At Satolah Creek Farm, Tux runs to greet arriving guests, joyfully leaping over fences, his tail wagging and a ball in his mouth.
The 60-pound black Lab-German shepherd mix, whom owner Pippa Seichrist took in after he was found abandoned at the Scaly Mountain dump, is usually the first animal visitors meet and, because he is so irrepressibly friendly, often the first friend they make.
One little girl arrived terrified of big dogs, hiding behind her parents whenever Tux wandered close. By the time her family left, the two were inseparable.
“He followed her everywhere,” owner Pippa Seichrist says, “just like she wanted him to.”
Kids fall for him so completely that goodbyes can end in tears.
Pippa Seichrist
One five-year-old sought Pippa out just to say goodbye to Tux and, crying, asked, “Do you think he’ll remember me?”
When children form an especially strong bond with him, Pippa asks their parents if Tux may write them a letter. She pens it herself, switching to her left hand so the writing looks properly dog-like, with lines such as, “Where you go? I miss you. When we play more?”
That tenderness is the real architecture of Satolah Creek Farm, where Pippa and her husband, Ron, host weddings, reunions, and family gatherings across 50 acres, nine miles south of Highlands. It’s the quality they have spent nearly four decades quietly building into the place. It’s there when a guest kneels to let a shy calf sniff her hand before scratching under its chin. It’s there in the walking stick a child decorates with feathers and beads one afternoon, then proudly displays on a living room wall far from the farm.
“That stick became a big keepsake,” Pippa says. “Those things are the most special.”
When guests arrive, they often tell Pippa about their planned excursions to surrounding mountain towns. Then somehow, they never leave the property. There’s too much to discover: horses, donkeys, and miniature Highland cows that wander over to be petted, a folk-art gallery, pottery and woodworking lessons, and a farm museum tracing the land’s owners back through farmers and bootleggers to the Cherokee.
Wander the woods and you might find a swing hanging from nowhere, or a scarecrow family named Maisy, Cornelius and Huckleberry the dog.
“There’s all this stuff to discover,” Pippa says. “It’s magical.”
That sense of discovery now has twice the room to unfold. For years, wedding parties, reunion groups, and vacationing families stayed in one of two houses – the Carriage House, near the horse pasture, and the Blackberry House, tucked deep in the woods – sleeping 20 between them.
But couples kept lingering after their weddings, and families kept asking for more room, until Pippa and Ron added two more: the Ridge House and the Garden House. Four houses now, and overnight capacity has doubled from 20 guests to 40. Wedding-day attendance remains capped below 150.
Each house has its own playful atmosphere. The Carriage House sits close enough to hear the horses breathing. The Blackberry House disappears into the forest, its furniture handmade by Ron down to the last cabinet – tables carved with his favorite lines of poetry, sunrise photographs of the farm turned into tabletops.
The new Ridge House perches on a ridge backing the national forest, a healthy hike from the West Fork of the Chattooga, its glass walls framing the mountains, its beds built from rhododendron, its kitchen island cut from live-edge walnut. Deer wander at the foot of the balcony; a fawn was born just beyond the house. The top floor can be rented on its own, private as its own small world.
The Garden House, set beside a stream and across from a pasture of the Seichrists’ miniature Highland cows, feels like the home of a distant relative who lives in the country and you’d only ever heard stories about – a woodpecker door knocker that pecks when you pull its chain, porches so full of swings and books that, as Pippa puts it, “people kind of live on the outside,” a chicken coop out back for gathering your own eggs, and upstairs, a bonus room the kids have nicknamed the Harry Potter room.
Everywhere, the same handmade signature turns up: stair railings made from sticks that honeysuckle vines have twisted into spirals, some carved with snakes you have to grab to climb the stairs. In the end, it was never really about the houses.
“It’s a loving place of joy and discovery,” Pippa says. “It just happens that there are four houses, and they’re all different.”
The houses welcome wedding parties and reunion groups, but they can also be booked independently by families, couples or anyone craving a few days at the farm.
For lodging information, Airbnb booking links, or questions about events, visit satolahcreekfarm.com/farm-stays, call (706) 989-9669 or email pippa@satolahcreekfarm.com.
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