Cherokee, North Carolina - Mac's Indian Village

An absolute time travel experience. Mac's Indian Village is very easy to find in Cherokee, and it is a kitsch overload! My room fell into the latter category, and although rustic it was very clean and had been kept up well. It cost me 50 dollars for a night, which I considered a bargain.

I loved staying at this place. It might have been the highlight of my vacation. [Billy Sugarfix, 08/09/2008]

Great news! I recently drove down to Cherokee and discovered Mac's Indian Village is open for business once again. I spoke with the new owner and was told they opened up only two months ago. Not all of the cabins are ready for guests yet, but more than half of them are. He said you can come stay a week for only about $160.00! [Martha Stephens, 09/13/2007]

[RA: April 2008: Mark and Sandra Fortner, the new owners, wrote that they've renovated Teepees 1-6 with paint, new floors, blinds, ceiling fans, and TVs.]

An old-fashioned teepee roadhouse/cabin arrangement with painted sheet-metal teepee fronts on a series of rustic cabins -- no telephones, curious cylindrical floor-to-ceiling gas heaters, and intermittently working neon lights outlining said teepee fronts. I stayed there some years ago -- a swell experience. We used to go past it when I worked as an actor in UNTO THESE HILLS -- painted red with thespian shame. It was one of the first motels on the reservation, I'm told -- if not the first. [Bruce Evers, 01/27/2003]

[RA: October 2005: Tipster Martha Stephens reports Mac's Indian Village "closed down in August due to a sickness in the family. The owners are planning on selling it sometime within the next few months."]

While driving up US-441 looking for a place to stay during a trip to Cherokee, NC, we noticed some red neon inverted "V" shapes glowing through the trees. We turned down Teepee Dr. and saw a brightly-lit old neon sign advertising Mac's Indian Village. To our delight, the inverted "V" neon lights were adorning 12 foot teepee-cabins!

Mac's Indian Village is about a dozen or so private cabins with giant teepee facades affixed to the front. These are different than the Wigwam villages in AZ and CA where you actually "sleep in a teepee". This is more like, "sleep in a cabin that has a huge teepee attached to it". We learned that Mac's Indian Village was built in 1934. They gave us several vintage postcards.

The ladies who run the place told us that the property was a location for the 1998 film "Digging to China" starring the omnipresent Kevin Bacon. We asked if the film's stars had stayed in the cabins during filming, and they replied no, that the movie stars stayed in their own trailers out back. Well, those Hollywood types don't know what they're missing. The room was decorated with an old framed Rock City print, to boot! Gotta love a roadside attraction that references another. [Tony & Kimberly Paglia, 11/09/2002]