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In the 1920's the McSween family of Newport, Tennessee built the Bonnie Brae Cabin for a place to escape the summer heat. Since that time the home has hosted many visitors and many have enjoyed the peaceful mountain air and refreshing creek that flows in front of the cabin.

Donald and Louise McSween moved into the home to live for a short while until their in town home could be remodeled. They quickly fell in love with Bonnie Brae Cabin and decided to stay for many years to come. Donald wrote a history of the home before his death and the following pages relive those fun days in Carson Springs.

After the home was completely remodeled and updated in the 1970's, the property was purchased by Joe and Charlotte Overholt. They are now making the home available for rental so that many people can enjoy the history and charm of this unique location.

THE STORY OF THE BONNIE BRAE CABIN IN CARSON SPRINGS:

The only way to relate the history of a house, is to tell something of those who dreamed of it, built it, lived in it and loved it - and a bit about those who visited there and partook or its hospitality and, in so doing, perhaps, left
behind something of themselves to be woven indelibly into the over-all fabric of wood, atone and mortar- which constitutes its physical being.
These are the necessary ingredients to achieve the end Edgar A. Guest had in mind when he wrote "It Takes a Takes a Heap O' Livin' In It to Make a House a Home".
The writer and Bonnie Brae Cabin at Carson Springs, Tennessee were conceived at approximately the same time, went through their early years, adolescence, and well into their maturity together and it can be said that each had a deep and
lasting effect on the other.

They shared good times and bad, elation and heartache, victory and loss. So, perhaps only one can properly document the story of the other. And, as Bonnie Brae, for all its virtues and rich past, is inanimate and cannot speak, then it falls
to the animate and articulate one to tell the tale.
This chronicle covers the period from the acquisition of the original site in 1914 to November 15, 1977 when it passed out of McSween hands. It does not attempt to follow a strict chronological format nor to narrate the many years - or the
countless hours and days making up those years - when ordinary normal living went on within its walls.

Many, many people who were not known nationally regionally, or throughout the state enjoyed its delights and its former owners look back on their presence with as much pleasure and warm memories as that accorded their more noted visitors.
I am sure that if logs and stones could speak, those comprising Bonnie Brae would thank their long-time owners for turning it over to
Friends and those who know and respect its history and heritage and wish to carry on its pride and tradition.
May the future of "This Old house" be as bright and full of' "livin'", as its past.

Donald and Louise McSween

Written in 1977