photo by John Shearer
Amid such new or recent construction on the UTC campus as the large addition to the Gary Rollins College of Business and the Wolford Family Athletic Center, the school is saying goodbye to one landmark.
The old President’s Home at the northeast corner of Oak and Douglas streets, which served development- and alumni-related functions in recent years, is being torn down to make way for the business college expansion.
Amy Donahue, the UTC assistant vice chancellor for communications and constituent relations, said the decision to tear down the structure was not easy and came after much thought and planning by university officials. A major factor was the demand for more business students both by the university and the area workforce, she said.
“The expansion of the College of Business, it needs to happen,” she said over the phone. “The college was really constrained where it is and there was no other place it can move. You don’t want to lose a piece of history on campus. But when looking at the choice of serving more students and keeping a building that needed a lot of work, and what is the best use of space, the choice was made from those factors.”
As of Friday, the structure -- the oldest remaining building on campus built initially by the college -- was still standing. But Ms. Donahue said in early April that the demolition was scheduled to take place in the coming weeks.
The area around the former home and future construction site has been fenced off. Ms. Donahue added that officials made sure to remove important artifacts, papers and other items from the home.
Despite the less-than-flattering look of the fenced-off location in recent days after some in the Advancement Services office had vacated it during the late winter, many believe it holds an overall attractive place in the UTC collective memory.
Along with obviously the Patten Chapel, the former home in many ways was historically – if not quite as apparent visually -- a throwback to the school’s days when it was affiliated with what is now the United Methodist Church. UTC was founded in 1886 as a Methodist school and remained affiliated in some form until becoming part of the University of Tennessee system in 1969. As a result, this home was almost like a parsonage initially.
University trustee John A. Patten – an active member of the former stone-adorned and mostly razed First Methodist at McCallie and Georgia avenues – led a fund-raising drive for $20,000 to build the home, Ms. Donahue said. He had secured contributions from citizens and churches throughout Chattanooga, she added.
The home’s initial address was 305 Oak St., until the street numbers on roads going east from downtown were later reconfigured around the end of World War I, and it was changed to 605 Oak St.
Local architects George Quincy Adams and Jefferson Davis Alsup received the commission to design the building and drew up plans in the Federal Revival style. As a Nov. 3, 1909, article in the Chattanooga Daily Times stated when the home’s upcoming construction was announced, “The building as provided for in these plans will be a handsome and spacious one of three stories, brick and stone construction, with slate roof.”
A story on architect Alsup said he had also designed homes in Riverview, and the president’s home does look like some of the earlier homes in that neighborhood on what is now Hillcrest Road. For example, it is of a very similar style to those built about the same time at 1630, 1631 and 1636 Hillcrest Road.
The home also looks like some of the residences in Fort Wood, and an observer could easily assume that the president’s residence was a former private home later taken over by the university.
The Adams and Alsup firm also had Methodist connections, as G.Q. Adams’ older brother – John Wesley Adams (yes, he even had a Methodist name) – was a prominent local developer and architect. He also designed First Methodist Church at McCallie and Georgia avenues, where he was a member, and Old Main – the first building at what is now UTC. Old Main has long since been razed and only the steeple remains from First Methodist Church.
John Wesley Adams died in 1918 and was buried at Forest Hills Cemetery.
G.Q. Adams was a drummer boy with an Ohio infantry regiment on the Union side during the Civil War and later joined his older brother in their work. He died in 1925 and was buried at Chattanooga’s National Cemetery.
Mr. Alsup, who was born in 1861 and grew up in Memphis, had an also-interesting life. In 1904, he moved to Chicago and became associated with Daniel H. Burnham, whose portfolio included the World’s Columbian Exhibition buildings in Chicago, the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. Mr. Alsup came to Chattanooga in 1906 and designed with Mr. Adams the Signal Mountain Hotel and Central High along with residences in different parts of Chattanooga. He died in 1930 and was buried in Chattanooga Memorial Park.
The University of Chattanooga president’s home was completed in 1910, Ms. Donahue said, and was initially lived in by the Rev. John Race, a Methodist minister who had come to the school as president in 1897. He lived in the home until his presidency ended in 1913.
Other presidents or later chancellors to occupy the home, which was also used early on for receptions and board of trustees’ meetings, were Dr. Fred W. Hixson (1914-20), Dr. Arlo A. Brown (1921-29), Dr. Alexander Guerry (1929-38), Dr. Archie Palmer (1938-42), Dr. David Lockmiller (1942-59), Dr. LeRoy Martin (1959-66), Dr. William A. Masterson (1966-73), and Dr. James Drinnon (1973-81).
Dr. Masterson’s title had gone from president to chancellor in 1969 following the merger with the UT system.
According to some old city directories, the home was vacated as a permanent residence around the mid-1970s during Dr. Drinnon’s administration, ending perhaps a somewhat unique tradition of the head of a college living on campus. The home then became the development and alumni office. It also housed the UC Foundation offices over the years.
Among those presidents or chancellors besides Rev. Race who were also Methodist ministers and lived in the home were Dr. Hixson, Dr. Brown and Dr. Martin.
Dr. Guerry was the son of an Episcopal priest but had married into a Methodist family when he wedded John A. Patten’s daughter, Charlotte. Their two sons, Alex Guerry Jr. and John Guerry, who died in 2024, spent some of their younger years in the residence. Dr. Guerry Sr. became vice chancellor, or top academic administrator, at the University of the South at Sewanee after leaving UC. He had earlier been headmaster at Baylor School.
Another president, Dr. Lockmiller, was also an active Methodist layman, news reports say.
Ms. Donahue said that the back of the home was added onto over the years, and the home was changed during a 1980s remodeling of the front portico and with the addition of veneer brick. But it still had its historic and quirky features. She said her office was in what she thought was the old master bedroom, complete with a master bath!
Besides being a place of respite and relaxation for the usually busy presidents and chancellors and their families, the home’s location also made it like a brick sentry man actively standing watch over the university’s memorable, mundane and everyday moments.
The home over the years was no doubt a backdrop for various activities at the university. Those included men on their way to and from class before heading off to World Wars I and II, Vietnam War protests on campus, exciting football games at adjacent Chamberlain Field, and even streaking during that brief craze in 1974.
Well-known former Knoxville TV personality Bill Landry was a drama student at UTC in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He recalled in one of his memoirs he has written that he participated in a university summer outreach drama troupe off campus when a racial protest broke out. He wrote that he went by the President’s Home the next day to discuss the incident with the unidentified Dr. Masterson, and he came to the door.
But now the proverbial door will be shutting on this handsome UTC landmark, although plenty of history is left behind.
* * *
Jcshearer2@comcast.net
photo by John Shearer