Renovating the signature dining room and opening a new barn for horseback riding rank among the initial steps in the re-birth of the Dillard House in Dillard, Georgia.
Photo Above: A sketch shows the master plan for the Dillard House updates, expansions and renovations in Rabun County, Georgia.
Founded in 1917, this Rabun County classic came under the ownership of David Marvin in 2024. The 120-acre property is now slated for extensive expansions and updates, including a new 60-room boutique hotel, spa, fitness center, new swimming pool, a brewery, refreshed rooms, luscious landscaping and larger lobby by the end of 2026, Marvin says.
“We are taking the Dillard House into the modern hospitality world,” Marvin says. “It’s preserving the incredible history, the natural beauty and traditions. And it’s completing that with a broader array of accomodations, amenities and activities.”
In this new era, the down-home Dillard demeanor remains with John Dillard still on board as resort manager. Dillard loves this new influx of ideas while tracing his Dillard family roots here to the Revolutionary War.
The famous family-style feast returns this fall to the grand dining room with a rebuilt kitchen and a new bar plus better views to the south.
Plans to expand the operation’s agricultural enterprise could mean corn and beans grown on-site and even picked by visitors, Dillard says.
“We want to bring back a farm,” says Marvin, “so that we will be able to grow on the property and truly have a farm-to-table restaurant.”
Reconfiguring of the horseback route is being overseen by Pam Thompson, a longtime equestrian at the Dillard House Stables.
“We actually get to the river quicker,” Thompson says. “The ride now has more pastureland and more time in the river. We still ride around the entire valley. And we still splash right down the Little Tennessee River.”
The story above first appeared in our September / October 2025 issue.
