For the Love of Gatlinburg: S1, E13 — Gatlinburg's Real Estate Renaissance

Jason White's family moved to Gatlinburg in 1982, when his parents took over what was then Chalet Village Real Estate — originally Aetna Insurance Company's development arm for the roughly 1,600-lot Chalet Village neighborhood covering the mountain above Gatlinburg. The business was renamed Century 21 Four Seasons, and Jason, now the broker overseeing a seven-agent team, started working there in eighth grade folding sheets and towels in the laundry room — a skill he jokes has made him the office's "designated fitted sheet folder" to this day.

Jason's childhood in Chalet Village included converting BMX bikes into makeshift downhill racers (with maintenance staff driving them back up the mountain to do it again), a brief stint at a one-room schoolhouse called Greenbrier Academy, and eventually Pi Beta Phi and Gatlinburg-Pittman High School before earning an economics degree at the University of Tennessee and returning straight into the family business. He built his career through the 2008 recession — a stretch when his business cost more to run than it earned — before riding the market back up through the 2016 wildfires and the pandemic-era real estate boom that followed.

The conversation covers Jason's role developing The Highlands, a luxury condominium project replacing a beloved 1980s-era complex that burned in the 2016 fires — many of whose new buyers are repeat guests carrying forward family memories from the original building — as well as his perspective on responsible development, Gatlinburg's changing investment landscape, and the story of his own wedding: held in the dining room of the LeConte Lodge, the morning after the season's first snowfall.

• Chalet Village started it all. Originally developed by Aetna Insurance Company, the roughly 1,600-lot Chalet Village neighborhood was home to some of Sevier County's first short-term vacation rentals back in the 1980s — decades before "short-term rental" was even a common term.
• A childhood spent folding sheets and racing bikes. Jason started working in the family business in eighth grade folding laundry, and as a kid, he and friends converted BMX bikes into downhill racers, riding from the top of Ski View Drive to the bottom of Ski Mountain Road while maintenance staff drove them back up to do it again.
• The Highlands rose from the ashes of a beloved complex. The original Highlands condominiums, managed for years by Mike Adams, burned in the 2016 wildfires; the new development preserves the same unobstructed Mount LeConte and downtown Gatlinburg views, with many buyers being people who grew up visiting the original building with their families.
• A recession that tested his resolve. Jason recalls years during the 2008 recession when his business cost more to operate than it brought in — a stretch that pushed many others out of the industry, but one he pushed through simply because real estate was "the only thing I really knew how to do."
• The fires reshaped the literal landscape. Roughly 500 homes were lost in Chalet Village alone, with only a handful of structures surviving — an experience Jason describes as physically disorienting, driving through a neighborhood he'd known his whole life with no landmarks left standing.
• Preserving Arrowmont mattered to the community. When developers considered demolishing the historic Arrowmont arts and crafts school (a Hubert Bebb-designed building tied to the original Pi Beta Phi settlement school), local advocacy helped preserve the structure even as Anakeesta was built around it.
• Married at the LeConte Lodge. Jason and his wife got married in the lodge's dining room in October 2009 — the first snowfall of the season fell the night before — with about 15 guests who hiked up, including friends who happened to already be staying at the lodge and joined the ceremony by coincidence.
• Bigger isn't always better. Jason is candid that new vacation home construction across the county has sometimes prioritized bedroom count and amenity packages over scale and site sensitivity — pointing to well-scaled two- to five-bedroom homes, including one-bedroom cabins that can rent up to 300 nights a year, as an underappreciated investment sweet spot.