Lynnlawn

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Sitting on the corner of Gallatin and Stratton Avenue was a prominent house built in 1845 by Thomas E. Stratton. This house was one of the first Italianate-style Colonial homes in Nashville. It was reported to have been originally designed by the well-known architect William Strickland, who is most famous for designing the Tennessee Capitol building. This home was known as “Lynnlawn”, for the many pecan, magnolia and maple trees that lined the four-acre property. Lynnlawn, along with the Davis mansion across the street were the two largest homes in East Nashville. Although not as spacious as other rural mansions within its time, the location of the home was critical.

Lynnlawn was commandeered during the Civil War by Prince Felix-Salm-Salm, the son of a Prussian Brigadier General in the Union Army. With 18 rooms and 17.5-foot ceilings on the first floor, the house was perfectly suitable for a military outpost.

By 1888, a map of the area shows small homes and plots of land surrounding Lynnlawn. The home was occupied by five generations of the Stratton family. According to Michael E. Fleenor in his work “East Nashville,” the area would slowly be swallowed by commercial businesses in 1957. Lynnlawn was sold to Mrs. Edgar M. Foster of the H.G. Realty Company. Mrs. Foster later demolished the mansion and left the property undeveloped for the next 20 years until local developers would build a shopping center and supermarket. This was the beginning of a shift within the area, from a bucolic country estate to a car-centric commercial district.