Sequoyah Hills, Tennessee
Encyclopedia
Sequoyah Hills is a neighborhood in Knoxville
, Tennessee
, USA, located off Kingston Pike between the city's downtown area and West Knoxville. Initially developed in the 1920s, Sequoyah Hills was one of Knoxville's first suburbs, and today is home to some of the city's most affluent residents. The neighborhood contains numerous notable examples of mid-20th century residential architecture, with houses designed by architects such as Charles I. Barber
, Benjamin McMurry, and Francis Keally. Sequoyah Hills is named for the Cherokee
scholar Sequoyah
(c. 1767–1843), inventor of the Cherokee alphabet
.
Originally an agrarian area known as Looney's Bend, the modern Sequoyah Hills neighborhood is largely rooted in the development efforts of 1920s-era visionary entrepreneurs E. V. Ferrell, who developed the Scenic Drive area, and Robert L. Foust, who established the "Talahi" subdivision in the vicinity of Cherokee Boulevard and Talahi Drive. Foust and Ferrell advertised their respective developments as utopian getaways where Knoxville's elite could escape from the ills of congested city life. While the Great Depression
led to the financial collapse of the Talahi project and Foust's subsequent suicide, Sequoyah Hills nevertheless continued to develop over the years as Foust had envisioned.
Cherokee Boulevard was home to Knoxville's first Dogwood Arts Trail, which was established in 1955. In 1979, the Talahi Improvements, which consist of several early landscape elements from Foust's Talahi development, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places
.
created by a bend of the Tennessee River
known as Looney's Bend. The neighborhood is bounded by the river on the east, south, and west, and by Kingston Pike (US-70
/US-11
) on the north. The area is generally hilly, with a 10 to 15-foot bluff rising above the rivershore along most of the neighborhood's southern edge. From the edge of the bluff, the land gradually slopes upward, reaching approximately 40 feet (12.2 m) above the river, affording houses along the upper slopes sweeping views of the river and Knoxville in the distance.
Sequoyah Park, which occupies most of the south side of the neighborhood, lies in the floodplain between the rivershore and base of the bluff. Cherokee Boulevard, a true boulevard
with a grassy median dividing the right and left lanes, runs in a U-shape around the edge of the peninsula. The other main road, Scenic Drive/Southgate Road, runs roughly north-to-south across the center of the peninsula. A small commercial center, known as Council Point, is concentrated around the intersection of Kenesaw and Keowee avenues.
as early as the Late Woodland period
(c. 500–1100 A.D.), as indicated by a 1,000-year old Indian mound that rises in the median of Cherokee Boulevard. By the 18th century, the area was under control of the Cherokee, whose Overhill towns
lay along the Little Tennessee River
to the southwest. The neighborhood's namesake, Sequoyah, was born in the Overhill town of Tuskegee around 1767.
In 1796, Moses Looney (1750–1817), who had served in various capacities with the failed State of Franklin
during the 1780s, acquired a 700 acres (283.3 ha) tract of land in what is now Sequoyah Hills. He and his descendants would remain on this land for several decades, and the area became known as "Looney's Bend." Other early landowners in the Sequoyah Hills area included future Knoxville mayor James Park, who purchased a 200 acres (80.9 ha) tract in 1804, William Lyon, who built a house and mill near the modern intersection of Lyon's View Pike and Northshore Drive around 1810, and Drury Armstrong (builder of Crescent Bend
), who acquired a large tract of land west of modern Scenic Drive in 1846.
The oldest house in Sequoyah Hills, which currently stands at 715 Scenic Drive, was originally built in the 1850s as a tenant house on the farm of Allen Johnson (1808–1898). Around 1814, George White, a son-in-law of James Park and a grandson of Knoxville founder James White
, built a house along what is now Woodhill Drive. While this house is no longer standing, the remnants of a barn that accompanied the house can be seen on along Scenic Drive.
doomed this venture, however, and the land was distributed to Huger's creditors in 1908. Knox County road commissioner Peter Blow (1854–1945) built a house on the south bank of the river opposite Sequoyah Hills in 1910, where he operated a ferry
. Blow's Ferry Road, which connected the ferry to Kingston Pike, is believed to have been built along a trail that once accessed a cemetery containing the graves of Civil War soldiers and slaves.
In 1907, several Knoxville businessmen established the Cherokee Country Club on Lyon's View Pike, and erected a clubhouse on a hill with a commanding view of the river valley and the Great Smoky Mountains
beyond. This original clubhouse was eventually demolished, and replaced with the current building, designed by the noted Knoxville architectural firm Baumann and Baumann
, in 1928. In 1913, trolley tracks were extended along Kingston Pike to its Lyon's View Pike junction, aiding in the development of the area. What is now Sequoyah Hills was annexed by Knoxville in 1917.
With the advent of the automobile, affluent Knoxvillians began fleeing the congested urban neighborhoods for more spacious areas on the city's periphery. By 1920, several elegant residences, such as the H.L. Dulin House (1915) on Kingston Pike and the C. Powell Smith (1913) and E.C. Mahan (1920) residences on Lyon's View Pike, had been built near Sequoyah Hills. In 1921, Regal Manufacturing president S. D. Coykendall commissioned noted Knoxville architectural firm Barber McMurry to build a house on what is now Scenic Drive.
In 1926, Robert Foust, a partner in the real estate firm Alex McMillan Company, purchased a 100 acres (40.5 ha) tract of land on the southeast section of Looney's Bend with plans to develop a premier subdivision for Knoxville. Foust envisioned a neighborhood for those "who insist upon and can afford the best," and where "all the ugliness of city life has been shut out." He named the new subdivision "Talahi," Cherokee for "standing oak forest." The new neighborhood, Foust believed, would bring together "an Indian past, a technical future, and a natural forest setting."
Foust recruited landscape engineer Earle S. Draper to oversee Talahi's complex landscape designs. The plans called for curvilinear streets, preservation of mature trees wherever possible, and underground utilities. Lot sizes were to be no less than 5,000 square feet, and were restricted to single-family homes. Foust's restrictions called for all houses to be built in English Cottage or American Colonial Revival styles (this restriction was abandoned by subsequent developers). A country club was to be built along the river bank.
Between 1927 and 1929, Foust constructed several landscape features, including entrance pylons, fountains, and a park (Papoose Park). Talahi was opened to sales in the Spring of 1929. Unfortunately, only one lot— 940 Cherokee Boulevard— was sold before the stock market crashed later that year
. In the early 1930s, lots in Talahi, originally marketed in the $4,000 to $10,000 range, were selling for just $600. His finances in ruins, Foust committed suicide in September 1933.
The Talahi Improvements are concentrated primarily between the intersections of Talahi Drive and Cherokee Boulevard and Talahi Drive and Taliluna Avenue, with islands in both intersections containing the two fountains, called "Sunhouse Fountain" and "Panther Fountain," respectively. Papoose Park, which is surrounded by an iron fence, is situated in the median along Talahi Drive between the two intersections. Stone walls with inset benches form a broken circle around the Cherokee Boulevard/Talahi Drive intersection, with the north walls opening toward Papoose Park, and the south walls opening toward the lake, where the proposed country club was to have been built.
Sunhouse Fountain is a circular stone fountain with twelve small posts, each decorated with a sunburst motif, and each originally surmounted by a bronze frog (the frogs have since been removed). Panther Fountain is a circular fountain with a central obelisk resting atop a base of varying geometric shapes. Water was discharged through panther heads on each of the four sides of the base. Cherokee motifs decorate the gateposts, pylons, and fountains, suggesting inspiration from both Cherokee folklore and the Art Deco
movement's emphasis on abstract figures.
Howard H. Baker, Jr.
, businessman Jim Clayton
(owner of Clayton Homes
), author Alex Haley
, members of the Haslam family
including Gov. Bill Haslam
, author Cormac McCarthy
, actress Patricia Neal
, Tennessee Volunteers football coach Robert R. Neyland
, actor David Keith
, Knoxville mayors George Roby Dempster
and Benjamin Morton, and photographer James Edward Thompson.
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, USA, located off Kingston Pike between the city's downtown area and West Knoxville. Initially developed in the 1920s, Sequoyah Hills was one of Knoxville's first suburbs, and today is home to some of the city's most affluent residents. The neighborhood contains numerous notable examples of mid-20th century residential architecture, with houses designed by architects such as Charles I. Barber
Charles I. Barber
Charles Irving Barber was an American architect, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, and vicinity, during the first half of the 20th century...
, Benjamin McMurry, and Francis Keally. Sequoyah Hills is named for the Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
scholar Sequoyah
Sequoyah
Sequoyah , named in English George Gist or George Guess, was a Cherokee silversmith. In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible...
(c. 1767–1843), inventor of the Cherokee alphabet
Cherokee syllabary
The Cherokee syllabary is a syllabary invented by Sequoyah to write the Cherokee language in the late 1810s and early 1820s. His creation of the syllabary is particularly noteworthy in that he could not previously read any script. He first experimented with logograms, but his system later developed...
.
Originally an agrarian area known as Looney's Bend, the modern Sequoyah Hills neighborhood is largely rooted in the development efforts of 1920s-era visionary entrepreneurs E. V. Ferrell, who developed the Scenic Drive area, and Robert L. Foust, who established the "Talahi" subdivision in the vicinity of Cherokee Boulevard and Talahi Drive. Foust and Ferrell advertised their respective developments as utopian getaways where Knoxville's elite could escape from the ills of congested city life. While the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
led to the financial collapse of the Talahi project and Foust's subsequent suicide, Sequoyah Hills nevertheless continued to develop over the years as Foust had envisioned.
Cherokee Boulevard was home to Knoxville's first Dogwood Arts Trail, which was established in 1955. In 1979, the Talahi Improvements, which consist of several early landscape elements from Foust's Talahi development, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
Location
Sequoyah Hills is located on a peninsulaPeninsula
A peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....
created by a bend of the Tennessee River
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names...
known as Looney's Bend. The neighborhood is bounded by the river on the east, south, and west, and by Kingston Pike (US-70
U.S. Route 70
U.S. Route 70 is an east–west United States highway that runs for 2,385 miles from eastern North Carolina to east-central Arizona. As can be derived from its number, it is a major east–west highway of the Southern and Southwestern United States...
/US-11
U.S. Route 11
U.S. Route 11 is a north–south United States highway extending 1,645 miles across the eastern United States. The southern terminus of the route is at U.S. Route 90 in the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge in eastern New Orleans, Louisiana. The northern terminus is at the United...
) on the north. The area is generally hilly, with a 10 to 15-foot bluff rising above the rivershore along most of the neighborhood's southern edge. From the edge of the bluff, the land gradually slopes upward, reaching approximately 40 feet (12.2 m) above the river, affording houses along the upper slopes sweeping views of the river and Knoxville in the distance.
Sequoyah Park, which occupies most of the south side of the neighborhood, lies in the floodplain between the rivershore and base of the bluff. Cherokee Boulevard, a true boulevard
Boulevard
A Boulevard is type of road, usually a wide, multi-lane arterial thoroughfare, divided with a median down the centre, and roadways along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with an above-average quality of landscaping and scenery...
with a grassy median dividing the right and left lanes, runs in a U-shape around the edge of the peninsula. The other main road, Scenic Drive/Southgate Road, runs roughly north-to-south across the center of the peninsula. A small commercial center, known as Council Point, is concentrated around the intersection of Kenesaw and Keowee avenues.
Early history
What is now Sequoyah Hills was inhabited by Native AmericansNative Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
as early as the Late Woodland period
Woodland period
The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures was from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The term "Woodland Period" was introduced in the 1930s as a generic header for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the...
(c. 500–1100 A.D.), as indicated by a 1,000-year old Indian mound that rises in the median of Cherokee Boulevard. By the 18th century, the area was under control of the Cherokee, whose Overhill towns
Overhill Cherokee
The term Overhill Cherokee refers to the former Cherokee settlements located in what is now Tennessee in the southeastern United States. The name was given by 18th century European traders and explorers who had to cross the Appalachian Mountains to reach these settlements when traveling from...
lay along the Little Tennessee River
Little Tennessee River
The Little Tennessee River is a tributary of the Tennessee River, approximately 135 miles long, in the Appalachian Mountains in the southeastern United States.-Geography:...
to the southwest. The neighborhood's namesake, Sequoyah, was born in the Overhill town of Tuskegee around 1767.
In 1796, Moses Looney (1750–1817), who had served in various capacities with the failed State of Franklin
State of Franklin
The State of Franklin, known also as the Free Republic of Franklin or the State of Frankland , was an unrecognized autonomous United States territory created in 1784 from part of the territory west of the Appalachian Mountains that had been offered,...
during the 1780s, acquired a 700 acres (283.3 ha) tract of land in what is now Sequoyah Hills. He and his descendants would remain on this land for several decades, and the area became known as "Looney's Bend." Other early landowners in the Sequoyah Hills area included future Knoxville mayor James Park, who purchased a 200 acres (80.9 ha) tract in 1804, William Lyon, who built a house and mill near the modern intersection of Lyon's View Pike and Northshore Drive around 1810, and Drury Armstrong (builder of Crescent Bend
Crescent Bend
Crescent Bend is a historic home at 2728 Kingston Pike in Knoxville, Tennessee. The building is known as Crescent Bend because of its location on a bend of the Tennessee River. It is also known as the Armstrong-Lockett House, Longview and Logueval...
), who acquired a large tract of land west of modern Scenic Drive in 1846.
The oldest house in Sequoyah Hills, which currently stands at 715 Scenic Drive, was originally built in the 1850s as a tenant house on the farm of Allen Johnson (1808–1898). Around 1814, George White, a son-in-law of James Park and a grandson of Knoxville founder James White
James White (general)
James White was an American pioneer and soldier who founded Knoxville, Tennessee, in the early 1790s. Born in Rowan County, North Carolina, White served as a captain in the county's militia during the American Revolutionary War...
, built a house along what is now Woodhill Drive. While this house is no longer standing, the remnants of a barn that accompanied the house can be seen on along Scenic Drive.
Early development
In 1890, Francis Huger, superintendent of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway, acquired over 450 acres (182.1 ha) in Sequoyah Hills with the intent of moving a steel mill to the area. The Panic of 1893Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893. Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures...
doomed this venture, however, and the land was distributed to Huger's creditors in 1908. Knox County road commissioner Peter Blow (1854–1945) built a house on the south bank of the river opposite Sequoyah Hills in 1910, where he operated a ferry
Ferry
A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
. Blow's Ferry Road, which connected the ferry to Kingston Pike, is believed to have been built along a trail that once accessed a cemetery containing the graves of Civil War soldiers and slaves.
In 1907, several Knoxville businessmen established the Cherokee Country Club on Lyon's View Pike, and erected a clubhouse on a hill with a commanding view of the river valley and the Great Smoky Mountains
Great Smoky Mountains
The Great Smoky Mountains are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge Physiographic Province. The range is sometimes called the Smoky Mountains or the...
beyond. This original clubhouse was eventually demolished, and replaced with the current building, designed by the noted Knoxville architectural firm Baumann and Baumann
Baumann family (architects)
The Baumann family was a family of American architects who practiced in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the surrounding region, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It included Joseph F. Baumann , his brother, Albert B. Baumann, Sr. , and Albert's son, Albert B. Baumann, Jr....
, in 1928. In 1913, trolley tracks were extended along Kingston Pike to its Lyon's View Pike junction, aiding in the development of the area. What is now Sequoyah Hills was annexed by Knoxville in 1917.
With the advent of the automobile, affluent Knoxvillians began fleeing the congested urban neighborhoods for more spacious areas on the city's periphery. By 1920, several elegant residences, such as the H.L. Dulin House (1915) on Kingston Pike and the C. Powell Smith (1913) and E.C. Mahan (1920) residences on Lyon's View Pike, had been built near Sequoyah Hills. In 1921, Regal Manufacturing president S. D. Coykendall commissioned noted Knoxville architectural firm Barber McMurry to build a house on what is now Scenic Drive.
Talahi and Sequoyah Hills
In the mid-1920s, E. V. Ferrell began major residential development in Sequoyah Hills. To connect his holdings along the peninsula, he built Cherokee Boulevard (named for the Indian mound in the road's median), and improved Scenic Drive as far as its modern intersection with Bluff and Southgate (a gate at this point inspired the name of the latter). Ferrell chose the name "Sequoyah Hills" to match the name of Cherokee Boulevard. By 1924, houses had been built at 901, 919, 927 and 937 Scenic Drive, and fifty lots had been sold by the end of the decade.In 1926, Robert Foust, a partner in the real estate firm Alex McMillan Company, purchased a 100 acres (40.5 ha) tract of land on the southeast section of Looney's Bend with plans to develop a premier subdivision for Knoxville. Foust envisioned a neighborhood for those "who insist upon and can afford the best," and where "all the ugliness of city life has been shut out." He named the new subdivision "Talahi," Cherokee for "standing oak forest." The new neighborhood, Foust believed, would bring together "an Indian past, a technical future, and a natural forest setting."
Foust recruited landscape engineer Earle S. Draper to oversee Talahi's complex landscape designs. The plans called for curvilinear streets, preservation of mature trees wherever possible, and underground utilities. Lot sizes were to be no less than 5,000 square feet, and were restricted to single-family homes. Foust's restrictions called for all houses to be built in English Cottage or American Colonial Revival styles (this restriction was abandoned by subsequent developers). A country club was to be built along the river bank.
Between 1927 and 1929, Foust constructed several landscape features, including entrance pylons, fountains, and a park (Papoose Park). Talahi was opened to sales in the Spring of 1929. Unfortunately, only one lot— 940 Cherokee Boulevard— was sold before the stock market crashed later that year
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
. In the early 1930s, lots in Talahi, originally marketed in the $4,000 to $10,000 range, were selling for just $600. His finances in ruins, Foust committed suicide in September 1933.
Talahi Improvements
Before the stock market crash ruined his development efforts in 1929, Foust managed to complete several landscape improvements in the proposed Talahi subdivision. These include gateposts at either end of the subdivision along Cherokee Boulevard, two fountains, a park, streetlight standards, and stone benches. The roads were originally paved in concrete, which has been preserved along parts of Talahi Drive, Iskagna Drive, and Taliluna Avenue.The Talahi Improvements are concentrated primarily between the intersections of Talahi Drive and Cherokee Boulevard and Talahi Drive and Taliluna Avenue, with islands in both intersections containing the two fountains, called "Sunhouse Fountain" and "Panther Fountain," respectively. Papoose Park, which is surrounded by an iron fence, is situated in the median along Talahi Drive between the two intersections. Stone walls with inset benches form a broken circle around the Cherokee Boulevard/Talahi Drive intersection, with the north walls opening toward Papoose Park, and the south walls opening toward the lake, where the proposed country club was to have been built.
Sunhouse Fountain is a circular stone fountain with twelve small posts, each decorated with a sunburst motif, and each originally surmounted by a bronze frog (the frogs have since been removed). Panther Fountain is a circular fountain with a central obelisk resting atop a base of varying geometric shapes. Water was discharged through panther heads on each of the four sides of the base. Cherokee motifs decorate the gateposts, pylons, and fountains, suggesting inspiration from both Cherokee folklore and the Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
movement's emphasis on abstract figures.
Houses
- The Jenkins House on Cherokee Boulevard, built in 1955 and designed by noted Knoxville architect Ben McMurry, Jr., of the firm Barber & McMurryBarberMcMurryBarberMcMurry, formerly Barber & McMurry, is an architecture firm based in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Founded in 1915 by Charles Irving Barber and Benjamin Franklin McMurry, Sr...
. In 2008, the magazine Oxford AmericanOxford AmericanThe Oxford American is an American quarterly literary magazine "dedicated to featuring the very best in Southern writing while documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South."-First publication:...
profiled this house in its list of the best modern homes of the southeast.
- University of Tennessee president's house (940 Cherokee Boulevard), a Georgian Revival-style house built by Nashville surgeon Walter S. Nash in the 1930s after the Nash family home in downtown Knoxville was demolished for the construction of the Knoxville Post OfficeUnited States Post Office and Courthouse (Knoxville, Tennessee)The United States Post Office and Courthouse, commonly called the Knoxville Post Office, is a federal building located at 501 Main Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Constructed in the early 1930s for use as a post office and federal courthouse, the building contains numerous Art Deco and...
. Nash purchased the sole lot in Talahi before the company collapsed into financial ruin. The University of TennesseeUniversity of TennesseeThe University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...
purchased the house in 1960 from Nash's son-in-law and daughter, Ray JenkinsRay JenkinsRay Howard Jenkins was an American lawyer, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the surrounding region, throughout much of the 20th century...
and Eva Nash Jenkins, and used it as its presidential mansion until 2009.
- Thomas House (715 Scenic Drive), the oldest extant house in Sequoyah Hills, originally built in the 1850s as a tenant house on the farm of Allen Johnson. The Towle family purchased the farm in 1899, and in turn sold it to developer N.E. Logan in 1923.
- 726 Scenic Drive, a one-story Minimal Traditional-style Gunnison home built in 1948. Gunnison homes were a type of prefabricated house popular in the years following World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
- 934 Scenic Drive, a 2.5-story Tudor Revival-style house built in 1928, and designed by landscape architect Elizabeth Dunlap.
- 937 Scenic Drive, a two-story Neoclassical-styleNeoclassical architectureNeoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
house built in 1924, and designed by the architectural firm Barber & McMurry.
- 1029 Scenic Drive, a two-story Neoclassical-style house built in 1930, and designed by the architectural firm Barber & McMurry.
- Lockett House (1065 Scenic Drive), a two-story Neoclassical style house built in 1931, and designed by the architectural firm Baumann and BaumannBaumann family (architects)The Baumann family was a family of American architects who practiced in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the surrounding region, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It included Joseph F. Baumann , his brother, Albert B. Baumann, Sr. , and Albert's son, Albert B. Baumann, Jr....
. The property includes an old log cabin moved from Jefferson CountyJefferson County, Tennessee*...
.
- 1079 Scenic Drive, a two-story art moderne house built in 1935, and designed by landscape architect Elizabeth Dunlap.
- 1119 Scenic Drive, a 1.5-story Tudor Revival-style house built in 1940, and designed by noted architect Francis Keally.
Other buildings
- Sequoyah Elementary School, the original part of which (facing Sagwa Drive) was built in 1929, and designed by the architectural firm Barber McMurry.
- Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church, founded in 1947; the current church building was completed in 1954.
Notable residents
Notable residents of Sequoyah Hills have included SenatorUnited States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Howard H. Baker, Jr.
Howard Baker
Howard Henry Baker, Jr. is a former Senate Majority Leader, Republican U.S. Senator from Tennessee, White House Chief of Staff, and a former United States Ambassador to Japan.Known in Washington, D.C...
, businessman Jim Clayton
Jim Clayton (Clayton Homes)
James L. "Jim" Clayton, Sr. is an American entrepreneur who founded Clayton Homes in 1966 and built it into the United States' largest producer and seller of manufactured housing, a publicly traded company that was sold to Berkshire Hathaway in 2003 for $1.7 billion. He lives in Knoxville,...
(owner of Clayton Homes
Clayton Homes
Clayton Homes, a component company of Berkshire Hathaway, is the United States' largest manufacturer of manufactured housing. The company is vertically integrated; it builds, sells, finances, leases, and insures manufactured and modular homes....
), author Alex Haley
Alex Haley
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an African-American writer. He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the coauthor of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.-Early life:...
, members of the Haslam family
James Haslam Jr.
James Arthur "Jim" Haslam II is an American businessman and philanthropist, best known as the founder of Pilot Corporation, which operates a chain of convenience stores and travel centers throughout the United States and Canada, and is one of the largest privately-owned companies in the United...
including Gov. Bill Haslam
Bill Haslam
William Edward "Bill" Haslam is the 49th and current Governor of Tennessee. A member of the Republican Party, Haslam was elected to office in 2010...
, author Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
, actress Patricia Neal
Patricia Neal
Patricia Neal was an American actress of stage and screen. She was best known for her film roles as World War II widow Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still , wealthy matron Emily Eustace Failenson in Breakfast at Tiffany's , middle-aged housekeeper Alma Brown in Hud , for which she won...
, Tennessee Volunteers football coach Robert R. Neyland
Robert Neyland
Robert Reese Neyland, MBE was an American football player and coach and and officer in the United States Army, reaching the rank of brigadier general. He served three stints as the head football coach as the University of Tennessee...
, actor David Keith
David Keith
David Lemuel Keith is an American actor and director. He received Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor and New Star of the Year – Actor for his performance in An Officer and a Gentleman.-Career:...
, Knoxville mayors George Roby Dempster
George Roby Dempster
George Roby Dempster was an American businessman, inventor, and politician, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the first half of the twentieth century. Dempster is best known for the invention of the Dempster-Dumpster, a now-commonly-used trash receptacle that can be mechanically...
and Benjamin Morton, and photographer James Edward Thompson.