Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art
The house that coffee built
"Chihuly at Cheekwood" was my first visit to Cheekwood, and I did not know the anything about the estate prior to my visit.
A few things I learned during and after my visit:
- You can make a lot of money in coffee. Joel and Christopher Cheek (cousins) and Leslie (Christopher's son) ran a grocery business in the late 1800s. They marketed coffee to Nashville's luxurious "Maxwell House" hotel and built up a profitable brand. In 1928, Postum bought the brand for $40 million. (Leslie invested his Postum profits in IBM.)
- Cheekwood is named not for the land, but for Leslie Cheek and his wife Mabel Wood. They bought 100 acres of rural land southwest of the city in 1928 and built the mansion they called "Cheekwood". The house was completed in 1933, but Leslie died in 1935 at age 62. Mabel deeded the house to her daughter Hulda, with the intent that it be used as a museum of fine art.
- Cheekwood has nearly 1,000 pieces of paintings and scultpure, decorative arts and contemorary art in its permanent collection. Very little of this is currently on display. A semi-permanent collection of Faberge pieces and a permanent collection of sculpture are on display in the mansion, along with a temporary exhibit of American Impressionist paintings and Dale Chihuly glass and paintings.
- The botanic gardens include 55 acres of gardens, ponds and woodlands, and a sculpture trail. I missed the sculpture trail entirely. During my visit, a violent summer thunderstorm came through the area, and the mansion lost power. Those of us inside were herded to the "foyer", the house's main entry, where we watched it rain for over an hour. When we finally were able to get back outside, we barely managed to see the remainder of the Chihuly exhibition before the grounds closed for the evening.
For more about the history of Cheekwood, see the Cheekwood entry at the Tennessee Encyclopedia.
For more about Cheekwood's grounds and collections, see the
Cheekwood website.