Tom Boyd sounds confident that his Ancient Lore Village at Boyd Hollow will be built, despite organized opposition from some neighbors and postponement of consideration by Knoxville-Knox County Planning.

On Boyd’s behalf, architect Daniel Levy applied to rezone the land for commercial use and amend the area’s sector plan. Those changes were to be considered at the Feb. 14 planning commission meeting. But when some neighbors organized as “Keep the Urban Wilderness Peaceful” to oppose the project, Boyd’s group requested a delay for public discussion, hoping to allay neighbors’ fears.

Senior Planner Liz Albertson said the official request is for a 30-day postponement, until March 14, but applicants may request another month or two before that runs out.

Matthew Cross, speaking for Boyd at two public meetings so far — one organized by opponents and the other by developers — has said it will be held for 60 days at least.

Should the rezoning and sector plan amendment pass planning commissioners, they still must win Knox County commissioners’ approval.

Is April 2020 still target date?

But that isn’t going to slow down the project timeline, which anticipates completion by April 2020, Boyd said Wednesday.

“There is no delay,” he said. “We’re building this now.”

The site has already been prepared as much as possible without requiring permits, Knox County Commissioner Larsen Jay said at a Monday public meeting.

Boyd said site infrastructure will take the longest to build, and he’s contracting that work out in advance so he can move fast upon receiving approval. The visible structures, down to architectural and furnishing details, are being built and stored, he said.

Once construction is approved, the buildings can be assembled in three months, Boyd said.

The resort plan

While the resort’s design may be heavily reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” and their movie adaptations, Boyd maintains his plan is distinct from those trademarked works.

As the basis for the resort he has written his own novel, “The Bobbins – Outcast to the Inner Earth,” featuring bobbins, dwarfs, fairies, gremlins, ground elves, leprechauns, orcs, tree elves and yetis as characters. The resort’s theme is modeled on that.

The book is available electronically at ancientlorevillage.com, or at Union Avenue Books in downtown Knoxville. Boyd said his book is doing well, drawing orders from as far away as Europe.

Boyd, a longtime South Knox County resident and father of University of Tennessee interim President Randy Boyd, announced his development plan in early January; but filed for the rezoning Dec. 21. The company formed for the project, Boyd Hollow Resorts Inc., was registered Nov. 2, according to state incorporation records.

The $40 million fantasy-themed resort is to have 150 grass-covered huts and treehouses tucked into hillsides, with water features, stone walls, a 150-seat restaurant, a 500-person meeting and event center, and a 1,000-seat amphitheater. It’s expected to employ 150, and its projected opening date is April 2020. The site is a roughly L-shaped property fronting Sevierville Pike at the corner of Nixon Road, about 7 miles southeast of downtown Knoxville.

Rates will vary with the season, but the bottom rate will be $200 per night, Cross said Tuesday. The top rate is $2,500 per night for each of two luxury 5-bedroom villas, he said.

Most of the units will be one-bedroom, with room for kids to “tunnel” in along the walls, Cross said.

It would have a maximum capacity of 450 guests, he said. The 500-seat event center would be in the restaurant’s basement, and be used mostly for weddings, Cross said.

The resort itself will take up 35 acres of the 37-acre site, Boyd said. The remaining land will be used for road-widening, landscaping and parking, he said.

Internal roads will be reserved for electric golf carts, disguised to look like wagons, Cross said.

Boyd said the on-site parking lot will hold 300 cars, but will be so thoroughly landscaped it should be practically invisible.

The reaction

Keep the Urban Wilderness Peaceful hosted a public meeting Monday at Ye Olde Steak House, while Boyd held another Tuesday at SoKno Market. About 100 people turned out for each gathering; some opposed, some in favor, and some just with questions.

Cross said developers will hold another public meeting at a time and place still to be determined, but likely in a larger space.

The Facebook page for KtUWP, created a month ago, had 210 members as of Wednesday. Another Facebook group, “Supporters for Ancient Lore Village – South Knoxville,” swelled to 559 members in a week.

For neighbors, the main sticking point is rezoning the land as a commercial site, KtUWP member Geoff Trowbridge said. Most of the surrounding area is residential or agricultural. Should the resort not succeed, the rezoned site could be sold and redeveloped as a shopping center or restaurants, he said.

“We still feel as a group that commercial development of this kind really wouldn’t be healthy in this part of South Knox County,” he said. “It would just be a complete and utter change in direction.”

The resort would be better spread over a larger property, or moved to a tourist destination such as Sevier County, Trowbridge said.

“Even though it sounds like they’re selling this as something that’s going to be very green and charming and sustainable, we feel that it would be invasive into the existing community and the peace and quiet that we have in the community here,” he said. “The scale of it is too much, and it’s in the wrong location.

“That’s kind of become our motto: It’s a good idea but the wrong location. And that’s still how we feel.”

Keep the Urban Wilderness Peaceful issued a position paper citing a 2006 study of the Chapman Highway corridor which called for preserving undeveloped woodland areas around Brown Mountain.

“It is likely that area in question at Nixon and Sevierville Pike were part of these referenced ‘undeveloped wooded areas,’” the position paper says.

Nixon Road and Sevierville Pike are too narrow and winding to handle the traffic that is likely to result from development, the group argues.

According to the county sector plan, areas that slope as much as the proposed development site shouldn’t have even half the planned building density.

Corinne Rovetti said KtUWP is not opposed to Boyd’s project per se, nor to some development in the south county; but members want to see smaller-scale compatible development, not “commercialization of our community.”

Traffic and environmental impact studies haven’t yet been done, she noted. Once commercial inroads are made, bringing traffic and noise, that trend won’t be reversed, Rovetti said.

Boyd has owned the land for years, and has previously floated ideas for it that wouldn’t require commercial rezoning, Rovetti said.

“Take that project elsewhere or do a scaled-down version,” she said.

Defense and outreach

Boyd invites any opponent to email ideas for improvement to info@ancientlorevillage.com. He also welcomes people to come to his house, see the plans, and tour the site in person, he said.

Boyd said he has always been a backer of the Urban Wilderness, and wants to make sure natural preservation is accommodated as well as possible. He has agreed to several detail changes at the request of neighbors — more landscape buffer by one woman’s house, and openings for small-animal passage in a screening wall, for example.

Such moves, and more plan details, have already converted 15 to 20 percent of the opponents Boyd has talked to into supporters, he said.

“We’ve been more than flexible; but the things were being flexible on, the same people that are against this thing are against the very things they asked us to do,” Boyd said.

The resort shifted its plans to allow a trail connection to Ijams Nature Center, but the trail’s course passes the house of one opponent, and Boyd thinks she’ll oppose that, he said.

“We’re trying to do all the things that make the community better. Some people are never going to agree to anything,” Boyd said.

Traffic is a major concern for many nearby residents, according to comments submitted to planning staff. Cross said the estimated annual attendance of 200,000 works out to less than 600 people per day, with a likely average of three people per car.

Boyd argues the resort will help the area by providing jobs — not only permanent site workers but for construction crews and long-term suppliers, multiplying the impact of the $40 million project.

He’s determined to build a unique, world-class resort that will only beautify the area, he said.

“These people who are against it are our potential customers,” Boyd said. “We want to keep them happy. No good businessman runs off customers.”