Welcome

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Rev. William Lawson Morgan bought a plot of land midway up a rugged "hollow" and built a two-story house where he and his wife Matilda raised their family. Rev. Morgan, an itinerate mountain evangelist, preached the Gospel through the mountains during the winter months, and in the summer farmed the land and provided for his family's needs. As adjacent acres became available, he purchased them until by the time of his death in 1924, he had accumulated 121 acres reaching all the way to the river at the foot of the mountain.

During World War II, several of the couples' children became concerned that their aging and widowed mother was isolated up a hollow with no road, no communication, no plumbing or electricity, and no way in or out except by foot over mountain trails. Because the nation's resources were being devoted to the war effort, they hired a friend, Jim Arnett, a part-time preacher, to cut down a grove of trees on the front side of the property and build a log cabin.

On weekends, Arnett would walk from Dennis Cove (near Roan Mountain) to Curtis Creek (near Banner Elk) to preach, and his pay would sometimes amount to only thirteen cents. During the week, he supplemented his meager income with manual labor. Arnett cut the logs from trees on the Morgan property and built the cabin in 1941. There Matilda lived until her death in 1959.

Years later their son, John and Edith Morgan, who had purchased the property from the siblings, expanded the cabin and moved there themselves. After their deaths, their children, Robert John Morgan and Ann Morgan Campbell, unable to part with property which had been in their family for three generations, opened it as Roan Mountain Bed and Breakfast with the surrounding property designated as a tree farm.

"Our mother always wanted to run a little hotel in the mountains," said Robert. "In the early years of their marriage, she tried to get my father to purchase the old Cloudland Hotel, but he was a school teacher and an apple grower-not an innkeeper."

The village of Roan Mountain sits at the base of the second highest mountain peak east of the Rockies, affectionately known as "The Roan." We are in the Eastern Time Zone. Average summer temperate is in the mid-70s, although some days may reach the mid-80s and, on rare occasions, in the 90s. (Roan Mountain Bed and Breakfast has central heat and air-conditioning). Average winter temperature is in the mid-30s, although it is possible to become snowbound on rare occasions.

We are a non-smoking home (smoking on the outside only).