The Noel Hotel

The Noel Hotel at 200 N. 4th Ave was built by John and Oscar Noel. The 12-story, 250-room hotel was designed in an Art Deco style. The luxury hotel opened on January 6, 1930. It was the location of many events over the years. It closed September 30, 1972 after the building was purchased by the Hamilton Bank, which renovated the building for bank operations and offices.

It was a gorgeous hotel that even had a built-in wall radio, each with a handful of preset radio stations in guests’ rooms.  One outstanding memory I have of staying in that hotel is that of the song “Love Letters in the Sand” by Pat Boone playing on the modern entertainment system.

Currently that location is the NEW Noelle Hotel, a combination of both this and past eras of it.

The Maxwell House Hotel

The Maxwell House Hotel was a major hotel in downtown Nashville at which was built by Colonel John Overton Jr. and named for his wife, Harriet Maxwell Overton.   It is said that seven US Presidents and other prominent guests stayed there.

Construction began in 1859 using slave labor.   The war caused a suspension of construction on the hotel and the unfinished building was used by the occupying Union Army after 1862 as a barracks, prison, and hospital.

What locals called “Overton’s Folly”  was finally completed and opened in fall 1869; total costs were $500,000.   The Maxwell House was Nashville’s largest hotel, with five stories and 240 rooms. It advertised steam heat, gas lighting, and a bath on every floor. Rooms cost $4 a day, including meals.

Located on the northwest corner of Fourth Avenue North and Church Street, the hotel had its front entrance, flanked by eight Corinthian columns, on Fourth Avenue in the “Men’s Quarter”. There was a separate entrance for women on Church Street. The main lobby featured mahogany cabinetry, brass fixtures, gilded mirrors, and chandeliers. There were ladies’ and men’s parlors, billiard rooms, barrooms, shaving “saloons,” and a grand staircase to the large ball or dining room.

The hotel was at its height from the 1890s to the early twentieth century. Its Christmas dinner featuring calf’s head, black bear, and opossum, and other unusual delicacies became famous. Hotel guests included William Jennings Bryan, Enrico Caruso, “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Annie Oakley, William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), Cornelius Vanderbilt, George Westinghouse, and Presidents Andrew Johnson, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson.

A reported comment by President Theodore Roosevelt that a cup of coffee he drank was “good to the last drop” was used as the advertising slogan for Maxwell House coffee, which was served at and named after the hotel.

After being used for some years as a residential hotel, the Maxwell House Hotel was destroyed by fire on Christmas Night 1961, close to the time that Don Martin moved to Nashville.   A newer hotel has been named for the old Maxwell House, the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel. The SunTrust Building was built on the site of the original hotel at 201 4th Avenue North.

The L & C Tower

The Life & Casualty Tower (also known as the L & C Tower) is a skyscraper located at 401 Church Street. It stands 409 feet tall, and has 30 floors. It was designed by prolific Nashville architect, Edwin A. Keeble, finished in 1957. It was Nashville’s first skyscraper and the tallest in Tennessee until 1965, when 100 North Main Street in Memphis surpassed it.

Exterior materials are granite and limestone, with bright green glass windows. The architectural curves and angles at the building’s base focus attention on the entrance, which actually does angle out to the corner of Church Street and 4th Ave.

In the building’s early days, the L&C sign at its apex functioned as a weather beacon, changing color and direction of motion to indicate the weather  changes and forecast.  The observation deck also housed the studio of WLAC-FM, whose format at the time was “chicken rock,” popular hit music done in instrumental style as if for elevators.  It used to be the only element in the Nashville skyline for many years, protruding as though Nashville were giving a mighty finger to the rest of the state.

The Stahlman Building

This building was constructed by Major Edward Bushrod Stahlman.  When it opened in 1907, it housed the Fourth National Bank, its original vault still in the basement. It remained in the Stahlman family until the 1950s.

Now well over 100 years old, the building has been renovated into apartments and retail space. Since 1967, its roof has featured large neon letters spelling the callsign of radio station WKDF (and before that, its predecessor, WKDA-FM 103.3 and sister station WKDA-AM 1240),  both of which occupied the top floor of the building until moving to its new facilities in 1978.

The building was designed by architect James Edwin Ruthven Carpenter, Jr.  It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing property to the Nashville Financial Historic District since March 20, 2002.  And yes, if you look really close, that is me on the roof of the Stahlman Building catching some rays during a deep album cut by Iron Butterfly I was playing on air.

Others

In the next few weeks we will be trying to deal with some of these other points of interest, including, but not limited to the following:

Fred Harvey’s/St Cloud Corner, Cain Sloan Bldg, Bennie-Dillon Bldg, Library, Union Station, Post Office, Ryman Auditorium, Municipal Auditorium, Hume-Fogg, Printer’s Alley, Glendale Amusement Park, The Arcade and many others in and away from the downtown area.

Imagine an analog clock face.  Draw a line from 12 o’clock to 6 o’clock.  Draw another line from 11 o’clock to 5 o’clock.  Now draw the third and final line from 9 o’clock to 3 o’clock.  Now we have completed simplifying the highway system of Nashville.

At 12 o’clock is Hendersonville, Gallatin etc. while at towards 6 o’clock  is Brentwood, and Franklin.  At 11 o’clock is Clarksville while 5 o’clock is the direction of LaVergne, Smyrna, Murfreesboro and all of Rutherford County.  At 9 o’clock is Fairview and Dickson, while towards 3 o’clock is Hermitage and Mt. Juliet.  These I mention are just some of the 12 counties of suburbs and bedroom communities of Nashville and not including eventual destination areas served by these highways.

Now, let’s put 1.9 million people in these areas. many of whom have jobs and have to travel to work on one of these three highways.  And the jobs usually begin and end each day at roughly the same time. Stir in a little cowboy in each of us who are on the road, and there you have got it – a traffic reporter’s dream!

In Nashville, we have people, from time to time, who come up with a commuter rail plan like those which have worked in other cities.  We had one recently make it so far in the approval process, that the public had the chance to show their support of the plan and the taxes it would cost them.  They didn’t want it.

If we took a train, where would we leave our pick up trucks, and how would we carry our saddles?

But this is just an occasional minor irritation.  The only reason I bring it up here is because sometimes tourists and visitors to our city remark about our traffic.  And yes the traffic is always worse on Friday.  People get paid, and sometimes stop at the grocery store on the way home.

It’s been like this for a while.  In 1895 H G Hill had a grocery store downtown, but by 1906 he had 12 around Nashville.  Mr. Hill shrewdly began putting a grocery store at the end of the trolley lines, so on Fridays folks wouldn’t have to carry their groceries on the ride home.  This explains the placement of may of the stores.

Unfortunately now, many of the H G Hill stores have closed, and the trolleys have, too, the first failure of a light rail system in Nashville.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Hill soon discovered the real estate on which the stores sat was a much more profitable business than the grocery trade.  In future days we will prove this theory with discussions of the Hill mansion and a lot of the commercial real estate here in town.

In the late sixties, we, as students and non-students had survived the various invasions of art, music, and culture of the period.  There was music and love everywhere.  Woodstock, bell-bottoms, peace, love, etc.

Those of us who were in school, of course, were very busy studying intensely.  When we needed to get away for five or thirty minutes, especially in the spring when the sun started to warm the city, we looked for grassy areas in which to relax.

When the old quadrangles got too full, we looked for alternatives.  The Warner Parks were a long way to the west of the city.  Many of us had no car.  There was, however, a lot of grass just across the street or down the way.  We all came to know and love it.

Centennial Park

(From www.nashville.gov/Parks-and-Recreation website.)

“Centennial Park is one of Nashville’s premier parks. Located on West End and 25th Avenue North, the 132-acre features: the iconic Parthenon, a one-mile walking trail, Lake Watauga, the Centennial Art Center, historical monuments, an arts activity center, a beautiful sunken garden, a band shell, an events shelter, sand volleyball courts, dog park, and an exercise trail. Thousands of people visit the park each year to visit the museum, see exhibits, attend festivals, and just enjoy the beauty of the park.”

Park History

(–from the book, The Parks of Nashville:  A History of the Board of Parks and Recreation by Leland R. Johnson)

“This park was the site of the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition.  It previously had been a farm purchased in 1783 by John Cockrill, the brother-in-law to James Robertson, then became the state fairgrounds after the Civil War and from 1884 to 1895 became a racetrack known as West Side Park.  Construction of the buildings for the 1897 Centennial began in 1895 with the laying of the cornerstone for the Parthenon replica on October 8, and a large number of elaborate structures were built to serve the 1.8 million visitors to the Exposition from the President down. When the Exposition closed on October 30, 1897, its leadership called for preservation of the Parthenon replica and the Centennial grounds as a public park, initiating the city park movement in Nashville.

“As the result of a litigation settlement with city government, Percy Warner and the Nashville Railway and Light Company purchased the first 72 acres of Centennial Park for $125,00 and gave it to the Park Board on December 22, 1902. The Park Board built a swimming pool, stocked Lake Watauga with fish, planted flower gardens and shrubs, built drives and walkways, and opened the park to the public in 1903, scheduling Gilbert and Sullivan operettas for cultural recreation purposes and also providing art exhibits in the Parthenon.

“During 1903, the monuments paying tribute to James Robertson and to the leaders of the 1897 Centennial Exposition were erected in the park, becoming the first of many monuments and memorials placed throughout the park. In 1903 the Park Board leased the Elliston Tract across 25th Avenue from the park as the site of ball diamonds, tennis courts, and a football field; it purchased the tract in 1911 and named it the Centennial Athletic Field. Land exchanges with the railroad north of the park and purchases of residential properties around the periphery of the park gradually expanded the park area to its present size.

“The first community center in the park was constructed in 1916, with a trolley car located in the playground at its side. The steam locomotive was placed in the park in 1953 and the fighter plane in 1961. The Sunken Gardens in 1897 was a pond called Lily Lake and from 1922 to 1949 was a Japanese Water Garden displaying aquatic plants. The bridge between the Sunken Gardens and Lake Watauga was constructed in 1906 and is the first reinforced concrete bridge built in Tennessee. The Centennial Park swimming pool, built in 1932, was reconstructed as the Centennial Art Center in 1972, with the site of the pool becoming a sculpture garden. Ice Centennial was built in 1978. The Parthenon replica of 1897 was reconstructed of concrete from 1921 to 1931 and received a minor renovation in 1962. The Centennial Croquet Club was constructed in 1963, although croquet courts had occupied the site many years before. The Confed­erate powder wheels were moved into the park from Sycamore Mills during the 1897 Centennial and are probably the most prominent artifact of the Exposition in the park, though many others are scattered functionally and unobtrusively throughout the park.”

Greenspaces Mandatory Now

Many new residential, commercial, and public developments now have a certain percentage of their area that must be dedicated and used as “greenspace.”  This is aesthetically pleasing as well as a throw-back to the progress we made as pioneers in our quadrangles of early Nashville.  I am still hanging on to my bell-bottoms, in case I ever need them.

In 1961 my family moved to Nashville because of my father’s business.  My business at the time was to finish the sixth grade.  Meanwhile, closer to downtown Nashville, a suburban neighborhood around Sixteenth Ave South was being transformed.

Owen Bradley had a Quonset Hut recording studio and the RCA Victor folks started their studio.  Bradley recorded powerhouse singers and so did Chet Atkins and Floyd Cramer in their Studio B.  They assembled teams of the best musicians in Nashville.

Their music gradually moved away from its Appalachian roots.  They lessened the fiddles and steel guitars, but added chorus singers, and ended with a “Nashville Sound.”

Bradley eventually moved out to a farm and barn outside of Nashville for the quiet.  Studio B, which still exists today handled things differently.  I believe I heard, back in the sixties, that the studio was surrounded by sand – under the floor, in the walls, it was isolated from the planet.  It was about a 40 ft two-story room with all different angles and some sound panels that were tweaked over the years.  The reverberation for the studio was its own room with a speaker and microphones on the roof.  The total of all the elements equaled the home for the Nashville Sound.  The tour of the studio is an amazingly interesting trip.

Even though the monetary temptation is often to tear down the old and put up newer – bigger, we appreciate holding on to some of our history.  Especially on Music Row.  Go take the tours!

When I was in college, in the late sixties, a group of guys from the campus radio station got a hold of an entire house down on Division St, gutted it and made a recording studio.  The living room was a sound studio, the dining room became a control room, and the butler’s pass-through housed the tape machines and the kitchen the reception desk area.

This was the analog age.  As time passed, the digital age eventually would let us approximate that building full of equipment in a laptop computer.  We could even record music tracks separately and email them to someone else to add their instrument.

That being said, I must admit there is a huge difference in the sound itself.  A trained ear or even an untrained one could tell the difference between the old Steinway at Studio B and another piano recorded anywhere else.  It’s the magic.

The people who have recorded in Bradley’s Quonset Hut and his Barn and in Victor’s Studio B are an absolute who’s who of mega-stars.  The length of these articles is too restrictive for that list.

Unfortunately, these studios began in the late fifties just before I moved to Nashville.  Actually the Beatles were formed in 1960 (and weren’t on Ed Sullivan until Feb of 1964.)  Therefore, I cannot claim credit for the Nashville Sound any more than I will for the British Invasion.  In fact, the only thing that I can take credit for is actually making it through the sixties alive.

It is a difficult thing to judge about a town where you live.  Are the people friendly or not?  It is like an accent.  You act or speak the same as most of your neighbors, so you don’t really notice.  Certain qualities are best recognized by outsiders, visitors.  Many, if not most, of the tourists in Nashville say that it is an exceptionally friendly town.  Tourists seem to act friendly towards us here in Nashville.  This is often because of three reasons.

Reason One  – We’re already there

Almost everyone in Nashville is ALREADY friendly.  Even shopkeepers, who are generally mute or grumbly in other areas are chatty in Nashville.  They will stop what they are doing and ask you, “How you doin’ Hon?”

We may all come from different geographic areas.  We may all start out with different accents.  But after we have become homogenized by Nashville culture for a while, the customer service industry here becomes clone-like in their hospitality.

Reason Two – Hakuna Matata

Life is great here in Nashville.  There are really no worries.  Maybe a strange little buzz on that last track you recorded.  But you can fix that.  Or re-do it.  No big deal.

Or maybe the drive-through was out of waffle-fries.  Just pull into a parking space and someone will bring you some as soon as they are ready.

Our restaurant choices includes the four major food groups, Asian buffets, Mexican taquerias, ‘burger stands, and NASHVILLE HOT CHICKEN joints.  The biggest source of stress in Nashville is deciding where to eat.

There is not a lot of snow.  There is not too much rain.  Hot and cold weather are pretty balanced, with plenty of happy sunshine.  We have FOUR glorious seasons!

Formal parties are confined to awards events, but you can still wear your cowboy hat.  It’s a come-as-you-are town. Most of us drive pickup trucks if you ever need one to move your apartment and you are one of the few in town who don’t drive one.

Reason Three – Let us help you with that excess mucus

We may make it look easy.  The pace is laid-back and relaxed.  But we are busy people.  And we just don’t have time for rudeness.

This is not to say a Nashvillian will actually beat the snot out of you, but you will get far less out of the time and interactions you have here, if you’re the rude type.  Most of the folks here start out being pretty darned nice to strangers, but if the love is not returned, it can dry right up.  Karma.

If you add it all together you can understand why the grass actually IS greener in Nashville.  Tomorrow I will share with you how many people are moving to Nashville each year.  And how many new restaurants and hotels are opening.  And how many houses are being bought.

And how few discouraging words are heard.