Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities

EP# 214: From Nurse to Nature Host: Mary Kay's Mountain Journey With Lil Slice of Heaven

Skip Mauney & Mary Kay Johnson Episode 214

What makes Mary Kay Johnson with Lil Slice of Heaven a good neighbor?

Ever dreamed of escaping to a private riverfront paradise nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains? Mary Kay Johnson has created exactly that with Little Slice of Heaven, and her story of resilience and reinvention captivates from the very first moment.

Mary Kay shares how she transformed a twenty-year dream into reality when she and her husband renovated their vacation cabin in 2019 and moved to Green Mountain, North Carolina full-time. When COVID disrupted her travel nursing career, Mary Kay spotted an opportunity to share their magnificent 8-acre riverfront property with others seeking nature's solace during uncertain times. What began as a pivot during pandemic restrictions has blossomed into a thriving venue business offering everything from intimate "micro weddings" to family reunions complete with live music on their riverfront stage.

The magic of Little Slice of Heaven extends beyond its physical beauty—though with bald eagles nesting nearby, abundant wildlife, and pristine river access, that would be enough. What truly sets this venue apart is Mary Kay and her husband's hands-on approach to hosting. They customize each experience, whether you're looking for adventure (kayaking, tubing, fishing for smallmouth bass and trout) or relaxation (gathering around their massive fire pit or simply soaking in mountain views). When Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina in 2023, Mary Kay watched parts of her business literally wash away. Yet her response—immediately turning toward community recovery while simultaneously rebuilding—exemplifies the neighborly spirit that defines this family-owned enterprise.

Ready to experience your own slice of heaven? Whether you're planning a special event or simply need a dog-friendly mountain getaway where the hosts treat you like family, visit littlesliceofheavenearth.com or find them on Airbnb. Discover why guests return again and again to this private Blue Ridge Mountain sanctuary where outdoor dreams come to life.

To learn more about Lil Slice of Heaven go to:

https://lilsliceaheaven.earth/

Lil Slice of Heaven

(561) 339-0442



Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monning.

Speaker 2:

Hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. So today I am super excited to have someone very special in our studio and I'm excited to learn all about them and their company. And I'm sure you will be too, because today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, miss Mary Kay Johnson, who is the owner operator of Little Slice of Heaven. Mary Kay, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 2:

All right. Well, we're very like I said, we're very excited to learn all about you and your business. So, if you don't mind, why don't you start us off by telling us what you do?

Speaker 3:

Sure. So I opened my business in 2020, right kind of in the middle of the COVID. So my business is called Little Slice of Heaven and my husband and I bought property out in Green Mountain, which is in western North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, about 20 years ago and we built a small vacation rental home. Well, it was our dream, as our children got older, to move out here and live full time. So we renovated our home that was a small cabin in like 2019 and moved out here full time.

Speaker 3:

And then COVID hit. I'm a registered nurse and at that time I was doing some travel nursing and so a lot of that got shut down during COVID. So I was trying to think of what we could do to earn some passive income and to share our beautiful property with people during the COVID outbreak, because it was such a difficult time for people, and out here, where we are, we had the beautiful outdoors, so we felt really safe. We weren't wearing masks outside because there was really nobody around and just the fresh air. So I decided that I wanted to share the outdoors with the community and opened Little Slice of Heaven, and we really do feel like this property is a little slice of heaven.

Speaker 3:

We now have eight acres and it's riverfront, very private, very beautiful. We have so much beautiful nature and a lot of bald eagles. We have a bald eagle nest, we have lots of wildlife, deer and lots of different birds and we're right on the river. So there's a lot to do. We host kayaking adventures. We basically call ourselves a small venue. We have group experiences where you can rent the space and we can cater to whatever you are kind of looking for.

Speaker 3:

We have done some really fun family reunions where we bring in live music. We have a stage on the riverfront for that. We did have glamping tents on the riverfront until the recent hurricane, so we are in the middle of rebuilding the riverfront space. But we have recently acquired another home that is going to be up for rent in about two weeks and that is Riverfront and that also includes the whole Riverfront space. So we're growing. We're super excited. We cater to a lot of micro weddings, which are basically like 30 people and less for riverfront weddings. We've done engagements, we've done photo shoots, we've done lots of music events. So it's a beautiful private space and we help curate whatever your dream is to have an, you know, an outdoor venue.

Speaker 2:

Nice, nice. Now you said on Green Mountain, are you on the South Toe River, north Toe River?

Speaker 3:

We're on the Toe River, yes, so South and the North, we're kind of like in the convergence right there. Yeah. That's a beautiful area, though I'm very familiar with it, absolutely gorgeous, and I'm a fly fisherman, so yeah, oh yes, we get a lot of fishermen out here In fact, my husband is a fly fisherman as well and lots of smallmouth bass and trout in the river. So that's you know. We do tubing down the river, kayaking. People are starting to paddleboard, which is really interesting.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I know that takes a little bit of skill on some of these rapids.

Speaker 2:

More than I have. I'm more of a tubing kind of guy. Well, what are some myths or misconceptions in the venue slash, campground or not? It's not campground but venue business slash campground or not.

Speaker 3:

It's not campground but venue business. Yeah, well, you know, I would say that we can really create an indoor-outdoor feeling, if that's what you're looking for, that we can bring tents in, we put lights up. Most of our space is outdoors, so we really cater to the people that are really looking for the outdoor space. We do have, like I said, some rentals where you can spend the night inside of a home, but our venue is riverfront. So I would say that some of the misconceptions are just, you know, that you might not be able to create an environment for a wedding, that you might on an indoor space, but we really can, even with wet.

Speaker 3:

We had a wedding during a hurricane, actually a couple of years ago. So with the tents and and all of the extra things that we can bring in for you, we can make it super, um, relaxing or super, you know, um, bougie, I guess I would say would be a word for a wedding, cause you get a lot of different, um people that are looking for different things. We have a huge outdoor fire pit. We had a big outdoor kitchen. We are in. You know, we are planning to rebuild that. Unfortunately, the hurricane has, you know pretty much, we were right on the river.

Speaker 3:

So hurricane helene oh yeah was raging through our um space there for a good eight hours. So we have had some um interesting results from hurricane helene, but we are rebuilding and excited for for new and upcoming things to happen around here.

Speaker 2:

So awesome, awesome Sounds great and it sounds like you're right on track.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Getting back in the swing. Things Well, outside of work, Mary Kay, what do you like to do for fun?

Speaker 3:

Oh, I love to travel. We my husband and I are recent empty nesters, so any chance we get to go check out a new area or a new culture, we love that. We love hiking, we love just being on our property. We love to garden. My husband's a jack of all trades. He loves having a project going on, loves having a project going on. So, yeah, we like to eat good food, so we do have a few good restaurants here in. Burnsville is our closest town to us, and then Asheville is about 45 minutes south. So, yeah, we love all of Western North Carolina and all the water activities as well, including fishing, kayaking, tubing my kind of place, my kind of.

Speaker 2:

I'm like you. I love the outdoors and love Western North Carolina. East Tennessee area. It's just gorgeous.

Speaker 3:

It's so beautiful.

Speaker 2:

It is. Well, let's switch gears for just a second. Can you describe a hardship or a life challenge that you've overcome and how it made you stronger on the other side? I know there's been a lot lately with Helene there has been.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I would say number one would probably be Hurricane Helene. That was really devastating to our entire community. Devastating to our entire community and you know us being here on the river, we basically watched our business float away and that was devastating. But we were so grateful that our home we live on the property where our business is and we recently acquired another home right next to us that will be included in the venue, and both of those homes were not affected by the hurricane. So we felt very blessed. But my husband's a volunteer firefighter in the community. I'm a registered nurse, so we jumped in and helped the community rebuild and we still are, and the people here in Green Mountain and in all Western North Carolina have. It's just been a beautiful thing to see neighbors helping neighbors.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, absolutely. I live right, I've. I live right on the Nolichucky River, on the Tennessee side, just across the state line, and we we've had a lot of devastation. I'm about maybe 40 minutes from Hot Springs, if you're familiar.

Speaker 1:

And you know.

Speaker 2:

Hot Springs got hammered, which everybody this this way, and it's just been amazing to me all the groups that have come together, fundraising people donating RVs and tents and clothes, and it's just been amazing.

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, it really is Sometimes that, you know, it's just beautiful to see people come together when there's devastation like that, so it was very unfortunate and you know, lives were lost and people's homes are gone, but people are resilient and they're rebuilding and we met neighbors that we probably would have never met before, so it's been wonderful.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, awesome, good to hear. Well, if, mary Kay, if you had one thing in mind that you'd like our listeners to remember about Little Slice of Heaven, what would that be?

Speaker 3:

I would say that Little Slice of Heaven is truly a slice of heaven and it is a very unique property and venue because it is very private. Um, it's very little private. There's very little public access to the river on the on the toe, on the North and the South there's a few campgrounds. That has some access, but our property um has a beautiful beach along the river, easy in and out for kayaks and tubing. Um and and for animal lovers, we're dog friendly, so the dogs love the property. We have a dog as well that runs free on our property.

Speaker 3:

We host our guests my husband and I staying for a weekend or whether they're really planning an event here. We get to know them very well and we help them create really whatever it is that they are looking to do, from a family reunion with roasting marshmallows to a really nice small wedding. So we've we're family owned. We're super excited about having guests on our property. We just really love to share it. We've worked so hard on the property and it's so beautiful and we just want other people to enjoy it as much as we do.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, awesome Means everything. Family owned means everything, and you live on the property too, which says something I would think Sounds like a very special place.

Speaker 3:

Yes, I think it is, yeah, awesome. We've been doing this now, for we've been in business for about five years and we are on Google. We have lots of reviews, so, yeah, it's a great. It's a great place.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Well, if any of our listeners are interested, I'm very interested, so I'm going to check you out. But if any of our listeners are interested in learning more, how can they do that?

Speaker 3:

So we have a website that you can go to that is littlesliceofheavenearth. So it's L-I-L, slice, s-l-i-c-e and then A-heavenearth and all our contacts are on there. We also, if you google um little slice of heaven, all of our um stuff will pop up as well we're also on airbnb, oh okay, so you can book online with airbnb.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, very good. Well, mary k, I can't tell you how I'm excited to come check your place out Cause, like I told you, I'm a fly fisherman, outdoorsman, love to kayak.

Speaker 3:

Oh, we'd love to have you. We'd love to have you.

Speaker 2:

I'm super Well. Thank you so much and I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with with me and with our listeners and wish you and your family and and your business, little slice of heaven, all the best moving forward.

Speaker 3:

Thank you very much.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, and maybe we can have you back sometime when you've got all your new stuff up and running and we can check it out.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely yeah. We're definitely growing and we're excited to be offering lots of different things We'd like to. We've done a lot of small retreats, yoga retreats, book clubs have come here and spent the weekend, so the options are endless.

Speaker 2:

Endless, awesome, awesome. Well, again, thank you so much and we'll see you on the next episode.

Speaker 3:

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnptry-citiescom. That's gnptry-citiescom, or call 423-719-5873.