Jordan Shivers was searching for a special place to spend her wedding night. She found one that was beyond her wildest dreams.

Her mother came across a story about a cabin nestled inside a cave, overlooking Smith Lake. It was the perfect spot for her now-husband, a cave enthusiast. But, to her disappointment, the cabin wasn’t being rented out. Undeterred, Jordan reached out to the owner of the cabin, who graciously offered to let the couple to stay there for free. She didn’t tell her husband where they were going.

“It feels like you’re descending into a fantasy world,” she says. Her family and friends had filled the cave outside the cabin with candles. “We fell instantly in love. It was crazy because we were exhausted after sunup-to-sundown partying. But it was so fantastic and mystical that we got a second wind.”

The couple spent two nights in the cabin before leaving for their honeymoon in Italy.

Jordan’s serendipitous meeting with the property owner back in 2015 eventually led to a business relationship, when she convinced him that the spot would make a fantastic short-term rental. For the past year or so, Jordan, a stay-at-home mom and amateur photographer, has worked with guests as the co-host of one of the most unusual places to stay in Alabama.

The rustic, 1,100-square-foot cabin is about as secluded as a dwelling can be. Wooden steps lead from the edge of a ridge down to the front of the cave below. Visitors hear the sound of waterfalls, and not much else, as they approach.

Every time she returns to the cabin, Jordan says, she has a delightful sense of deja vu. “I never get tired of visiting there because I can relive (our first stay there),” she says. She hosted a 50th birthday party for her mother in the cave, and her children and nieces and nephews were “speechless when we came around the corner,” she says. “It was like they walked into a storybook.”

Many of the guests mention in their reviews that photos don’t do justice to the cabin in the cave, which Jordan describes as “more like an alcove, or a grotto.” The wide-open cave space is larger than the cabin itself, with natural rock overhead, a stained-concrete floor, furniture made of wood and iron, colored lighting, fire pits, outdoor showers, a “cool tub” that holds 1,000 gallons of cave water in a stone trough, and the Lion’s Den, a small structure that functions as a “VIP lounge/hangout.” Insulated from the weather, the cave maintains a constant temperature.

The free-standing cabin juts out of the cave, offering stunning views of the lake below as well as the waterfalls inside the cave from the bedroom. Though it’s rustic, the cabin is equipped with fiber-optic cable.

A gentle slope leads to a dock on the lake below. “Smith Lake is such a gem,” Jordan says. The cabin is the icing on the cake, “a gem on a gem,” she says. “There’s always something to see.”

The cabin stays booked through Airbnb. Guests frequently use the word “magical” to describe their experiences there, with one calling it “a dream vacation spot.” Its co-hosts, who love sharing the unique space with others, couldn’t agree more.

For more information about renting the cabin for events or overnight stays, visit smithlakecave.com. Reservations can be made up to three months in advance through Airbnb or VRBO.