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Knoxville auctioneer Sam Furrow has purchased the $3.4 million debt that Harmony Property Group owes for the purchase of Camp Montvale from the East Tennessee YMCA, which closed the camp in 2006.

James Dickson, CEO of the YMCA of East Tennessee, said that Furrow wants to keep the camp running.

"We agreed to work with Sam Furrow because he was one of the original campers at Camp Montvale with the YMCA," Dickson said. "He is a great person, community leader, and has a desire to keep it as a camp and work with Harmony."

Harmony purchased the 400-acre-plus Camp Montvale property in December 2006, giving the Friends of Camp Montvale, a local nonprofit group, the chance to operate a youth camp on the site. The Harmony group spent $4 million to purchase the property, $3.4 million of the total financed by a promissory note to the YMCA itself.

In March, the YMCA agreed to modify the terms of the promissory note to give Harmony more time to make payments.

"They were having trouble meeting the terms of the agreement," Dickson said. "We worked with them to try to give them more time."

Furrow acquired the mortgage, funded through a Regions Bank loan, on Aug. 1. Rick Hinchey, CEO of Furrow Services LLC, said Thursday that Furrow wanted to help out the community.

"We did not acquire any interest in the camp or the entity that owns it," Hinchey said. "We simply acquired the underlying mortgage on the property from the YMCA that held it. Basically, Mr. Furrow is trying to help out the community and help preserve an asset there. The YMCA itself has projects they want to do. That frees them up as far as funding they can use for those projects."

Bryan Roberson, executive director of the Friends of Camp Montvale, said this gives the group about six months to secure the funding to pay off the note.

'Work to do'

"We still have work to do," he said. "We've had a friend of Camp Montvale step forward and offer his credit to allow us time to finish securing the property. We still have a note on the property we need to have paid off. Basically, we need a total of eight more partners to finish paying off the note. The original funding formula isn't working so we're bringing in more partners to do exactly what we intended to do all along."

If the note is paid off, the plan is to place the camp property under conservation easements to prohibit it from being developed, according to Roberson.

Harmony will retain a stake in the camp, contributing about $680,000 to pay off the note. The group had already put about $1.2 million into the purchase as well as paying for the legal work associated with the easements.

"They have already paid a significant share of that," Roberson said.

Representatives of Harmony could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

Plat OK'd in 2007

In 2007, the Blount County Planning Commission approved a final plat for Phase I of The Overlook at Montvale development on Chilhowee Mountain, located off Happy Valley Road and adjacent to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

This action came after Harmony settled two lawsuits against the project filed by Save Chilhowee Mountain Inc., allowing the planning process to proceed. That summer, the Friends of Camp Montvale also held a day camp on the property for the children of Ruby Tuesday employees.

Anyone with questions about Camp Montvale can contact Roberson at (865) 235-4102 or through e-mail at info@camp montvale.org.