Mayna Treanor Avent Studio facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Mayna Treanor Avent Studio
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The Avent Cabin, near Elkmont
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| Location | Jake's Creek Trail, 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Elkmont |
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| Nearest city | Elkmont, Tennessee |
| Built | 1850 |
| NRHP reference No. | 93001575 |
| Added to NRHP | February 7, 1994 |
The Avent Cabin is a historic old cabin located in the beautiful Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Elkmont, Tennessee. It's special because it was once used as a summer art studio by a famous artist named Mayna Treanor Avent (1865–1959). This unique cabin is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which means it's an important historical site.
Contents
The Cabin's Story: History and Design
This cabin was built a long time ago, around 1850, by the Ownby Family. It was made from strong poplar logs and started as just one room. The roof is shaped like a triangle (called a gable roof), and it has a chimney made of cobblestones and concrete outside. The cabin sits on a stone foundation.
The main part of the cabin is about 16 feet wide and 23.5 feet long. The logs fit together using a special "half dovetail" notch, and the gaps between them were filled with mud and concrete to keep out the cold. When it was first built, the cabin only had one window and one door, and no stone fireplace. Two of the entrance doors you see today were added around 1910. At the back, there's a small addition with a sloped roof that holds a kitchen and an enclosed porch.
Changes Over Time
In 1918, Frank Avent, Mayna Avent's husband, bought the cabin for $200 from the Ownby family. They updated it in 1926 to look more like it does now. In 1932, the cabin and its 18.5 acres of land were given to the National Park Service. However, the Avent family, specifically Frank and Mayna's son James and his wife Jeannette, were allowed to keep using it until 1992.
Some big changes were made in 1972, but when the Avent family's lease ended in 1992-1993, some of these changes were removed. This was done to make the cabin look more like it did when Mayna Avent used it as her art studio. Today, it's the only original cabin built by early settlers that still stands in its first spot along Jake's Creek.
A Special Art Studio
Mayna Avent started using the cabin as her art studio in 1919 and continued to paint there for over 20 years. To make it a better place for art, some changes were made. For example, to get more light, a large window was added on one side. A glass-paned door was also put in, leading to the porch, which let in even more light. A stone fireplace and chimney were built inside, making the studio cozy.
Finding the Cabin: Its Location
The Avent Cabin is located about 1 mile south of Elkmont, Tennessee, on the west side of Jake's Creek Valley. You can reach it by walking on the Jake's Creek Trail, which passes about 200 yards east of the cabin. A small path leads down to Jake's Creek, crosses an old road, goes over the creek on a footbridge, and then climbs up a steep hill where the cabin sits.
The cabin is high up, at an altitude of 2,700 feet, overlooking the beautiful Jake's Creek Valley. The Ownby family, who first built the cabin, cleared small areas of the forest to grow apples, potatoes, and corn, and even to keep bees. They built stone walls to help flatten the land for their farming, and you can still see some of these walls today.
Gallery
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Sign below Cabin
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Kitchen Entrance
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Exterior Chimney and corner detail with a stone retaining wall.
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Porch
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Interior Loft From Below
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Fireplace
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Interior Loft Ladder
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Bridge Crossing Jake's Creek below
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Jake's Creek Upstream View
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View across Jake's Creek Valley
