Lily Barn and Company in the News Again!

It is exciting to watch a special place evolve, and under the careful tutelage of one of Knoxville's doctors, we are fortunate to be sharing in the growth and expansion of the Lily Barn, one of Townsend, Tennessee's treasures.

What began as a 67 acre field of a few lilies with an antique 1880s cantilevered barn has been transformed into a 95 acre fairyland of waterways, covered bridges, a gift shop, rustic cabins, a pavillion, a gazebo, a tree maze and a greenhouse. There is no charge to tour the exquisite landscape and the owners, Dr. Janice Fillmore and her husband Steve, co-owner of Maryville's Foothills Contracting, were able to parlay a $10,000 gift from Janice's mother into the extensive plantings of lilies and wildflowers that cover the multi-faceted complex today.

"We lived and breathed this land when we first began with the gardens and construction," relates Janice Fillmore. She remembers carrying buckets of water with her friend and helper, Brenda Stewart, before an irrigation system was established.

"We were just hoping and praying that something would bloom," said Brenda. And the blooms didn't fail them. Open year-round, the Lily Barn is an "English-style lily garden that looks as if it has always been there, tucked away into nature's landscape," said Debbie Willbourne, the general manager of the place. "This is just nature at it's best. You just have to see if for yourself," Debbie added.

Dr. Fillmore is passionate about gardening, beauty and the mountains and she does her best to hide any efforts at commercialization, saying the raison d'etre of the Lily Barn"doesn't involve mounds of concrete and commercialization. That's not (commercialization) what I remember about going to the mountains as a child. I remember nature and the beauty of it all."

In the last year and a half, Dr. Fillmore has also added the Heartland Little River Wedding Chapel to her porfolio of properties, and then at the beginning of July, she opened Miss Lily's Cafe Floral and Gifts, just a few miles from the Lily Barn. Catering for weddings and other current events is available and the bakery is open daily to the public.

Multi-tasked, multi-talented and multi-familied, the alliance of the Fillmores's and daughter, arah Fillmore Greeway, with the well-known family of Willbournes, famed local artist John and wife, Debbie, GM of the property, along with Willbourne daughter, Rachel, bring assets galore to the planning tables of this remarkable group of people. Maybe this is just the beginning of a creative exploration into all the possibilities that are inherent in this beautiful mountain community? We certainly look forward to reporting on anything new they choose to introduce.

The vibrance of the Fillmore/Willbourne families and their stories echoes a similar emergence in Townsend of other new developments that have sparked the imagination and ingenuity of residents and developers there. We are just as excited about the new Smoky Mountain Heritage Center and the Trillium Cove Appalachian Center that are going up on Townsend's main street.

We applaud them all and look forward to our next trip to Townsend, Tennessee.