Riverwood (Nashville, Tennessee)

Riverwood
Location 1833 Welcome Lane, Nashville, Tennessee
Coordinates 36°12′0″N 86°42′36″W / 36.20000°N 86.71000°WCoordinates: 36°12′0″N 86°42′36″W / 36.20000°N 86.71000°W
Area 6 acres (2.4 ha)
Architectural style Greek Revival
Governing body Private
NRHP Reference # 77001264[1]
Added to NRHP July 20, 1977

Riverwood is a privately owned historic house located at 1833 Welcome Lane in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. At 9,200 square-feet it sits on 8 acres of its original 2,500 acres. It has been a wedding and event facility since 1997.[2][3][4]

History

The rear wing was built in 1799 by Alexander Porter, an Irish immigrant who came to Nashville in the mid-1790s.[2][3] He originally named it Tammany Woods after his family home in Ireland.[2] By the 1820s, he built a two-story Federal-style home a few feet away from the rear wing.[2] In 1850, a third story was added, alongside a Greek Revival portico supported by six Corinthian columns. Guests included President Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) and his wife Rachel Jackson (1767-1828), who was an aunt to Alexander's son's wife.[2]

In 1859, Judge William Frierson Cooper (1820–1909), a member of the Tennessee Supreme Court, purchased the property.[2] He renamed it Riverwood as it was by the Cumberland River.[2] His brothers and their wives lived in the house with him.[2] In the 1880s and 1890s, plumbing and electricity were added.[2] The dining room was also extended, and the two houses were united.[2] After his death in 1909, his brother Duncan Brown Cooper inherited the property.[2]

When Cooper died in 1922, his sister Sarah and her husband Dr. Lucius Burch, a Dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, inherited the house.[2] They had a son, Lucius E. Burch, Jr.. Their annual Christmas Dinner was attended by the Nashville elite.[2] Robert Penn Warren spent a summer in one of their cottages during his stay at Vanderbilt University.[2] Presidents Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk (1795–1849), Franklin Pierce (1804–1869), Andrew Johnson (1808–1875), Grover Cleveland (1837–1908), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), and William Howard Taft (1857–1930) and Vice President Adlai Stevenson I (1835-1914) visited the house.[2] The Burches lived in it until 1975.[2]

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 20, 1977.[1]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2010-07-09.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 Riverwood Mansion, History
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Eleanor Graham, Nashville: a short history and selected buildings, Historical Commission of Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County, 1974, pp. 18-19
  4. ↑ Joseph Frazer Smith, Plantation Houses and Mansions of the Old South, Courier Dover Publications, 1941, p. 243