Fire officials are describing the blaze early Wednesday morning as ``suspicious'' and an arson investigation is under way.
The inn was engulfed in flames by the time the Limestone and Nolichucky volunteer fire departments responded at about 4:43 a.m. By daylight, all that remained of the two-story log and clapboard structure were two brick chimneys and smoldering rubble.
Steve Archer, chief of the Limestone Volunteer Fire Department, said firefighters could not find any apparent cause.
``It either set itself on fire on somebody helped it,'' Archer said.
The inn, originally built as a home, had stood empty since 1980. But oral history says that each of the three U.S. presidents from Tennessee - Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson - were lodgers there.
Limestone is about 15 miles southwest of Johnson City.
