Stewarding Homes, Trust, and Legacy in Hospitality with Tom Goodwin
Hospitality is not simply about managing reservations. It is about caring for homes, honoring trust, and creating experiences that bring families back year after year.
In this episode of The Bliss Business Podcast, we welcome Tom Goodwin, second-generation Steward and CEO of Mountain Laurel Chalets, a family-owned vacation rental company serving Gatlinburg since 1972.
Tom joins us to explore what it means to lead with stewardship in an industry increasingly shaped by consolidation, technology, and portfolio thinking. At Mountain Laurel Chalets, the focus remains clear: manage homes, not bookings, and treat homeowners and guests as relationships, not inventory.
In this episode, we explore:
• Why stewardship creates stronger hospitality brands
• How family-owned companies preserve trust through generations
• What is lost when homes are treated like portfolio assets
• Why repeat guests are a reflection of care, not algorithms
• How leaders balance tradition with the need to evolve
• What hospitality can teach every business about connection
🎙️ Hosted by Stephen Sakach and Tullio Siragusa
🎧 Produced by Martha Huerta
The most enduring hospitality businesses do more than fill calendars. They care for homes, relationships, memories, and the trust passed from one generation to the next.
Steward & CEO
Mountain Laurel Chalets has been family-owned since 1972 — the original vacation rental company in Gatlinburg and the longest-running family-owned vacation rental company in Tennessee. Tom became the second-generation steward in 2012, but his relationship with MLC began thirty years earlier when he married Susan, daughter of founders Ralph and Dot Egli. That front-row seat to real home management shaped everything about how he leads today.
In a market now crowded with portfolio operators who have never signed a mortgage or felt the weight of someone handing them the keys to their investment, Tom and his team have lived that responsibility for decades. MLC does not manage portfolios — they manage homes. There is a difference, and homeowners can feel it.
MLC's leadership team averages 25 years of service. Their direct booking rate is 80%. Half their guests are repeat visitors. These are not metrics they engineered — they are the result of 53 years of showing up the same way every time. MLC has been recognized as a Comparent Market Leader three consecutive years — 2024, 2025, and 2026 — placing them in the top 1% of all vacation rental management companies in the United States.
For homeowners in the Smoky Mountains looking for a management partner who understands what their home means — not just what it earns — Tom Goodwin and Mountain Laurel Chalets are ready to have that conversation.
