A Lodge Since 1935
Nippersink Lodge sits on the west fork of Little River in Mentone, Alabama, on Lookout Mountain. The land directly across the river is a designated conservation area, so the view from the porch is the same view guests saw in 1935. DeSoto Falls is a quarter-mile walk from the front door. Little River Canyon is fifteen miles south.
The name comes from the Potawatomi — at the little water. The Cherokee used a similar word for little river. Both fit.
Built in 1935
Eugene Taylor of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, commissioned the Lodge in 1934 as a summer gathering place for family and friends. An Alabama architect named Weldon drew the plans. Local craftsmen Jones and Melanie built it. A local mason, Lee Crow, laid the stonework — the foundation, the great room walls, the millstone inlay, and the fireplace that still anchors the room today.
The Lodge is 1930s Adirondack-style and was built almost entirely from materials cut and milled on the mountain. Only the cedar posts on the screened porch came from somewhere else.
A Country Inn for 28 Years
In 1944, Ms. Taylor sold Nippersink to two schoolteachers and camp supervisors from Thomasville, Alabama — Annalee Tucker and Elizabeth Lowe. They opened it as a summer country inn in 1945 and ran it for twenty-eight years. They extended the dining room, enclosed a sleeping porch, and added outbuildings; at its largest, Nippersink had seventeen rooms.
In 1973, the teachers sold the Lodge to George and Osceola Hauge — George, a retired Navy captain. The Hauges welcomed guests until 1979, when they passed Nippersink to friends Ed and Gerry Disney. The Disney family ran it as a lodge until 2020, then kept it as a private gathering place for family and friends.
2023 — and the next ninety years
In 2023, Thomas and Paula Bouffard bought Nippersink. Thomas is a structural engineer with forty years of experience designing buildings; Paula raised five children and brought every bit of that work to bear on running the Lodge. With local contractor Chris Jones of Tucker Hudson Construction, they spent two years on a complete restoration: every system replaced, every room renewed-prioritizing the retention of original materials and period pieces including the original clawfoot tubs which were spruced up and put back in service.
The biggest surprise of the renovation was not structural. It was the people. Almost everyone Thomas and Paula met had a story about Nippersink — a wedding, a summer week, a meal in the dining room, dancing on the porch, a name signed on a door frame. Many of those signatures are still there.
