New resort offers secluded luxury
While the first phase of Hot Springs’ newest resort is still underway, In the Trees is already proving successful for owners Sarah and Lee Medley.
Since opening to the public in mid-May, they have been able to keep their five cabins mostly booked.
“We’ve hit in the 80% occupancy rate for this first month and a half, so we’re really, really happy with that, especially with it being so last minute,” Sarah Medley said. “People, last minute, planning trips. We’ve received a lot of guests out of the Dallas area, so that’s been cool. We’ve enjoyed asking everybody where they’re from and what they’re here for.”
While the original plan was for treehouses, the first treehouse is still about a month away from completion, Sarah Medley said, but the cabins are also high enough to allow for a great view.
“Currently the cabins, when you get to your back balcony, you’re a good 12-15 feet off the ground, so you’ve still got like an amazing view,” she said. “The treehouses are more like 20 feet off the ground once you get to the back balcony. It’s not crazy impossible to get up into. It’s got good stairways, and we built the dirt up to where it’s not climbing-up-a-rope-ladder-type treehouse.”
The cabins and treehouses will all be focused on luxury, Sarah Medley said, which is something that is missing from the area.
“There’s a lot of cabins in the area that are more the rustic look and the camping-type, glamping-type stuff, and we wanted to go all luxury,” she said. “We want it to be more ‘Yeah, you’re in nature. You’re connecting with nature. You’re hearing the bugs and the wildlife … but you’re in luxury.’ You’re using luxury cookware, and our hot tubs are sunk down into the back balconies, so you’re flush with the bottom of the balcony looking out. You’ve got outdoor fireplaces and nice bedding and heated floors in the bathroom. We really focus on the luxury mixed with nature and outdoors.”
The first phase of the resort will be 16 cabins and treehouses, and the Medleys expect to have that completed in about a year and a half to two years.
“After that, we will start looking at a wedding venue, restaurant, more cabins and treehouses, a pool-spa area, a full all-inclusive-type resort, but right now, it’s just the five cabins,” Sarah Medley said.
The idea for the resort came after the couple had a retreat away from their six children at a treehouse in Arkadelphia.
“Every year a little bit after Christmas, we have this break where we don’t have any kids, and we go on what we’ve since called a planning retreat,” Sarah Medley said.
“It’s just the two of us, and we kind of think on the year and plan for the next year, and we one time stayed in a treehouse in Arkadelphia. And it was just a single treehouse by itself. We paid a lot of money for it, and there’s nothing else to do around it. It’s just there,” she said.
“So we just kind of started talking, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if when our kids get older and we meet together for Thanksgiving that there would be this like grove of treehouses that like we could stay in one and then one family could stay in another and then we could all meet together in the big one for Thanksgiving dinner or something like that.’ That’s kind of where the first vision started.”
Mountain biking is also a passion for the Medleys, and having spent time on the trails in northwest Arkansas, they did not know about the Northwoods Trails System.
“We didn’t think we had any trails like that around south Arkansas,” Sarah Medley said. “So when we rode Northwoods for the first time, we were just in love, and we’re like, ‘We’re investing in Hot Springs.’ This is where we’re investing. We bought some Airbnbs; we’ve bought some lake houses and things like that that we’ve invested in. Then when the treehouse idea came along, that’s where we first looked.”
Originally planning to buy 30-40 acres of land, they kept seeing a “for sale” sign near Cedar Glades Park when they would go mountain biking.
“It was for 550 acres for sale,” Sarah Medley said. “And we’re like ‘God, that would be perfect. It’s just exactly where we want it, not too far from downtown Hot Springs. It’s on a mountain, but you feel secluded, but it’s 500 acres.’ And we just kept passing it and kept passing it.”
Eventually, the dream continued to expand, and they bought the property. With such a large area, the resort offers e-bike rentals, and the hope is to add trails as well as connectors to the Northwoods system, Sarah Medley said.
“There are roads throughout it, so you can take the e-bikes through about 3 miles’ worth of roads up and down and have some really cool views,” she said. “We do hope to develop a good portion of that 500 acres but then also leave some hiking trails and walking trails and things like that throughout.”
Sarah Medley said the reviews have been wonderful, mostly the ability to be close to downtown while still having the feeling of being away from it all.
“People love the idea of being in the middle of the hustle and bustle of downtown and then in seven minutes, you’re in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “And that’s probably the biggest — the most consistent comment we received is that we love that we were able to go downtown, eat at Rolando’s, eat at 501 Prime, be in the chaos of it all, and then after dinner, all we could hear were the crickets.”
While the cabins are fairly closely located in case a group wanted to stay in multiple cabins, there is still plenty of privacy.
“They’re about 40-60 yards apart from each other, and they are strategically angled so that you are not really looking into each other’s balconies,” Sarah Medley said.
“We also have it opened up as much as possible, but when it’s like right by the hot tub or where it’s facing another unit, we do have wooden slats set up for privacy. … It has been good for families that want to book two or three cabins together that they’d get the three close to each other and they can easily run back and forth. Like I said, we have six kids, and we’ve had it to where they’re running back and forth from our cabin to their grandparents’ cabin and it’s close enough you don’t have to worry about them getting lost in between or anything.”
While it is still in the early stages, there are plenty of plans for the resort in the future.
“One of the reasons that we’ve been so passionate about doing it here … or had so much confidence in the business model is because Hot Springs has so much in itself,” Sarah Medley said.
“We do want to eventually have yoga classes at our resort and events at our resort, but why would we not piggyback off of all the things that Hot Springs has to offer? And so we really push the events in Hot Springs like the Running of the Tubs … so it’s been really nice to be able to piggyback off of all the things that Hot Springs has to offer, especially since downtown is doing so much and it’s so close to downtown.”
For more information about In the Trees or to book a stay, visit https://inthetrees.com or call 844-448-7682.