For many years, Chattanooga was where attorney Jon Stewart and his family would see friends or spend a quick getaway.
“Chattanooga is a great place to visit for a long weekend,” says Stewart, who was living in Jackson at the time. “There’s a lot to do, especially outdoors.”
Stewart and his wife, Shannon, enjoyed their time in Chattanooga enough to begin tossing around the idea of moving to the city. But they tabled the topic when their oldest daughter balked at the notion because she didn’t want to leave her high school.
“That was understandable,” Stewart concedes.
Then came the beautiful day last summer when Stewart caught a largemouth bass while sitting in a boat on Chickamauga Lake with a friend.
On the drive back to Jackson, Stewart – who was still buzzing from the weekend – looked at his wife and asked, “Want to reopen our conversation about Chattanooga?”
She did.
Their oldest daughter had graduated high school that spring and was preparing to leave for college in the fall, so she no longer objected to a move. Moreover, the notion of moving to a new town excited their other daughters – all three of them.
But before the Stewarts could leap across state, dad needed to obtain another blessing – that of the law firm of which he is a partner: Rainey, Kizer, Reviere & Bell.
Stewart began his career at Rainey Kizer after graduating from the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law in 2003. Since then, he’s developed an active insurance coverage litigation practice while also working in the areas of insurance defense, arson and fraud defense.
Rainey Kizer had established a presence in Hixson in 2018 and was preparing to move that office to downtown Scenic City, so when Stewart approached the firm’s leaders, they were “immediately and tremendously supportive,” he says.
“One of the bright spots of working from home during COVID was realizing I can do insurance coverage work anywhere. Those cases rarely go to trial, so I generally don’t have to worry about traveling or taking depositions. So, our lynchpin was the firm saying, ‘You can do this in Chattanooga.’”
Stewart and his family would not be alone in migrating to the city, which has seen an influx of people from around the state and country. And like many of their fellow transplants, they would face one more challenge before moving: Finding a home in an overheated housing market.
This was not easy to do, Stewart admits.
“Our poor Realtor,” he says, shaking his head. “She’d call us and say, ‘A house is coming on the market,’ and we’d say, ‘We’ll drop everything and come to look at it.’ But by the time we were getting in the car to leave, it would be gone.”
To improve their prospects, Stewart and his wife decided to house-hunt in person, but even these efforts were in vain.
“One time, we found a house, made an offer and then went to eat lunch, and as we were eating, our Realtor called and said someone had made the same offer 15 minutes before us and the sellers had already accepted it,” Stewart recalls, shaking his head again.
Eventually, Stewart and his wife determined their best chances for claiming a house in Chattanooga rested on finding one that was not yet built.
This led them to the River Rock Cove subdivision off Highway 58, where they found an unfinished home.
“The builder said he’d be able to finish it on time, and we liked the neighborhood, so we essentially bought it sight unseen,” Stewart says. “The only things we were able to pick were the colors of the gutters and the exterior paint, but it was ours.”
As 2020 drew to a close, Stewart and his family sold their house, drove to Chattanooga Dec. 29, closed on their house Dec. 30 and rang in 2021 in their new home.
He then started work at the local Rainey Kizer office the following Monday.
Stewart says he and his family have experienced a few minor hiccups since moving to Chattanooga, such as having to rely on a GPS to navigate the city and feeling isolated due to the pandemic.
To learn their way around, the Stewarts are trying a new restaurant every weekend. To date, their culinary excursions have brought them downtown to State of Confusion, Lupi’s and Urban Stack, as well as to Uncle Larry’s on Highway 58.
“We haven’t walked away disappointed yet,” Stewart raves.
He and his wife are also venturing out to meet people. They now count some of their neighbors among their friends and have a found a church home in Mission Chattanooga, a local Anglican congregation.
Their three youngest daughters have also adjusted well, Stewart says, and are enjoying their new schools.
Next on Stewart’s checklist is taking advantage of the Scenic City’s celebrated outdoor activities.
“I love to kayak, fish and hike,” he says. “Chattanooga really fits our lifestyle.”
Stewart also likes to cave dive, which he describes as finding a deep hole in the ground, lowering himself into it and then climbing out. Although he says he’s not yet experienced this particular sport in Chattanooga, he’s looking forward to the day he finds a local pit that’s ripe for exploration.
Until then, Stewart and his family will continue to spend each day making a city that was once a great place for a quick getaway a great place to call home.