Nashville's most expensive home sold in July has deep historical roots

Sitting on a pastoral 1.46-acre lot, one of Nashville’s most historic homes sold for $5.5 million in July making it the most expensive home sold in Nashville that month.

Built in 1912, 4414 Howell Place was one of the first homes to be built in the city of Belle Meade for Luke Lea and his family. Lea was a member of the U.S. Senate, a lawyer and the owner of the Nashville Tennessean, Memphis Commercial Appeal and the Knoxville Journal.

The home has 5,414 square feet spanning four bedrooms, three full bathrooms and two half baths. It underwent two and a half years of restoration and renovation that highlights its classic, historic features.

"A lot of the value is in the history of it,” said Realtor Emily Lowe of Pinnacle Point Properties & Development. “All the renovations that were done to the home were very classic. They went a great distance to preserve the history of it and did things that would be timeless."

The fireplace has its original mantels, original hardwood floors that were repaired as needed, an original bathtub in one of the bathrooms, the original slate roof that was also repaired as needed, the original cylinder glass windows that were made of handblown glass and a playhouse which pre-dates the home.

The kitchen, while still traditional, was made larger to incorporate the mudroom and butler’s pantry.

Four bedrooms on the second floor were turned into two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a half bath and a laundry room. The attic on the third floor was also renovated into two bedrooms and a bathroom.

“The master suite has a huge walk-in closet with built-ins in,” Lowe said. “It’s like closets inside a closest.”

The former owners bought the house in 1998 and painted it white, but they did a combination of water and sandblasting to get the paint off the exterior to get the original brick back, which is a rich dark, red color with black border.

The former owners purchased the home for $950,000 from Robert A. Mathews, a longtime leading Nashville dentist, and his wife Emily, who acquired it in 1970.

There is a detached carriage house on the property that has a three-car garage with living space next to it.

Some of Lowe’s favorite parts of the property include the first floor with all the historical features, a playhouse that has two bedrooms and front and back porches, the rose garden next to the playhouse, and the vegetable potager garden.

“This is a really special home,” says Lowe. “I was honored to be called upon to sell it.”The home was shown to three to four potential buyers and went under contract within five days.

The history, location, yard size, and the potential for add-ons is what made the house so desirable, Lowe said.

Historic Nashville home built for senator and Tennessean newspaper publisher

Luke Lea, its original owner, was born in Nashville in 1879 and his grandfather, John McCormack Lea, was the mayor of Nashville in 1849.

After receiving his master’s degree in 1900, Lea traveled in Europe before he entered law school at Columbia University where he was the editor of the Columbia Law Review in 1903. He opened his own law practice in downtown Nashville upon graduation.

In 1907, Lea started The Tennessean Company. A Tennessean article about the newspaper's founding states : "Luke Lea, a 28-year-old lawyer, started The Nashville Tennessean, in part to give voice to his political views, which included support for a ban on liquor."

Lea was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1911 when he was 32 and stayed in office until 1917 when he then became a recruiter for the 114 ^th Field Artillery. He served as a first colonel until the end of World War I.

After the war, Lee returned to managing the Nashville Tennessean and became the publisher of the Memphis Commercial Appeal and the Knoxville Journal.

When Lea was not managing his newspapers, he built a real-estate empire.

However, in 1931 Lea was convicted of banking violations and The Tennessean was placed in receivership two years later.

Lea was paroled after about two years in prison and ultimately fully pardoned.

"Lea launched The Tennessean as a paper editorially committed to the temperance movement, against the political influence of the whiskey industry," former Tennessean editor John Seigenthaler wrote in 2015 . "There already were two established, profitable newspapers in Nashville in 1907—the Nashville Banner and The Nashville American .

"Had you asked Lea that first day, he would have asserted, with bravado, that his new creation would, indeed, survive for a century and more — and outlive both solvent competing papers. He was right. But he never would have believed that a quarter-century later his own mismanagement, unwise alliances and the looming Great Depression would put the paper in bankruptcy — and Lea in a North Carolina prison. Nine publishers and a federal receiver have guided this newspaper since Lea lost it in 1933."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville's most expensive home sold in July has deep historical roots