Lakes in Knoxville Area (Franklin, Maryville: homes, neighborhoods, living in)

[bomashisha]

Hello all. My husband and I have visited Tennessee several times in the last 3 years looking for a home on a lake that is near a city. Just to give you an idea, we currently live in East Texas on a small lake about 2-1/2 hours east of Dallas. We have lived northwest of Dallas since 1982 and I have always loved the area, but my husband is a fisherman and prefers to live in a more peaceful area. Since the Dallas area has gotten quite a bit congested, we decided to make the permanent move to our lake cabin. I never thought I would say this because it is beautiful here, but that's about all there is to do. There are a few restaurants around and a very small hospital just outside of town. Any type of "decent" shopping requires an hour's drive.

So, looking around Tennessee, we found Franklin which I loved (specifically Leiper's Fork) and started looking at lake homes on Old Hickory Lake. We spent several weeks in that area and decided it wouldn't work for us. As a result, we started focusing on areas near Knoxville. A really pretty area we found is near Maryville on Tellico Lake and I believe the mailing address may be Morganton or Greenback in Loudon County. Unfortunately, when we visited that area, we did not go into Maryville to look around, so I have no idea if it would suit my needs.

I've read through several of the threads here about Maryville and still not sure about it, although it sounds like a really great place to live. We are planning a visit soon and will check it out, but I was hoping for a little reassurance that this might be an area where my husband could enjoy living on a lake and shopping/restaurants would not be too far away. We've also been to two areas near Tellico Plains and although it is gorgeous, we just weren't sure about the distance to shopping and good restaurants.

It appears Maryville has alot of what we are looking for and I have been to Turkey Creek and really like it. I just don't want to have to travel long distances. We've been told Maryville is about 15 minutes from where we would live and I just want to know if that sounds realistic. In one of the threads, I read a comment that said that the Maryville area had started a downtown revitalization but that it had stopped because of the economic downturn. I did note that this comment was from 2011.

Thank you for any and all comments.

[grampaTom]

Maryville is fairly handy to Tellico and Fort Loudon lakes as well as stream fishing for smallmouth bass and trout. You also might want to consider living in Tellico Village so you can shop in the Farragut area of Knoxville (great shopping).
Also in the village you have exercise centers, pools and restaurants plus a marina for your boat.
Were you living on Lake Fork? I have spent many wonderful hours fishing there when I lived in Oklahoma. My wife and I will be moving to the Tellico area next spring and if you and your husband do move there have him send me a private message and we'll do some fishing together.
Outside of Tellico Village and Maryville there are numerous neighborhoods on Fort Loudon Lake with many listings you can check online

[bomashisha]

Thank you, grampaTom.

My husband and I live on Lake Winnsboro although we thought alot about moving to Lake Fork. We've visited Tellico Village and even looked at a few homes. The only drawback for us was that many of the homes were on smaller lots and we are looking for something with about an acre.

Not sure if you know but two years ago Lake Fork (as well as most of Texas) was in bad shape - docks sitting outside of the water and not just a little - a lot.

Thankfully with all the rain we've had, it is filled up nicely and is still one of the best fishing lakes around.

Should we decide on Tellico Village, we'll get in touch.

Thank you so very much.

[grampaTom]

Good luck!!