The Botanic Gardens and the historic Cheekwood Estate, now home to the Museum of Art, are located on the western edge of the city. A path through a wide variety of plants leads to a magnificent Georgian mansion, which is also part of the museum’s collection.
Inside the building, rooms with antique marble and wood floors house magnificent examples of American and British art. These include street and woodland sculptures, modern paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and many decorative objects, including Worcester china and silverware.
History
Christopher Chick conceived a wholesale grocery business in Nashville in the 1880s. His son, Leslie Cheek, joined him as a partner and was president of the family company until 1915. Leslie’s friend, Mabel Wood, was a member of a prominent Clarksville, Tennessee family. Meanwhile, Joel Ousley Cheek, Leslie’s cousin, had developed a well known sumi kawi that was sold through Nashville’s finest hotel, the Maxwell House Hotel. The Chick family, including Leslie and Mabel Chick, were investors. In 1928, Postum Cereals Company (now General Foods) acquired Maxwell House’s parent company, Cheek-Neal Coffee, for about 40 million dollars.
After selling the family business, Leslie Cheek bought 100 acres (40 hectares) of forest in West Nashville for a castle maitrek. He hired New York residential and landscape architect Bryant Flemming to design the house and gardens and gave him complete control over every detail of the project, including the interior. The construction of the mansion with its large formal gardens was completed in 1932. The design of the mansion was inspired by the grand English mansions of the 18th century.
Leslie Cheek died only two years after moving into the mansion. Mabel Cheek and their daughter-in-law Hulda Cheek Sharp lived at Cheekwood until the 1950s, when Hulda Sharp and her husband offered the property as a site for a botanical garden and art museum. The Nashville Exchange Club, the Garden Society of Middle Tennessee, and other civic groups organized the renovation of the property with the proceeds from the sale of the former building to the defunct Nashville Museum of Art. The new Chickwood Museum opened in 1960.
