Our Story
Little Cabins, Big Vibes.
BlairBnB is two little homes on the banks of the Buffalo River in Perry County, Tennessee, about an hour west of Nashville.
It's a place for getting away, certainly. But more than that, it's a place for making things.
A song. A story. A quilt. A drawing. Dinner for your friends. Or perhaps just a cup of coffee you actually get to sit down and finish.
That creative spirit isn't something we invented for BlairBnB. It was here long before the name was.
01Quilting
The First Stitch
In the early 2000s, Cheryl Milligan and her husband Paul bought what we now call the Lodge. Cheryl had a dream of creating a place to quilt, work and make things beside the river, and Paul, who had worked in construction for years, began architecting that vision into what would become the Barn.
The Barn’s unusual glass-roofed turret, now the dining area, was originally designed to hold a staircase leading to an upper level. But the Milligans never completed the interior before the property passed into new hands.
Built by hand.
02Ceramics + confectionery
Bang On...
The next chapter belonged to Sarah Souther, an Irish ceramic artist and founder of Nashville’s legendary Bang Candy Company (opens in a new tab), who completed the spaces with an artist’s eye for color, texture and slightly unexpected details.
Her personality is still particularly visible in the Barn — colorful, a little peculiar, and completely itself.
Sarah has since returned to Ireland, where she manages her family home, Lismacue House (opens in a new tab), a Georgian country house in County Tipperary where, appropriately enough, you can also stay.
Sarah's next chapter →Lismacue HouseCounty Tipperary, Ireland(opens in a new tab)Cabin queen
Sarah made it colorful. We kept it that way.
03Music, poetry + design
So why BlairBnB?
After a decade of friendship — and a shared love of motorcycling and mischief — Sarah passed the cabins on to Scottish musician, poet and designer Blair McMillan.
There was a shared understanding behind it: keep the spirit of the place alive, and keep it somewhere creative people in Middle Tennessee could disappear to for a while.
BlairBnB is the continuation of that idea.
Not an artists’ colony. Not a formal residency. Just a good place to disappear for a few days and see what happens.
Around the cabins
Art at the Heart
Across the Lodge and Barn is a growing collection of work by independent Tennessee artists, including Frances Berry (opens in a new tab), Harry Underwood (opens in a new tab) and Laura Baisden (opens in a new tab).
Many of Sarah’s original ceramic pieces still grace the shelves, too.
The idea isn’t to create a gallery. It’s simply to surround people with interesting things made by other people — and perhaps provide a little spark for whatever you’re working on yourself.
And then there’s the river.
The Buffalo does most of the heavy lifting.
Turtles gather along the banks. Ducks drift past. Swifts cut through the sky. Every so often an otter makes an appearance.
But BlairBnB is as much a part of Perry County as it is a place to escape to. We’re proud to be here, and we want the cabins to contribute something to the community around them.
The people who keep BlairBnB running are local. Our cleaning team, grounds staff and maintenance workers are all independent Perry County residents, and whenever we can, we choose to spend locally and work with people who call this place home.
The same goes for the river. The Buffalo is a big part of what makes this place special, and we’re passionate about looking after it, respecting the land around it, and doing what we can to leave our little stretch of Perry County better than we found it.
You can kayak, float, explore — or simply sit down and watch.
It turns out boredom, in the right surroundings, can be remarkably productive.
Come make something.
Bring the novel you keep saying you're going to start. Bring a guitar. Bring a sketchbook. Bring some friends.
Or bring absolutely nothing.
Stay in the Lodge, the Barn, or take both and make the whole property yours.
Come to the river. Stay awhile. See what you make.
Find your place