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Latest plan for Osceola Lake Inn revival hits financial straits

Owners of the 117-year-old Osceola Lake Inn face a foreclosure lawsuit as ambitious plans for adaptive reuse and new construction remain in limbo. [AMY B. MCCRAW/Hendersonville Lightning]

By Bill Moss, Published: July 30, 2026

In the past 25 years, numerous developers have pitched ambitious plans to return the Osceola Lake Inn to its early 1900s glory.

Built in 1909 as the Lake View Hotel, the Victorian-era resort opened just months after a new dam formed the lake named for a Seminole Indian chief. Its wraparound porch, panoramic views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and modern amenities drew visitors from all over, especially the regular vacationers from South Florida. By 1915, a Southern Railway guidebook was praising the inn for boating and fishing. The Rubin family of South Florida operated it for more than  six decades starting in 1940, offering three meals a day, nightly entertainment, tennis courts and a pool.

The latest redevelopment plan, by owners Fiona McColley and her wife, Shawna, promised a blend of historic renovation, adaptive reuse and new construction.

McColley and architect Joey Burnett told the Hendersonville City Council in April 2025 that the reimagined property would contain artist studios, a vintage market, updated guest rooms, a café and speakeasy in the historic inn. A second phase was to include accessory structures while phase III would see construction of 14 dwellings, a clubhouse and wellness center.

Originally from Australia, McColley was living in Asheville when an image of the classically designed building popped on to her computer screen.

“It was actually the inn that brought me to Hendersonville,” she said in an interview last week. “I literally came here to try and get this place up and running and save it from getting bulldozed. I was looking for a riding mower on Craigslist and somehow a picture of this place came across my scrolling and I was like, ‘no way, that’s real.’ And I came running down here, and it actually was.”

Property records show Green Horizons bought the inn and grounds for $895,000 last Dec. 23; it’s valued on the tax books at $2,567,800.

Today, there’s no sign of construction at the 3½-story inn, and the latest plan for a fresh new chapter of the inn’s story is in trouble.

A finance company that loaned the McColleys money to renovate the inn has sued her company, Green Horizons Property Group LLC, for $1.2 million. Recorded June 29 in Henderson County Superior Court, the lawsuit, filed by Asheville attorney John K. White Jr. as trustee, was also sent to Fiona McColley at her Osceola Road address. The lender, ALFIE Investors of Asheville, said it holds a deed of trust on the inn and grounds executed in December 2025, and that the developer was in default as of May 13. The court set an Aug. 4 hearing on the foreclosure notice.

ALFIE Investments owner Todd Fowler said talks were under way but that attorneys had advised his company not to talk because of the pending legal action.

Fiona McColley said she’s working to salvage the financing.

“We’re already negotiating an agreement that I believe is fair to the lender and we’re in the works getting that signed,” McColley said. “Attorneys have drawn that up. It’s been sent to the lender and verbally they’ve accepted it.”

McColley leases space in the inn to a hairdresser.

“I also feel like I want to protect those that have got their business here and they don’t want people to think that they’re not going to be here anymore when we’re actively in the middle of a negotiation,” she said. “It just needed a rerouting of finances from hard money to other institutions being able to come in and be a part of what we’re creating. I feel like the dream’s the same. The speed bump’s there. We’re trying to get past it.”

The Osceola Lake Inn would become the second high-profile early 1900s vintage property to announce and start an ambitous makeover, only to be derailed by financial trouble. Much more visible, on a busy intersection in downtown Hendersonville, the Cedars Resort &  Spa project sits stalled and forced into receivership. McColley drew a comparison, suggesting that such projects need public money to succeed.

“It’s hard, and individuals maybe shouldn’t have the whole weight of trying to bring back historic buildings in the county or the city, and that maybe the city and county could have more support in making this happen,” she said.