Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (June 27, 2022) – This morning Dolly Parton visited the construction site of Dollywood’s HeartSong Lodge & Resort, her second hotel in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. The 302-room property is slated to open in late 2023.
“In its simplest form, HeartSong is about the Smoky Mountains and why I continue to come back home year after year,” Parton explained. “It is the place I recharge and stay grounded. The beauty of the mountains – at every hour and in every season – is simply an inspiration.”
Tucked away in a beautiful cove in the rolling foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, Dollywood’s HeartSong Lodge & Resort will welcome the outdoors in with high ceilings, exposed beams and natural layered textures. The resort will offer lodging options for multi-generational families and couples, including spacious family suites and bunk rooms that will feature touches inspired by the beauty of the Smokies.
The five-story resort will also feature themed suites and loft rooms tucked into the dormers. Many of the rooms will include balconies, which will provide sweeping views of the vast resort property. The Smoky Mountain lodge will feature four-story, lantern-inspired windows in the resort’s welcoming atrium, epic indoor and outdoor pools that will provide guests a refreshing escape in all seasons, and a picture-perfect outdoor cove with family gathering spaces.
With 26,000 square feet of flexible indoor and outdoor spaces, the property will be able to accommodate gatherings of several hundred guests. From the two-story HeartSong Event Center to spacious outdoor meeting spaces and an event lawn, the resort will offer a variety of options to provide unique and inspiring settings for everything from weddings and family reunions to corporate retreats and meetings.
HeartSong Lodge is being built adjacent to Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort and Spa, which opened in 2015 as the official resort for Dollywood theme park and Dollywood’s Splash Country water park. Welcoming more than 3 million visitors annually, the Pigeon Forge parks comprise Tennessee’s most-visited ticketed attraction and have been driving forces behind the Smoky Mountains’ tourism boom in recent years.
In addition to getting a look at construction progress this morning, Parton also accepted the Chestnut Conservation Champion Award on behalf of her late uncle Bill Owens, who was honored for his decades-long history of helping the American Chestnut Foundation create a blight-resistant chestnut tree. The new tree helped save the American chestnut after it was nearly eliminated by a fungal pathogen.
A special hybrid chestnut tree presented as part of today’s festivities will be planted in a place of prominence at HeartSong Lodge in honor of Owens. In addition, chestnut trees will be featured in the artwork that will adorn guest room walls throughout the resort.
Those in attendance at this event, which took place in what will eventually become HeartSong’s stunning atrium, also had the opportunity to tour Dollywood’s newest and most premium lodging offering, the “Suite 1986” Tour Bus Experience. Today, guests can begin booking stays on the Prevost tour bus that was Dolly Parton’s favorite home away from home for 15 years. The bus was recently acquired by Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort and Spa and has been transformed into the property’s ultimate suite, now situated on a permanent parking pad just behind the hotel. For more information, please visit www.Dollywood.com/Suite1986.
