Retro Guesthouse : Boat & RV Parking, Great central location.

We landed in Florence rather than grew up here, and ended up spending a good while with the title abstract and local historians tracing the history of our own house. That research is part of why the main house now carries a historic plaque. It tells you something about us — we like knowing where things came from.

Erin and I have hosted here four years. I'm a network architect; outside work I'm usually hiking, kayaking, or birdwatching along the Tennessee River.

Check-in is fully self-service, so you never need to coordinate with us to arrive. We're often on-site and always reachable by message, and happy to meet if you'd like recommendations.

The house wasn't on any registry when we bought it. We pulled the title abstract, worked with local historians to trace it back, and used what we found to get it recognized by the Florence Historic Preservation Commission. It's known as the Old Jackson Home, and the research turned up as much about Lakeside Highlands itself as about the house.

Lakeside Highlands was laid out in 1926 by a young Sheffield developer who bet everything on the Shoals boom that Wilson Dam and Henry Ford were supposed to bring. He hired a national designer for the streets, ran a contest to name the place, and paved it with distinctive red sidewalks. Then the boom never came, and only three houses were built. Nothing more went up until the 1950s.

Our main house is the oldest of them- The Old Jackson Home, which the developer remodeled as his own home. All three original houses still stand. Walk a few minutes up East Lakeside Drive and you can still see the pink cast of those 1920s sidewalks in from of the Norquist and Hill houses.

Veterans Park is near by. Wilson Lake is two minutes out, McFarland Park and the public boat ramp about six, and downtown Florence about the same. It's quiet the way an old neighborhood is quiet, without being far from anything.

The guesthouse began as the servants' quarters for the main house, later ran as a salon, and was converted into a full guesthouse before we bought it.

Most of the furniture came with the place. We bought from a woman who ran antique shops in town and she left much of it behind — so the retro character isn't a staging decision, it's what was already here. We added the artwork and a shelf of books and games.

The driveway is the practical part: it fits a boat trailer or an RV, which is rare this close to downtown.