Marrcrest, at the corner of Flint Street and St. Charles Street, was featured on Sunday, Oct. 5, on Home & Garden Television. Click on photo to enlarge.
photo by Irby Park
Home & Garden Television’s "If Walls Could Talk" program featured “Marrcrest,” the Signal Mountain home of Robert and Charlotte White, on Sunday, Oct. 5.
Although the house has been featured on another HGTV program, this show was the premiere of a new segment on the home, christened Marrcrest by the automotive pioneer who built it, Walter Marr. Following its premiere, the show will go into rotation on HGTV's schedule.
Walter Marr built the first Buick automobile by hand around the turn of the century and later moved to Signal Mountain, where he ran the engineering division of Buick Motor Company until he retired.
The Buick chief engineer stopped in Signal Mountain in 1914 on his way from a working vacation in Florida to the company’s Flint, Mich., plant. Falling in love with the mountain, he moved his family here and ran the company’s engineering division from his home until his retirement in 1918 after which he was a consulting engineer until 1923.
He built the Italianate residence called Marrcrest in 1926 and lived there until his death in 1941. His widow and decendants lived there until the 1990s and the house stood vacant for three years until the Whites bought it in 1996 and undertook the restoration. The home has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places and the area designated a historic district.
Current owners Mr. and Mrs. White carried out a loving and painstaking restoration, which inspired composer Dan Landes to write The Four Seasons of Marrcrest, a classical piano work. The composition paying tribute to the home, wooded estate and gardens is a four-movement suite written for the dedication of the completion of the restoration. The movements are Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer.
The music has been orchestrated and recorded by the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera Orchestra. The story of the house and the music are collected on a CD-ROM published by Marrcrest Publishing.
At the side of Marrcrest on St. Charles Street is a detached five-car garage. Click on photo to enlarge.
photo by Irby Park