John Shearer: Random Architectural Thoughts About White Oak School Scheduled To Be Razed, Moccasin Bend Hospital, And Rembrandt’s

As I have mentioned before, I have enjoyed sometimes going over to the old and former White Oak Elementary/Dawn School and jogging large laps for a half hour or so.

While there, I always check out the eye-pleasing mid-century architecture of the window-covered school, a building that has obviously needed a little tender loving care for several years.

So, I was quite shocked last Sunday when I went and found much of the seemingly endless glass covered in plywood. I had been tipped off that something probably not so great for historic preservationists had taken place there when I saw an Opinion article in chattanoogan.com by Nancy Templeton, who lives in the adjacent Avalon Circle of also-interesting mid-century homes.

She talked of the Department of Defense training on April 16 along with Red Bank, Chattanooga, and Hamilton County officials and of helicopters landing and explosions taking place. When I went by there, it did look a little like a war zone you see on the TV news, but one that had been cleaned up with boards covering all the holes.

I know sometimes fire training exercises are done in old homes scheduled to be torn down, and I always hate watching the training on the TV news when it looks like a pretty old bungalow or cottage is being leveled in the name of learning.

I became a little more curious regarding why the White Oak exercise took place with apparently so little disregard for the building, and an email from communications official Steve Doremus with Hamilton County Schools said the building is to be torn down. He added that the razing could occur as early as this summer.

Needless to say, my heart sank, although I understood better why it was picked for training. I had also not seen anything in the news or from school board meetings about a decision to tear it down. Although, I know some who badly want a school in the popular Red Bank area would love to see a new school possibly there if enough land exists and if Alpine Crest Elementary does close.

I admit I am a little idealistic when it comes to historic architecture, but to me that seemed to be the prettiest of the mid-century elementary schools in Hamilton County with which I am familiar, primarily just due to all its windows.

Some of them even continue around some corners like on a Frank Lloyd Wright home. I especially love all the windows that sat on an upper floor on the west end and offered a panoramic view toward Signal Mountain, at least before some pine trees probably blocked a good part of the view.

As I wrote in another story about the school last October, White Oak Elementary was designed by the firm of Hunt, Caton & Associates – a successor firm to the late noted architect R.H. Hunt -- and was built by T.U. Parks and Co. It opened in 1959 – that golden era for mid-century-modern architecture -- and replaced the former school that had burned in 1958 a few yards closer to Dayton Boulevard.

While the metal window frames obviously needed rust removed, I thought what would have been neat would be to make the ballfields a public park and convert each glass-covered classroom to a condominium. You might have needed to buy a few blinds or special curtains for privacy, but I would have loved to live there, and I am sure actual alumni who are now retiring Baby Boomers might have as well. Talk about having a great front yard!

I also wonder what will happen to the tree planted in 1995 in memory of young student named Cassandra Kay Vincent, and the simply nostalgic old metal playground equipment that has always taken me back to playing as a child at nearby Bright School.

Whether any alumni will call for the preservation of this building, I don’t know, but maybe officials can at least have an open-house tour for one last glimpse of it. Hopefully, the once naturally lit school will not be too dark with all the boards now covering it!

Another old building from almost the same era is also being eyed for replacement. As has been in the news greatly in recent weeks, the state has looked at replacing Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute and possibly building it somewhere else on Moccasin Bend. Of course, advocates of the national park that tells the story of early Native American settlement there would like to see the hospital removed completely and built elsewhere.

While I am always for natural land preservation or even reclamation, I also like most mid-century architecture and find the hospital interesting visually. That is, even though I, like many others, have seen it mostly from a distance or in photographs, despite a yearly road race that uses part of the facility.

Since a lot of people have wondered why it was built there in the first place, I decided to go look in some old articles, and I learned a little more. I found one interesting description or metaphor from the hospital’s early days that called it the beads on an Indian or Native American moccasin, a reference to Moccasin Bend’s shape and name origin.

The hospital opened in 1961 but was in the planning as far back as 1955, when some state funds were secured for mental health, and Chattanooga was eyed as the likely location of a new facility. Frank Clement had been first elected governor in 1952 at the age of only 32 and pushed for such now-praised issues as mental health and integration.

I had always assumed the hospital site was chosen due to its isolated location, but Moccasin Bend was apparently selected simply because a good amount of acreage was needed, and a lot of land was available there. Some people had also about that time looked at putting industrial development on the bend, so the situation could have been even worse for park advocates.

Another area seriously eyed for the hospital was off Mountain Creek Road, which in the 1950s was still largely farmland. Apparently a site closer to downtown but with buildable land was more desired than a place in the outlying Chattanooga area. That was partly due to easy access for doctors.

Even back then, though, some Chattanoogans like attorney Lou Williams and historian and journalist Zella Armstrong were pointing out the historic integrity of a preserved Moccasin Bend. Ms. Armstrong apparently did not mind the hospital being built as did Mr. Williams along with industrial development, but Mr. Williams thought recreation on the bend was also needed.

Plans for the hospital were finalized in 1958, with Bianculli and Palm chosen as the architects and Thompson and Street hired as the contractors. Groundbreaking ceremonies were held on Jan. 16, 1959, with outgoing Gov. Frank Clement on hand.

“The people for whom this $3 million center is being constructed deserve everything we can do for them,” he said.

Among those also involved in the support for the hospital at that time were Mrs. Carl Hartung of the local Mental Health Association, local mental health movement founder Dr. Joe Johnson, Mayor P.R. Olgiati, County Judge Wilkes Thrasher Sr., and others.

The facility campus was to include originally an intensive treatment center, a receiving center, group cottages, day rooms, an occupational therapy building, a dining area, a central administrative area, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, and other recreation areas.

Architect George Palm said in a TV program while the building was under construction that much glass would be used on the building to let patients see the scenic beauty and pleasant surroundings in a way that would hopefully be beneficial to their health.

In late 1960, Dr. Nat Winston Jr., a future gubernatorial candidate who was also only in his early-to-mid 30s, was named superintendent of the under-construction facility. Despite his excitement about the hospital, he said there was a shortage of psychiatric and psychological workers around the country, and he feared potential staffing problems with Tennessee’s lower wages in such work.

As construction continued, Chattanoogans learned the hospital also was to have some abstract tile panels in the receiving center. They would become trademarks of architect Mario Bianculli, who also had them on the Health Department Building and later at the Lovell Field airport after a 1964 expansion. They had been produced by George Wallace and his Wallace Tile Co. here.

One of the murals dealt with an outline of the state of Tennessee and parts of surrounding states and featured the Great Seal of Tennessee. The other one, which was perhaps already considered controversial, featured in part a violent red graph line that begins a jagged course and depicts the workings of a troubled mind.

Mr. Bianculli, who said this kind of work he enjoyed doing was like painting with tiles, said of the mural, “By its own nature, it is controversial, but I’d rather it would be controversial than commonplace.”

Regarding the whole complex and campus, he wrote a few months later in a newspaper article that he felt inclined to design a facility that was as self-contained as possible, had a flexible layout, had a design that subordinated everything to the welfare and benefit of the patient, used sturdy and durable materials in the simplest manner, and took advantage of the beautiful location.

The hospital was dedicated on May 25, 1961, with Gov. Buford Ellington on hand. He called the facility the “envy of state hospital people all over our great land.”

And now in 2024, the hospital seems to have come full circle with talk of where to build a new one, just like in the 1950s. Whether any important architecture will be lost if this is all torn down or whether any part of the complex can be saved for use in the national park, I do not know.

I would love to go and look at the facility’s architecture a little more closely and examine the tiles, too, to see if they have survived. But I realized after talking with a state mental health department communications person via email that the facility has strict rules for visitors due to privacy issues.

One place that has soothed my soul for years like the setting on Moccasin Bend has been Rembrandt’s Coffee House. I wanted to check it out again after it had been closed for remodeling for a month or so, and my wife, Laura, and I ate there last Sunday for lunch after church. It was good to enjoy some tomato artichoke soup, a Caesar salad and a piece of chocolate decadence pie. They were unfortunately out of my favorite dessert, hazelnut bliss A fellow diner enjoyed a bowl of good-looking broccoli cheddar soup that I might have to try down the road.

The inside of Rembrandt’s looks slightly different, as the new containers for pastries and other items are larger and more upright glass fixtures, and it looks like canned drinks and salads to go are now in them as well. You order on the end closest to the Veterans Bridge and then pay at the other cash register closer to High Street, perhaps to move people through the line more quickly.

Some of the tables have been removed in that room, and the other room closer to the Hunter Museum has been redesigned, with a high and long table in the middle instead of against the wall.

What is an architecture-related story without a little critiquing, and my wife and I concluded maybe it does not seem quite as warm and cozy overall in visual appearance as it once did, or maybe we need to give it a chance. It has always had an issue with having enough inside seating, and that also still exists.

I would also encourage them to keep putting whipped cream on the chocolate decadence, which I did not get to enjoy this time, and to keep the coffee refill policy of old in place. My wife said to go up and see if I could get a coffee refill for her and give them 50 cents or so in between customers, but the young woman dealing with a stream of other customers told me I had to get back in line.

The nice patio spaces are unchanged, however, and the pretty birds are still there to take a few of the crumbs from your roll if you are willing to toss them some, which I gladly was. That is part of the charm of the place.

Despite sounding like I used to talk to my mother when making suggestions for improving the breakfasts of old she used to lovingly make for me, I am glad overall to have my Rembrandt’s back after enjoying it for around three decades! It is indeed like having family back!

Now, if I as a lover of old architecture could help preserve the old White Oak School and the Moccasin Bend facility’s artistic tiles, that would be great, too. It would be like icing on the cake – or whipped cream on the chocolate decadence – for me.

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Jcshearer2@comcast.net