Join the AJ Shades Dealer Network in Fannin County, GA

Fannin County is Georgia’s high country. The county seat of Blue Ridge sits at 1,751 feet, the highest railroad point in Georgia when the line arrived, and the town grew around that depot into a mountain resort town where the housing stock is now dominated by cabins, chalets, and vacation rentals. This is not a tract-subdivision county; it is a second-home county, and the owners think in terms of decks, porches, fire-pit patios, and hot-tub clearings — exactly the outdoor rooms that retractable shade and motorized screens are built for.

The Blue Ridge Scenic Railway anchors the tourism economy, running 131,202 riders in 2022 alone along the Toccoa River valley to the twin border towns of McCaysville and Copperhill. Every one of those riders is a potential cabin buyer or renter, and the short-term-rental market it feeds is enormous: thousands of Blue Ridge cabins rent year-round, and their owners compete on outdoor amenities. A cabin with a screened porch and a shaded deck books better, reviews better, and commands higher nightly rates. Dealers who speak rental economics fluently own this lane.

Lake Blue Ridge is the waterfront lane. The 3,290-acre Tennessee Valley Authority reservoir sits in the center of the county with only a quarter of its shoreline developed, and the lavish second homes on its shores were built for one thing: the view. West-facing lake decks take hard afternoon sun, and a motorized screen or retractable awning on a bluff home is the difference between a deck the owners use and a deck they photograph. The lake market buys premium, buys once, and refers across the cove.

The Toccoa River is the recreation lane, and Fannin’s “Trout Capital of Georgia” reputation pulls anglers, tubers, and kayakers to its banks from spring through fall. Riverside cabins, outfitter lodges, and tubing corridors concentrate buyers who already spend on the river experience — a zip-track screen that seals a riverfront porch against evening insects demonstrates its value the first dusk it drops. Mercier Orchards’ fourth-generation apple operation and the Old Toccoa Farm golf course round out a county where outdoor living is the economy, not a hobby.

The Chattahoochee National Forest wraps the county in mountain terrain, including the 35,268-acre Cohutta Wilderness — the largest designated wilderness east of the Mississippi — and Springer Mountain, the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, in Fannin’s southeast corner. Trail hikers become cabin buyers; cabin buyers become shade customers. And the small-business base is unusually deep here: a SmartAsset study ranked Fannin County sixth among all Georgia counties for small-business strength, with self-employment the dominant sector. The dealer network fits that profile — an independent mountain contractor with wholesale product and factory backing, not a corporate branch.

Our factory’s own installation crews cover Southern California only, which is why the Fannin County relationship matters: wholesale American-made product, locally coordinated installation by your crew or mountain contractors you trust, and our training, measuring guidance, and technical support behind every job. An existing Blue Ridge remodeler, a lake-country builder, or a cabin-turn specialist can add the line with no trucks and no warehouse — and own the mountain shade market before anyone else figures out the lane is open.