This story appeared in the Oak Ridger Newspaper

Story last updated at 3:18 p.m. on Friday, December 22, 2000

Historic school restored as home

by Jocelyn Woods Griffo
for The Oak Ridger

The Smithsonian Institute/Bradford House, as it is commonly called, sits in (not on) a hill on a high ridge with a commanding view of the town and mountain ridges from its numerous windows.

As a finishing school, it prepared students in the social graces as well as for admission to colleges and the University of Tennessee, it is believed, for 29 to 30 years. Unfortunately, to date no photographs taken during this period have surfaced.

Foregoing steep steps from the street to the front door, new owners Dan and Barbara Palmer access the house by the rear. From the parking area, several layers of the back lawn have been terraced upward. Barbara Palmer believes the stepped areas were gardens in the past.

A few steps down will bring the visitor face to face with a reconstructed well house over the original well located outside the kitchen door.

In 1881 when William Payne Smith Jr. had the buildings erected, the kitchen, a cellar below, and an upper room were a single, separate structure.

When Benjamin Bradford purchased the school about 1910-11 and converted it to an elegant residence, a narrow hall with outside doors at both ends, and inside doors from kitchen to house, were created to connect the kitchen to the main residence. A servant's staircase also leads from the kitchen to the upper room.

Architecturally, the house is late Victorian period, said Dan Palmer, and is restored to conform to that style. The majority of interior decorative wood is stained and varnished pine.

On the first floor two large rooms now restored as dining room and parlor were originally classrooms. Palmer knows this because when wallpaper was removed during renovation, the original blackboards were uncovered, some still bearing legible chalk writing.

"The name 'Howard,' written in large letters, was here," she said, pointing to a wall in the parlor near the front entry. Wainscoting in both rooms is crowned with a wide wood molding, which Palmer believes were repositories for teachers' chalk.

The Palmers videotaped their findings before wallpapering over the chalkboards.

Throughout, wallpaper replicating period patterns has been applied to the walls. Kittrell Paint and Wallpaper of Oak Ridge acted as consultants and supplier.

Original hardwood floors on all three levels were left intact, but new hardwood floors, finished to resemble the old, were installed on top to provide better insulation. ("On the third floor, you could see between the floorboards to the room below," she said.)

The house was fully insulated including walls, ceilings and floors. All hardware on windows and doors is brass, original, and in perfect working order -- most bearing the date 1879, some dated 1881.

The house has a generous number of windows -- double-paned, double-hung -- that open the house to the play of natural light and outdoor views.

Contrary to stereotypical beliefs, the dark wood finish and heavy ornate furnishings are pleasantly offset by the skylight. All ropes on which the windows ride up and down were replaced and most can be raised or lowered with ease.

Glass windows called transoms, opened by a long metal rod and device, top all interior doors. In bygone days, both light and ventilation passed through transoms from room to room. Ceilings are varnished wood.

From the spacious (approximately 18- by 24-foot) dining room, one passes forward through double 10-foot-tall wood doors to the front parlor (approximately 18 by 33 feet). Three sets of six-and-a-half-foot windows draped in lined, yellow-gold velvet drapes topped by luxurious matching valances, and thick multi-colored tie-back cords provided by J.C. Penney of Oak Ridge, frame a magnificent view of the town.

A highly detailed mantle over the fireplace is original, but when the Palmers took possession of the property, the chimney had crumbled and was in a dangerous state of deterioration. Workers removed the chimney block by block starting at the roof, then reconstructed a new chimney from the ground up without removing the mantle.

Two chimneys, one flue and three fireboxes (two on the second floor) served the entire house; supplemental heating was provided by coal-burning stoves. The fireplaces are in working order; and the Palmers have installed central heat and air conditioning.

The parlor is furnished with a circa 1870 pump organ from an estate in Knoxville that is in working condition (Palmer played a few chords to demonstrate), a handsome cherry corner piece circa 1860 from Hancock County (there's another one in the dining room from Washington County), and other ornate pieces.

From a small foyer, a solid pine banister staircase ascends steeply to the second level, which always served as private living quarters for teachers or owners. The Bradford family added a sunroom over the well house with windows that folded peculiarly inward, according to Palmer, but their remodeling has made them stationary.

Dividing one small bedroom into two full bathrooms accessed by adjoining larger bedrooms is the most notable alteration to the second floor.

All bathrooms, including one on the first floor that was formerly a butler's pantry, have been furnished in true Victorian style with free-standing, antique claw-foot tubs supplemented with modern shower-head plumbing capability.

Palmer was quick to point out that the tub in the master bathroom is called a "slipper tub" because of its unusual shape. She said slipper tubs were designed for relaxing as much as for bathing.

The balcony over the front entry is a small tri-cornered affair framed by decorative exterior eave cornices and is directly under the third-floor bell tower. It is accessed through a full glass door flanked by matching windows.

Throw open the door and step out on the small balcony, and you'll be guaranteed an airy and breathtaking view of sharply upthrust mountains that rival many in the Great Smoky Mountains. "I understand that girls from the finishing school stood on this balcony and gave recitals to a crowd below," Palmer said.

One of the interior bedrooms had a curiously small fireplace that is hardly more than a wrought iron grate attached to the brick chimney.

All bricks in this firebox and on the small inlaid floor hearth are part of the original flue. Only two small holes in the bricks -- one near the top and one near the bottom -- provide draft. Palmer said they have burned fuel in this fireplace, and the holes draft excellently.

There is barely room for more than a few handfuls of charcoal in the fuel basket. The purpose for such a small source of heat is a mystery to Palmer.

Old homes are well-known to have few or no built-in clothes closets but this house is an exception, perhaps because it served as a school dormitory.

For example, every bedroom was constructed with generous closets that often wrap around two walls. On the second floor, one such closet was used to house the central heat and air unit.

Even the first-floor kitchen and butler's pantry were constructed with built-in floor-to-ceiling cabinets with glass doors, and notching from top to bottom for an infinite selection of shelf-height adjustments.

A second, more utilitarian staircase leads to the third floor, which originally served as bedrooms for girls attending the finishing school. When the Palmers took occupancy, the top floor had been used for storage, sealed, and not visited for nearly 40 years.

The third-floor rooms are much smaller, some about 9 by 12 feet. Five windowed alcoves beneath a hot attic provided the only ventilation for occupants who wore long dresses, laced corsets, high buttoned shoes, and hats.

Palmer said she understood that as many as 15 girls shared the Spartan space, thus cots likely were placed in the alcoves and hallway and well.

The bell tower was enclosed by the Bradfords and is an extension of the largest room, which now serves as bedroom for the Palmers' son, Jason. Barbara Palmer said she has no idea when the bell from the tower was removed or what became of it.

Although the house is furnished with as many pieces reflecting its era of splendor as possible, the Palmers treat the house as a comfortable home.

Their daughter's bedroom reflects -- well, a late-teen's tastes and collection of "stuff" that any latter-day teen-ager of the female persuasion possesses. The kitchen is filled with modern appliances.

A family room on the second floor is a typical lounge with television set and related high-tech gadgets -- even a large sofa -- "the only contemporary piece in the house," said Barbara Palmer.

Some tasks await completion. Only one light fixture is original to the house and in some rooms, a single light bulb at the end of an electrical wire will eventually connect to a period chandelier or fixture.

Floor vents have not yet been fitted over holes in the hardwood floors. Even some furniture now in use is subject to replacement by more authentic or favored pieces in the future.

It may have started as a mistake, but all in all, new paint, wallpaper, floors, chimney, drapes, insulation, and bathrooms have given the 120-year-old grand dame a renewed grace, thus ensuring she will retain rank among her peers, with luck another hundred years -- a fitting metaphor for change in the wind at Oliver Springs.