History of the Christmas Farm Inn

Part jail, part church, part farm house - few country inns have as fragmented a history as the Christmas Farm Inn & Spa.  Sadly, most of the official records of the inn’s early years were destroyed by a fire in the courthouse in 1886, but some remnants of those roots have been passed down through time.

The original building - the front section of the red house - was built more then 200 years ago. This Cape Cod-style “saltbox” is believed to have been built in 1778.  It was the farmhouse of the Rufus Pinkham family.

The front portion of the white main building was erected about 1786 and became the new Pinkham homestead. The red house was then converted to storage use. Although, at one point, the red house served as the local jail!

The property passed through several owners before Chase B. Perkins acquired it from his brother in 1883. The Jackson Falls House (1858), the town’s first hotel, had been built at the foot of the hill. Long closed, this grand hotel was torn down in 1979. As more visitors came to the area, Chase Perkins decided inn keeping would be a profitable sideline to the ever-risky farming business.

Before long, “Perkins Cottages” were doing so well that Chase had to expand. An addition to the Main Inn was extended out behind the original two stories, but even that wasn’t enough. Guests at this time were almost totally summer visitors.

Rather then build again, Chase decided to move the abandoned Free Will Baptist Church from just up the road and attached it to the back part of the Inn. The structure was jacked up, lowered onto logs, and pulled here by oxen where it was secured to the existing Inn. This structure had been built in 1803 as Jackson's first church. A tablet still marks the original location a mile toward Black Mountain at the “triangle.” Stand outside the Main Inn facing the porch and you can clearly see the outline of the old church.