Green Hills

Green Hills

''Folks: The following is from Nashville: Yesterday and Today, by Nicki Pendleton Wood et al.; Chicago: Publications International Ltd., 2010. It needs to be rewritten for copyright purposes and updated with recent Green Hills developments such as the Hill Center. Would anyone out there volunteer to take on that task?''

--EThomasWood (talk) 18:27, 23 December 2012 (CST)

Homeowners keeping ponies and chickens in the quiet folds of Green Hills in 1940 would have been surprised to know that six decades later, they could drive less than a mile to a store and spend $2,000 on a handbag.

The proprietors at the service station and village market at the corner of Abbott Martin and Hillsboro Road would likely shake their heads in disbelief to hear that the net worth within a 1-mile radius would be just about the state’s highest.

The electrical repairman, barber, village cabbie, shoe rebuilder, even the jeweler, in the village in 1959 would be incredulous that the land under them would be so valuable 50 years later that basics like a hardware store and craft supply places had been priced out. Instead, Green Hills after the turn of the century had gotten three wine stores, three artisanal bread bakeries and at least five fitness clubs or studios.

Green Hills was outside of Nashville’s city limits. It comprised small farms and estates like the Burton place at Hillsboro and Harding, Northumberland, Hunter’s Hill, Burlington, Harpeth Hall, Greystone, San Salvador, the Leu place at Abbott Martin and Vailwood, and a couple of country clubs. A few still stand, including the stone manse that holds administrative offices of the Linden Corner School and the white-columned Colonial house next to the sanctuary of Woodmont Christian Church. What had been scattered farms and mini-farms developed gradually after World War II.

Green Hills was just a village, then, in the mid-1950s, when it became entangled in a furious row over whether to incorporate as a separate city. Nearby, Berry Hill had incorporated in 1953 and now had its very own liquor store and an attentive, dedicated police force. Incorporating might also thwart efforts to consolidate city and county government, which many didn’t want. The satellite cities did their own zoning, avoiding the unpopular “spot zoning” by the city council, which led to commercial properties in residential areas and multistory buildings surrounded by low-rise structures.

Opponents of incorporation argued that a small city could never supply the roads, sewers, schools, police, and fire services that it would need, and which were available just down the road inside the old city limits.

The “pro” and “con” forces for incorporating Green Hills generated reams of newsprint, at the end of which Green Hills residents voted down incorporation in 1955, 631 to 430.

After that, Green Hills grew like a lawn, with money as the fertilizer. Take Abbott Martin Road as an example. It was residential along its entire length in 1951. After the incorporation vote, the spot zoning began, first by a women’s club and later by a 14-story apartment building. By 1961, Abbott Martin was sprouting a shopping mall, and by 2006, it had five banks in a two-block stretch because, as Willie Sutton put it, that’s where the money is.

Charles Fentress, who represented Green Hills in the Metro council for 24 years starting in 1975, was typical of an incoming Green Hills resident. He had lived in the Bellshire neighborhood off Dickerson Road, and negotiating the heavy traffic into town to his job at Cain Sloan department store had become an ordeal. He was a parent, too, and would need to make a decision about schools. “Julia Green was always considered a good school,” he said, and besides, he had two sisters living in Green Hills, one of them on Vailwood Drive. So the family moved to a house on Vailwood, where a previous owner had kept a pony. “I grew a garden out there for years” on the fertile soil, Fentress recalled.

Perhaps the only surprising thing about Green Hills during this time is how long it took for the H.G. Hill Company to build a grocery store on the property it had acquired in 1946 at the far edge of the village. The Hill store was open for business by the mid-1960s, but only half of the lot was developed – the northern half would remain a grassy field for several more years.

The late 1970s and ‘80s saw mostly commercial growth along Hillsboro Circle and Bandywood, along with residential infill to the west of the commercial area, where the bigger estates and residences began flipping for cluster homes. Developer and artist Creason Clayton built some of the first, including Redbud, Point Set, The Garden and Longwood. These were followed by developments on the grounds of estate homes Greystone, Burlington, Abbottsford and Northumberland.

One important rezoning action that changed the complexion and economic base of Green Hills was the development of the A.M. Burton Farm, called Seven Hills. Beginning in 1985, this extensive tract of land at Hillsboro Road and Harding Place became a complex of office buildings, retirement and assisted living facilities, and mixed-density residences.

Green Hills seemed to have it all, from millionaires to college students living on estates or in starter apartments. There were fine restaurants like F. Scott’s and Firefly Grill, chains like Ruby Tuesday, superb retail and plenty of employers. The only thing lacking was the thing it needed most: walkability. The Green Hills Action Partners formed in 1999 to advocate for “new urban” amenities like sidewalks, bike lanes and pocket parks. It seems the old village, which modernized itself around the car, has been a victim of its own success – but may be resourceful enough, in the end, to reinvent itself for a new generation of residents.