Before & After

This house on the corner of Eleanor and Gill symbolizes many of the objections raised over Davis' work in the neighborhood. The house, built in 1997, was restored as a single-family home in the mid-'80s, after years of neglect as a boarding house. When Davis bought the house, neighborhood resident Sandra McCall wrote him hoping that the architecture of the house could be kept intact. McCall was particularly concerned since the couple wo restored the house in the '80s were close friends (and were not the owners who sold to Davis). After Davis completed his work, the house was not only a rental unit but now sports vinyl windows as well as the massive porch prackets and heavy balustrade in the bottom photo. McCall, borrowing an expression often used by environmentalists and conservationists, says of Davis: "He's not a steward of these houses." Rob Frost agrees, adding that Davis "spends the money, a good deal of it unwisely." Barbara Simpson takes the argument even further, bluntly stating that Davis' "taste is in his hip pocket."

Davis fires back by calling McCall and the others "self-appointed experts." Citing his longer memory of the neighborhood, he "would like to know what their reference point is" and that the house is now "closer to the original style." Claiming that "the history is gone from a lot of these properties," Davis describes his neighbors' perspective on history as "more emotionally driven than anything."

Fourth and Gill neighbors are at odds over the future of their historic district

by Matt Edens

For years now, the Fourth and Gill area has been a symbol of hope for the revitalization of Knoxville's inner city. A neighborhood full of restored Victorian homes populated by a growing number of progressive-minded, middle-class homeowners who found the suburbs of West Knoxville a little stale, Fourth and Gill evokes the picture postcard image of quaint charm and quiet home life. However, things in this neighborhood of 280 historic homes are not as peaceful as the compact, manicured yards and white picket fences would lead one to believe. There is a quiet controversy brewing among the neighbors, a growing concern over the future of the neighborhood.

On the surface, things appear healthy: There is quite a bit of work going on in the neighborhood, houses being fixed up, new people moving in. But what has some residents worried is that the great majority of those new people are renters and many of those houses, while fixed up, aren't quite as historic as they used to be.

More than a handful of homeowners are wondering if one of their neighbors may, unwittingly, be destroying the very things that make Fourth and Gill the neighborhood they love to call home. It's becoming another example of the age-old battle of property rights—one property owner vigorously pursuing what he sees as his constitutional rights while many of his neighbors take a position that echoes the cry of "not in my back yard" commonly heard when a developer proposes an apartment complex among the subdivisions of West Knoxville.

The Battle

For Rent: Fourth and Gill, Turn of the Century Victorian. 4-6 BR, 2 BA, new kitchen, W/D, lots of beautiful woodwork. Entire house refurbished. $1100/mo.

That four- to six-bedroom house for rent is, in a way, what the fight is all about. It is one of many rental houses within the neighborhood, a number that is growing at what many residents consider to be an alarming rate. Well over half of the houses sold in the last two years became rental property. "I didn't move into this neighborhood to be surrounded by Fort Sanders," says Fourth and Gill homeowner Barbara Simpson—a comment that echoes the concerns of many of her neighbors.

In fact, "Fort Sanders North" is how many residents have come to characterize the rental growth in the neighborhood. The statement is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but there is true concern behind it, especially when residents see house after house that has been single-family for years sold to a landlord. Particularly galling to many in Fourth and Gill is the fact that the person responsible for almost all of this growth in the rental market is one of their own, Mark Davis.

Davis is a retired electrical engineer who returned to Knoxville eight years ago after a 25-year absence. He lives in Fourth and Gill in the house he grew up in, a house he restored after inheriting it from his father's estate. Davis is aware that many of his neighbors are angry, but seems blasé about their concerns.

"I've got a whole lot more money than those people and I don't care what they think," Davis says.

"They [the neighborhood] should thank us—we're making their houses worth more," says Andy Granoff, Davis' business partner.

Davis, Granoff, and their silent partner, Stan Veltkamp, own 40 houses in the neighborhood—40 houses out of 280, or roughly 15 percent of all Fourth and Gill homes. There are other landlords in the neighborhood who own multiple rental properties (such as Kristopher Kendrick), but none who own near the number of Davis and his partners.

Perhaps what's frightened Davis' neighbors more than the sheer number or the percentage is the speed in which he has amassed this real estate empire. Of the 40 properties, 35 have been bought in the last two years. In fact, during those two years, Davis and Granoff have bought more property in the neighborhood than everyone else combined. According to MLS sales data, they have bought well over half of the properties sold in the neighborhood since 1995.

Other than Davis' own home, all of those 40 properties are rental. Some were originally built as apartment buildings, most were built as single-family homes. Some were rental when Davis purchased them, but quite a few weren't, which is what has upset many of his neighbors. Stating that he intends to someday sell the houses as single-family homes, he also says that he has no real interest in buying additional property. Davis claims he never sought to own a huge amount of property in the first place, but that he "bought the first one and suddenly everybody came running at me with property to sell."

"My belief is that these older homes are substantially better built, offering significant advantages over new construction," says Davis. "The thrust of my activity is to get a significant number restored to current building codes and the expectations of buyers of quarter-of-a-million dollar homes today."

Davis says he wants to "move the historic district in the direction of a renaissance such as has gone on in San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta" etc. He also says that "the lack of restored properties in the past" has hindered investment in the neighborhood and feels that what he is doing will eventually lead to more single-family home ownership.

Fort Sanders North?

Prime rents." That's the term Granoff uses to describe the rents he and Davis charge for their property; $450 to $550 a month is their average rate for a one bedroom. Whole houses run in the $950 to $1400 range. Granoff describes their tenants as "50 percent UT students," generally "from the better-off families—they drive Saabs, Volvos, Acuras—you see lots of nice cars in the neighborhood." Davis echoes those comments, characterizing their renters as a "much higher class of people."

Others are less satisfied with Davis and Granoff's renters. A house on Caswell that rents to four twentysomething roommates for $1,400 a month was cited by several neighbors. Rob Frost, who lives across the street, says he has been disturbed by noise from several parties and that the police have answered several calls to the house in the last few months. Simpson, who lives just down the street, is even more familiar with the sight of squad cars outside the Caswell house. She has called the police to the house on five separate occasions during the last four months. She complains about noise, parties at all hours, a fight in the front yard of the house, and the renters and their guests parking on the side walk or in her driveway and then harassing her when she asks them to move their cars.

"Their parents may make a lot of money, but they [the renters] have no respect for their neighbors, the neighborhood, or the houses that they rent," says Simpson.

Differing Ideas Of Economic Development

Most of the residents interviewed felt that the core of the historic district was doing well before Davis arrived; investment was strong and homeowners were buying and restoring homes in steadily increasing numbers.

Davis doesn't quite see it that way. He describes the neighborhood when he returned home to Fourth and Gill in 1989 as having "one foot in the grave" and relates how he was "afraid" to drive through some parts of the neighborhood. Ann Bennett, Metropolitan Planning Commission staff planner for the Historic Zoning Commission, counters this assertion with the assurance that in 1989 Fourth and Gill was "the most economically successful neighborhood in the inner city."

Davis sees what he and his partners are doing as a dramatic improvement to the neighborhood and hopes that in "the next five years this neighborhood will be the premier showcase of the city" and that the only way to achieve that goal is "economic development." He "wants to see more people invest more money in these properties" and would like to "take property values in the neighborhood significantly up" into the range of $100 per square foot, nearly double what they are now. If prices do increase as Davis envisions, the average restored Victorian in the neighborhood that now lists at $150,000 would be in the $300,000+ range, comparable to many of Knox County's higher-end suburban developments. Davis sees his inspiration in the phenomenal sales prices he experienced first-hand in San Francisco.

Sandra McCall, who has restored four houses in the neighborhood as single-family homes, is skeptical about the benefits such dramatic and rapid price increases would bring to the neighborhood. She fears an economic catch-22. "High property value isn't always a good thing," she states, explaining that high-priced property makes the sort of single-family restoration projects that she has pursued prohibitively expensive in many cases, making a house so expensive that "only landlords can afford it." Rapidly inflated prices could draw in increasing numbers of landlords and lead to over-speculation. A boom such as Davis envisions could easily go bust—the number of vacant storefronts in the Old City illustrates the fact that high property values and capital improvements do not always ensure a demand on the open market.

McCall is increasingly frustrated because she "wants [her] neighborhood to stay a neighborhood" and is very quick to point out that she is "not opposed to rental, but there needs to be a balance." She and many other Fourth and Gill residents say they have worked hard for years trying to tip that balance in favor of owner-occupied homes and fear that Davis' growing number of rental units threatens to upset that balance.

"The inner city of any large city is predominantly rental...nothing is going to change that," counters Davis. But his neighbors argue that Knoxville isn't Chicago or Boston and that Fourth and Gill is a neighborhood of houses on lots, not brownstones. Simpson says flatly, "The core of neighborhoods is not rental."

Rehab vs. Ruining

In addition to the growing concern over increased rental units, many in the neighborhood are apprehensive about the quality of rehab work done to Davis and Granoff's properties. Davis proudly stands by the work his contractors have done, pointing out that he has removed vinyl or aluminum siding from many of his properties and stating that he has turned "garbage into homes that rival any in West Knoxville."

Others argue that Fourth and Gill's attraction lies in its being so unlike a West Knoxville suburb and that things like vinyl replacement windows and off-the-shelf millwork embellishments have no business in a historic district. In fact, some residents say that Davis has turned homes with tremendous restoration potential into "garbage," literally. Frost says he watched appalled as workers removed the original and, he contends, easily repairable fluted Greek porch columns from a house on Caswell and hauled them to the dump, replacing them with plain 4x4 deck posts. Another house on Wells that was once owned by a member of Frost's family lost its original stained glass windows in the process of a Davis and Granoff renovation.

Frost says he wonders who will buy the houses when Davis eventually sells them off. The real estate market in Fourth and Gill has been driven by buyers seeking historic homes. Many in the neighborhood wonder if, by ignoring many historic preservation guidelines, Davis and Granoff haven't created 40 houses that the primary market niche shopping in Fourth and Gill won't buy.

Fourth and Gill homeowner Jeff Talman, a former president of the neighborhood association, is also quick to point out that the district's historical charm originally came from the efforts of homeowners committed to thorough restorations.

"When they [Davis & Granoff] drive potential renters around the neighborhood, part of what they're selling—the character, the atmosphere—is the result of work that other folks have done," says Talman.

In their favor, however, Davis and Granoff have invested in properties that were long-standing eyesores, particularly on the fringes of the neighborhood. Several residents have expressed appreciation for what Davis has done with houses such as the two at the corner of Broadway and Gill—houses that had been vacant and neglected for a long time. Some were more guarded in their praise, stating that the houses had been improved but that the work done had "not lived up to their [the houses] full potential."

Caught somewhere in the middle of this are the renters, particularly those renters who are not party hardy college students. It can be said in his defense that Davis is providing middle income professionals, particularly those just starting out, with an opportunity to live in what both sides agree is a unique neighborhood. Would some of those renters one day seek to become 4th and Gill homeowners? It is an attractive possibility. What disturbs many in the neighborhood is whether or not the recent increases in rental property will further 4th and Gill's goal to be a neighborhood of choice for young professionals looking to settle down and raise a family. Equally disturbing to them is the likelihood that those families wouldn't be able to afford the sort of $300,000 homes that Davis foresees.