We love our neighborhood for diverse reasons. Some of us love the restaurants and bars within a few blocks of our homes. Others love the sidewalks and the connections they make between places. Still others value the neighborly feel of front porches and the relationships we can foster sitting on them, talking to those passing by or sharing a drink and a story with friends who stop for awhile. Then, there are those who believe that our four-legged children need friends too, and living in Lockeland Springs gives us a plethora of doggy buddies. The young families among us love being able to walk their children to and from school, hearkening back to simpler times.
But there is a bigger reason that calling Lockeland Springs home is worth celebrating: history. We live amidst ghosts from the past that make our present safe and our future certain. We know that when the world is a little out of control and unpredictable, we can come home to a neighborhood that has withstood the test of time — and weather. We can come home to a tradition of permanence that gives us comfort in times of turbulence.
The Celebration of Home Tour reminds us of this yearly. Setting aside time to visit our neighbors and marvel at the beauty they have wrought in their houses, making them new but preserving their history, gives us a sense of connection to each other, to the people who lived here before us, and to those who will come next to reinvent our neighborhood once again.
This year, the families on the tour represent many eras: young families just starting their history together, families who have been in the neighborhood for some time and have moved on to another home, families new to the neighborhood but in the middle of life, and established families whose roots here are deep. Their homes have common threads that tie them to each other in history and in architecture. The people who lived in these houses when they were new loved many of the same things that we do about life in this neighborhood: family, food, music and friends. They experienced tragedies as we have; they celebrated the idea of home as we do. An old Nashville family and a new one come together in the Olive & Sinclair Chocolate Co. building. H.G. Hill operated a neighborhood grocery there, and its new resident keeps a hold on the past while inspiring new iterations of the corner store. Most of the homes have front porches perfect for porch sittin’. Some are older than others; some are big and some are very small; some have ornate features and some are more straight lines. But they all say, “welcome home.”
The following pages take us back in time, making us smile at the history we are fortunate to share. The stories of the homes, and the people who make them, connect us to something much larger than ourselves and wrap us in a warm certainty that we have the best place to call home.
