Comment on this story Brownlow School Lofts Units range 840 to 2,350 sq. ft. 1 bdrm/1 bath to 2 bdrm/1 & 1/2 bath $83,900 to $249,900 (reserve by July 15 for a 5 percent discount) Contact: Dewhirst Properties: 973-3586

by Matt Edens

I was sitting in traffic on my way to work the other morning, waiting to get through the interminable light at the corner of Northshore and Kingston Pike, when I realized I was surrounded. Not by the cops or anything like that. Rather, I was surrounded on all four sides by lawn maintenance contractors—you know, the pickups with crew cabs and dual rear wheels pulling the trailers full of mowers with weed-eaters hung on brackets like rifles in a gun-rack.

Then the light changed, and the assorted turf-wranglers went their various ways: left to Sequoyah, straight across to Westmoreland, Riverbend and the various other places six-figure Knoxville calls home. And I thought to myself, what’s the point? What’s the point in having the house with the majestic lawn (it’s on the Dogwood Trail, you know...) if all you’re going to do is pay somebody to keep it immaculately clipped, pruned and mown? Or maybe that is the point? Besides, you just made partner. You’re pulling down some serious bucks. That’s where you’re supposed to live, isn’t it?

Not anymore. From Gay Street downtown to Fourth and Gill uptown, the real estate market is getting less bohemian and more bourgeois. Heck, one attorney I know is about to make his third move: from Sequoyah, to downtown and then to Fourth and Gill (and, believe it or not, the house he sold in Sequoyah and the one he bought in Fourth and Gill weren’t far off in price per-square-foot).

But what if you’re a young professional torn between the idea of urban loft living and the more traditional Sequoyah Hills home with an impeccable Barber and McMurray pedigree? Well, I give you the answer: Brownlow School lofts in historic Fourth and Gill.

Lofts? In Fourth and Gill? Yes, and the latest project from doyen downtown developer David Dewhirst, no less. What’s more, the building’s the work of two of Knoxville’s foremost prestige architects: Albert Bauman (architect of the old Post Office on Main, among other things) designed the original building along Luttrell Street, built in 1915, and the impressive Georgian- (the king, not the state) inspired architecture of the building’s circa-1928 addition is classic Barber & McMurry. For more contemporary name-dropping, Brownlow’s interiors stood in for West Virginia’s Big Creek High in the 1998 film October Sky starring Laura Dern and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Not that you’ll need to name drop. The condos alone will make quite an impression. Seventy-six years after the firm’s founder designed the handsome addition, architects with Barber & McMurry have transformed the historic school into 25 luxury loft spaces—no two of which are alike. Four lofts, tucked into the school’s gymnasium, feature beautiful hardwood floors and living rooms with 30-foot ceilings, overlooked by bedrooms on a mezzanine above (and, in one unit, a stage with proscenium and footlights). Another unit, in the old kindergarten room, has a huge bay window and its own fireplace. And the two largest units, on the building’s third floor, open directly to large decks built on a portion of the second floor roof. Or, if you’re looking for something more whimsical, the bath in one unit—originally the boys’ restroom—not only has the beautiful original tile floor, but if you like, you can keep the original porcelain urinals too.

Sized and priced to fit a variety of lifestyles and budgets, design details, appliances and finishes may be customized by the purchaser. You can even combine two or more units if you desire—just sign a reservation agreement (six units are already spoken for) and put down $1,000 earnest money on a unique loft in one of Knoxville’s newest—and oldest—upscale neighborhoods.

May 6, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 19 © 2004 Metro Pulse