The bottle was a pint of Jack Daniels dated 1966. The other bottle was dated the same year but was 175th anniversary Jim Beam. Hubert passed away in 1995 and his wife Lettie then sold the business to a local family in 1997. They sold the business to us in 2004.
The business was in disrepair when we purchased it. We have updated almost everything about it and we try to bring it up to date without harming the character of the building, which we cherish. We have built a sewer line from the hotel to 1.5 miles down NC 226 at Wal-Mart in Grassy Creek. We have renovated each of the guest rooms and tried to use materials that match the character of the building. We completely rebuilt the plumbing system using modern material such as PEX to ensure there is no rust or other remnants of outdated plumbing. The water system is state of the art, using a series of filters and an Ozonater to purify the wonderful mountain water. We look for ways to continually improve and upgrade the facility. Two years ago, we replaced the flat roof with a pitched roof. This was probably our biggest project yet.
