The Apple Barn at 50: Sevierville's Orchard Season After the Festival

"Dad always says this is just a hobby that got out of hand," Kent Kilpatrick told Knox News in its Oct. 10 story on the Apple Barn's 50th year. The anniversary Apple Festival ended yesterday, Oct. 11. That was the second of two weekends this year, up from one, to mark 50 years since the first orchard trees went into the hillside above the barn.

The tent is coming down, but the apples are only part of the story. For most of its 50 years, the farm has grown by adding businesses that keep running after the harvest ends. In the same Knox News story, Kilpatrick says the orchard draws visitors especially in the fall, while the Applewood Farmhouse restaurants "provide steady business throughout the year." If you live a few minutes away, the weeks after the festival are when you can see how the place really runs.

The farm's first cash crop was tobacco

Before the Apple Barn, the land off the Little Pigeon River was an ordinary Sevier County farm. The Mullendore family worked the river-bottom fields for generations. They raised cattle and tobacco, built the barn in 1910, and added the farmhouse in the 1920s. In the 1970s, hardware store owner Bon Hicks and local pharmacist Bill Kilpatrick and his wife, Georgia, bought the property as an investment and a "gentleman's farm."

The Knox News story fills in a part the official history leaves out. In the mid-1970s, Black Shank, a tobacco disease, hit the farm's tobacco crop. At the time the farm had beef cattle, rows of tobacco, four apple trees, and two peach trees. So the disease in the headline had nothing to do with apples. Apples were the fallback crop, and the farm turned to those four trees once its main crop failed.

According to the Apple Barn's own history, Bill planted his first semi-dwarf apple trees in 1976. Horticulture was one of his many hobbies. The Mountain Press gives credit for that first planting to both Kilpatrick and his business partner, Hicks. When the trees produced more fruit than the family could eat, Georgia sold bagged apples from the family carport for a few weeks each fall, and Bill tried his hand at pressing cider.

Fifty years, one addition at a time

The farm's own timeline shows a clear pattern. Nearly every major step after 1981 added something that doesn't depend on fresh apples.

1. 1981. The renovated cattle barn opened as the Apple Barn for about six weeks that fall.
2. 1982. Visitors in town for the World's Fair in Knoxville started asking for cider by the glass, and the Kilpatricks opened the Cider Bar with its cherry wood and onyx counter.
3. 1982 to 1985. A neighbor's fried apple pies kept selling out on market days, so the farm built a kitchen where, according to the Apple Barn, that neighbor's family still bakes pies, fritters, and stack cakes.
4. 1986. The family moved out of the farmhouse, which became Applewood Farmhouse Restaurant, now Sevierville's oldest restaurant.
5. 1987. The Apple Barn started opening year-round.
6. 1991 and soon after. The Creamery opened in 1991, and soon after came the Candy Factory, where hand-twisted candy sticks are made on century-old equipment.
7. 1995. The Applewood Farmhouse Grill and the Apple Barn Winery opened.
8. 1999. The Christmas and Candle Store opened.

The Apple Barn went from a six-week fall stand to a year-round business in six years, and the restaurant opened a year before that change. The orchard set the theme, but the businesses around it are what kept the doors open twelve months a year.

The property's size depends on who you ask. The Apple Barn's history says 65 acres, The Mountain Press says 64, and Knox News says 62. The tree count varies too. The farm's orchard page says about 7,000 trees, and Knox News reports farmhands tend more than 5,000. Either way, it's a lot of trees, and they still don't grow enough apples.

Why the cider changes from week to week

The farm says so directly on its orchard page. The pies, cakes, fritters, apple butter, and cider take thousands of apples a year, more than the hillside can grow. The rest come from local growers the farm calls "our neighbors and friends." The orchard is also not pick-your-own. Visit Sevierville's fall guide notes that staff harvest the apples and sell them at the General Store.

What matters more for a mid-October visit is timing. The harvest starts in late August with early varieties and keeps going through October as each one ripens. The farm says it may use as many as 30 varieties in its ciders, pies, and apple butters, "changing the recipes with the season." So the fresh cider is a moving blend of sweet, tart, and aromatic apples, and a glass in late October can come from a different mix than a glass from the festival's first weekend.

The varieties the orchard page lists include Golden Delicious, Fuji, Mutsu, Pink Lady, Winesap, Jonagold, and Cameo. The page doesn't say which ones are on the shelf in a given week. It does single out Winesap as "a favorite of our cider maker and wine master," and it calls Mutsu, a Golden Delicious cross, best eaten raw. The General Store can tell you what's in that week. By the farm's own calendar, there are a couple of weeks of harvest left.

What's open after the festival

On a regular weekday, the festival crowd is gone, but nearly everything the farm added over 50 years is still running. The Apple Barn's visitor page says you can watch cider, candy, and ice cream being made, but it doesn't post a schedule for when that happens.

The Cider House sample count and price come from its website, which also links to a tasting menu labeled 2024, so confirm at the counter. The Apple Barn's main site doesn't list hours for the General Store, Cider Bar, or Candy Factory. Its General Store page gives contact details instead, so call before a late-afternoon trip. For hours at the Christmas & Candle Shop and the Creamery, the main site points you to each shop's own website.

The hard cider counter goes back to the farm's earliest days. Bill Kilpatrick was pressing cider in an old press before the barn ever opened. Today the Apple Barn Hard Cider Company makes cider on-site for sampling and sale. During this year's festival, it offered tours of its production area and tastings straight from the tanks.

After the last apple comes the holiday calendar

When the harvest ends, the businesses the farm added after 1986 take over the calendar. Applewood Farmhouse has posted its Thanksgiving To Go 2026 menu. It offers a family feast for $139.99 plus tax and a hot mini feast for $79.99 plus tax, with pickup on Wednesday, Nov. 25, and Thursday, Nov. 26. Add-ons include pumpkin, pecan, and apple pies. The farm hasn't said whether the restaurants or shops close on Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day, so a Thursday pickup slot doesn't tell you whether you can dine in that day.

The Christmas & Candle Shop is open year-round and doesn't depend on a seasonal event. Starting next month, it sits inside Sevierville's busiest holiday stretch. Visit Sevierville lists Smoky Mountain Winterfest from Nov. 6, 2026, through Feb. 15, 2027, and Shadrack's Christmas Wonderland from Nov. 13 through Jan. 3. Christmas at the Courthouse is set for Thursday, Dec. 3, and the Sevierville Christmas Parade for Saturday, Dec. 5, at 11 a.m.

The family behind all of this is still on site. The Mountain Press reports that Bill Kilpatrick remains a familiar face at the Apple Barn, and that his sons, Kevin and Kent, help lead the business. Both grew up in the farmhouse that is now Applewood. "This is still a working farm," Kent Kilpatrick told The Mountain Press. The orchard on the hillside is still harvesting through the end of October, and the Thanksgiving pickup on Nov. 25 is next on the farm's calendar.

The Apple Barn's history shows how much Sevier County land can change with its use, from tobacco field to orchard to Sevierville's oldest restaurant. If you're wondering how your own property's past and possible uses affect what it's worth today, Kristi Street has followed this county's farms, cabins, and land for more than 20 years. Request a consultation and home valuation, and she'll walk you through it.