Not a Frank Lloyd Wright; Often Mistaken as One
Many residents in the Belmont Hillsboro neighborhood are convinced that the house at 2616 Belmont Boulevard, built in 1918, is a Frank Lloyd Wright design. It is not, though does have some typical characteristics of the architect, or those inspired by his American System-Built Homes, such as the use of natural materials, and a design that blends with the landscape.
The house lies in the very northwest corner of the Victoria Place Subdivision, which was created from land owned by E. T. Noel and later Oscar F. Noel. Lots were auctioned in June of 1906 and mostly sold by mid-July.
It was a popular location because Belmont Hillsboro was becoming one of Nashville’s streetcar suburbs. My grandfather, Frank R. Sanderson, purchased the home for $12,500 and lived there from 1919 to 1924 with his wife and two daughters. Sanderson sold automobiles on 2nd Ave. N. and later on Broadway.
Prominent Nashvillians Judge John R. Aust and his wife Daisy bought the house for $12,000. Dan McGugin, Vanderbilt football coach and a good friend of theirs, died at the house in 1936. Aust passed in 1939, and his wife sold their home in 1942 for just $7,000 as WWII raged.
The house changed hands a few times before being purchased in 1945 for an undisclosed amount by Mildred McLendon and her husband Phillip, who raised three children there. Mr. McLendon passed and Mrs. McLendon continued to live there until her death in 1970.
The McLendon children sold the house for $20,000 to Michael and Kathleen Nourse, who converted it to three apartments, before serving as absentee landlords for nine years. They sold for $63,000 to a couple who converted it back to a single-family home.
Three years later, it went for $99,500 to Nashville photographer, Larry Dixon and his wife Patsy Munden, who spruced it up and restored it into a lovely home.
Unfortunately, Dixon was offered a professorship at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, a job that he could not turn down. They sold in 1985 for $160,000 to Dr. Henry G. Mealing, Jr., a chemist, who assured them he would lovingly care for the place.
That was sadly not the case! Mealing moved to South Carolina and the house sat vacant for decades. There was a rumor was that he and his wife had divorced, and he refused to split the profits with her. It appeared in property tax sales several times in the 1990’s and was even on the list of condemned properties in 1998.
Mealing died in 2013. Fortunately, neighbors, contractor Joe Kovalick and Sunday Camp with DREAMinc. acquired the property in 2012 for $450,000. The neighborhood opposed their attempt to turn it into a “boutique hotel”, so the owners restored it back to grand single-family home status. Michael Ward of Allard Ward Architects collaborated with Tyler LeMarinel, an architect at the firm, on the building, and Gavin Duke of Page Duke Landscape Architects designed the topography.
Today, the home is 6,673-square-foot (twice its original 3,290 square feet) with five bedrooms, an elevator, a three-car garage, heated saltwater pool and spa, a gym, movie theater, and a screened-in porch. It sold it in 2015 for $2,150,000 to its current owner!
The house at 2616 Belmont Boulevard serves as a microcosm of the larger Belmont Hillsboro neighborhood experience. It began as upscale community, fell into a decline as large older houses were converted to apartments with a more transitory population, then rose again as one of Nashville’s most desirable places to live.
Contributed by Sandra Shelton
