Scenes from the Neighborhood

New-Old House builds on ONK's preservation

		Above, the first new-old house at 1335 Grainger Ave. built by Greg Hyde and Deborah Duncan. When the H-1 Overlay was put in place, several developers said this type of home building would never take place. Below is a glimpse of one of the oak pocket doors bought from a local salvage company and installed in the house. There is also a salvaged oak front door and a mantel rescued from a demolished old house. The photo is taken through the glass of the salvaged front door. .

They said it couldn't be done. When the H-1 Overlay was created in Old North Knoxville in the early 1990s, several developers told long-time residents like Chester Kilgore that because of the Overlay there would never be any new construction, that "infill" as it is sometimes called would never take place in the vacant lots. Well, somebody forgot to tell Greg Hyde that it would never happen. 

He not only has built one new house in the old style at 1335 Grainger, he is planning on building his own new - old house on Oklahoma, and then build a third house on the lot next to his first one.

The 1825 square foot, two-story house on Grainger took about 5 months from planning to near completion. In addition to modern features such a Jacuzzi in master bath and central air conditioning, it also includes a few "old" touches such as a fireplace mantel saved from an old house demolished on Coker Ave., and an oak front door and oak pocket doors that were purchased from a local salvage company. The mantel has the original tag on the back of it saying it came from Louisville, KY, in 1897 and was sold locally by White Mantel and Hearth. The downstairs has the traditional ten-foot high ceilings while the upstairs has the more modern 8-foot high ceilings.

The plans came from the pages of an issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine, but even they had a little history to them. Ann Bennett, Senior Planner with the Metropolitan Planning Commission and Staff for the Historic Zoning Commission who works with the Historic Zoning Commission, said when Greg Hyde brought the plans for her to look at she immediately recognized the name of the design firm, having dealt with them when she worked in Memphis. 

In the 1960s, many old homes in Memphis were bought and torn down in anticipation of building I-40. When the interstate did not go the way originally planned, there were tracts of land in need of "infill" houses, new houses but in the old style. Looney, Ricks, and Kiss designed homes to blend in with the remaining older homes and fill in the gaps. Now one of their plans was being proposed for the house on Grainger. Other than a few modifications requested by the Historic Zoning Commission, the plans were approved. As part of the original plans, the house has a porte-cochere, and Greg Hyde believes the house "wouldn't look right" without it. He has even installed the old-style "two runner" driveway, a feature that some of the original homes in Old North Knoxville have lost. Rather than a solid pad of asphalt or concrete, the two runner driveway has two rails of concrete with grass in the middle. The car pulls up onto the runners.

Originally the room off to the right as you enter through the front door was a formal dining room. Greg added the pocket doors so it could be used as a study. And while the house is not set up to burn wood or coal in the fireplace, it is set up to burn natural gas. 

The 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house has cedar shakes and cedar lap on the exterior. Plans are to stain the shakes and paint the lap siding and trim. Greg said he selected cedar because from his work, he has found it is a longer lasting wood and "has that mystique of being cedar." Some of the cedar left over from the house building is on a structure further down Grainger Ave. and on a home in neighboring 4th and Gill, in a house across the street from the Brownlow School, where Greg remembers going to first grade.

Greg, his wife Deborah Duncan (who found the plans for the Grainger house), and their son Luka are finalizing the plans for their home on Oklahoma, just down the street from the small neighborhood park ONK and the city are working on developing. Once he has built his own new-old house, he'll start work on the second one on Grainger.

The Grainger house is for sale for $176,500. Contact Greg Hyde or Deborah Duncan at 865-525-3254.

The home building "fever" is spreading to other historic neighborhoods and other builders. New-old houses are planned for the historic neighborhoods of 4th and Gill and Mechanicsville. And these are only part of what Chester Kilgore calls "several very positive turns" for Old North Knoxville and historic preservation in Knoxville. Sometimes never is not as far away as it seems.

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