Wyatt Hall
photo by John Shearer
The Chattanooga Historic Zoning Commission approved a resolution Thursday to designate Wyatt Hall at Chattanooga School for the Arts & Sciences a Local Historic Landmark.
If approved by the Chattanooga City Council, the Georgian Revival building and property on East Third Street will be protected as Chattanooga’s four Local Historic Districts are, in alignment with National Park Service regulations for National Historic Landmarks.
“This is just a fantastic preservation tool for the city to have,” said Todd Morgan, executive director of Preserve Chattanooga.
Mr. Morgan wants the CSAS case to revive the ordinance listed in Chattanooga’s city code for other historic sites.
The Local Historic Landmark ordinance hasn’t been used since 1995, when a Frank Lloyd Wright home on Missionary Ridge, the Shavin House, was designated.
Mr. Morgan submitted the application at the request of the CSAS Alumni Association, which collected 8,000 signatures and $1,800 to back the designation. A representative of the property owner, the Hamilton County Department of Education, was not present at the meeting.
“It’s up to them when they want to make their voice heard,” said Assistant City Attorney Andrew Trundle of HCDE.
Mr. Morgan said the CSAS designation comes at an important time as HCDE works to consolidate its facilities under the weight of “spiraling” deferred maintenance of its school buildings.
Mr. Morgan said four Chattanooga schools designed by local architect R. H. Hunt have already been demolished. East Lake Elementary School was demolished in 2017.
Mr. Morgan said that the LHL designation will make the property more valuable and more attractive to buyers should the school system decide to build a new school for CSAS.
“I really do believe the school board will do what’s right,” Mr. Morgan said.
After city approval, plans for repairs and maintenance will come before the Historic Zoning Commission. The ordinance allows some reasonable flexibility such as in cases of economic hardship, for example.
Wyatt Hall was designed by Mr. Hunt and built in 1921 by George Beckham as Chattanooga High School. Mr. Hunt designed hundreds of buildings in the Southeast, including the Tivoli, Joel W. Solomon Federal Building, the James Building and many more churches, schools and government buildings.
Wyatt Hall is named for the founder of Chattanooga’s public schools. Famous alumni include Medal of Honor recipient Charles H. Coolidge (1939) and actor Samuel L. Jackson (1972). The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 but Mr. Morgan noted that Mr. Hunt was not given proper credit in the designation. The school’s wings were added in 1937 by the Works Progress Administration.
“This just ticks all the boxes,” Mr. Morgan said.
CSAS alumni and parents of students spoke to the commission in support of the designation. They described the “magical” sense of beauty and history that envelops visitors, as well as the tangible string of memories that connects generations of the same family with each other.
James Hunt, who has taught geology at CSAS for 30 years, said the school’s façade is built with “Knox marble,” a limestone mined in Knoxville, and that he could spend a full month studying the fossils entombed in the limestone used to build the football stadium, which was mined at site of the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club.
Chattanooga’s four Local Historic Districts include: Battery Place, Ferger Place, Fort Wood and Saint Elmo.