PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. (WATE) — East Tennessee treasure and international icon Dolly Parton is back home Friday for her first public appearance at the upcoming HeartSong Lodge & Resort at Dollywood.

Parton shared more about the new lodge and how “it fits perfectly within the Dollywood Parks & Resorts portfolio.” There was also a special presentation from the American Chestnut Foundation, which is a group “near and dear” to Parton’s late uncle, Bill Owens, who passed away in April 2021.

Parton wrote a song called “Heartsong” that she recorded live in the currently-closed Heartsong Dollywood theater for her album, “Heartsongs: Live From Home” in 1994.

Dolly Parton performs “Heartsong” in Pigeon Forge on Friday, June 24, 2022. (Photo: WATE)

“All my songs are heart songs,” Parton said in Heartsong: The Movie (1993). “And I’ll keep on writing songs if you promise to keep on listening.”

Parton performed the song for the crowd at the HeartSong Lodge & Resort on Friday.

The HeartSong Lodge & Resort, scheduled to open in 2023 in Pigeon Forge, is a five-story, 302-room lodge featuring a sprawling indoor/outdoor pool complex and 26,000-square-foot indoor and outdoor event space. Located next to Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort and Spa, its the first expansion of the park since the $37 million Wildwood Grove in 2019 and the first new resort since the DreamMore opened in 2015.