In a few days, you’ll no longer be able to smell fried biscuits wafting from the corner of Main and Van Buren.
Downtown Nashville’s most iconic landmark, the Nashville House, is closing. The decision was announced with a brief post on social media Oct. 16.
“It is with the heaviest of hearts that I announce that Oct. 28, 2018 will be the last day the Nashville House will be open,” it read. “We can’t thank all of our employees and patrons enough for over nine decades of loyalty and patronage.”
The closure comes three months after the passing of the restaurant’s patriarch, Frank “Andy” Rogers. He had run the Nashville House since 1959, a business his father, Andrew Jackson “Jack” Rogers, had co-founded with Fred Bates Johnson in 1927.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Andy’s wife, Fran Rogers, passed away in January 2017. Her celebration of life took place at the Nashville House.
Gina Sarah Rogers, one of the five Rogers daughters, shared her thoughts about the closing on the business’s Facebook page.
“My heart is broken,” she said. “I loved my parents so much and miss them even more. …
“My sister and I literally grew up in the Nashville House. I used to help my Grandma White make coleslaw in the kitchen when I was just a toddler. We grew up having the run of the Nashville House.
“As my parents grew more ill, I helped keep the Nashville House alive, and my fiance, Jay, and I made many improvements to keep things going. It’s come a long way in the past few years and I’m very proud of that. …
“I always pictured carrying on my parents’ tradition for decades to come, but times change and dreams die.”
The reasons behind the closure aren’t yet clear.
Gina Rogers referred questions about the business’s future to her sister, Jane Herr, the trustee for Andy Rogers’ trust. A message left with Herr went unanswered. Another sister, Debby Rogers, said she was not going to answer questions when she shared news of the closing at a political candidate forum on Oct. 16.
‘Family’ business
“It was a very hard decision for all of us, and honestly, closing the Nashville House feels like losing my parents all over again,” said youngest daughter Andi Bartels.
“Growing up, our lives revolved around the Nashville House. Dad had other businesses and interests, but the Nashville House was always the core. I grew up there, and it is painful to let go of it.”
The Nashville House had employed generations of families. Several of Rogers’ employees had worked for him for decades and considered him like a second father to them.
They were among the 250-plus commenters who took to Facebook to mourn the closing of the business, along with Gina Rogers, who still works there.
“I started really working when I was around 7 … running the desk, making change, handling the waiting list (I remember the four-hour waits), busing tables, waiting tables, doing dishes, running the store, making biscuits and slaw, cooking, washing pots and pans — you name it, my sister and I did it,” Gina Rogers wrote.
“… I wish my parents could see how smoothly October has been going. I know they would be so proud of all of our employees. … My parents were just another part of the Nashville House family … our family, our wonderful employees, past and present, have always been the heart of the Nashville House and we will always remember them and be truly grateful for them.
“This is the end of an era and very heartbreaking,” she wrote.
Rose Ashmore was another generational Nashville House employee who started “working” there as a kid, at age 11. Like many Brown Countians, she has the Rogers family to thank for giving her her first job. She stayed for 13 years.
“I’d come in with my mom and bus tables and roll silverware for a few tips the girls would give me,” she said. “Then, when I turned 14, Fran (Rogers) told me to start clocking in.”
“It’s very sad,” added her mother, Wilma Allender, who worked there for almost 40 years alongside many family members. “This was Andy and Fran’s baby, in the heart of Nashville.”
Landmark
Though it’s been known for almost 60 years for its country meals and rustic, homey dining room, the Nashville House has a much longer history in Brown County.
The building of the original Nashville House, a hostel and tavern, began around the time of the Civil War, in 1859. That date is still visible near the roof line on the courthouse side. The war interrupted its completion; it wasn’t able to be finished until after peace was reached, according to a 1943 story in the Brown County Democrat archives.
That building was known for its “splendor” in the 1860s and ‘70s, with imported French gold-leaf wallpaper, and double flooring on the third story which was meant to “deaden the noise of the dancers who joined in the gaiety of tavern life,” the story said.
That building changed hands several times in the late 1800s and early 1900s, taking on family names such as “the Hampton Hotel,” “the Hobbs Inn” or “Pittman’s Inn.”
Johnson and Jack Rogers visited it as guests the day after Christmas 1926, and Johnson casually remarked that what Brown County needed was a modern hotel. “Within a few minutes, a real estate deal was in motion and shortly after midnight he, with Mr. Rogers, found themselves the owners of the hotel,” the story said.
The partners expanded the building, installing a stone fireplace made from the former structure’s basement walls, and reopened it in October 1927 as a 23-room hotel serving meals. It also housed a gift shop, the Brown County Folks Shop. Jack Rogers became the sole owner in 1934.
In 1933, dinner was served for $1. War journalist Ernie Pyle dined there in 1940, the summer before he was killed overseas, according to newspaper archives.
On Sept. 24, 1943, all of the building but the fireplace and fire escape were destroyed in a fire that was slow-burning enough for townspeople to go in and save antiques. They kept them in their homes until the building was rebuilt.
In a 1990 interview, Andy Rogers remembered his father seeing the glow from Belmont; he was on his way back from Bloomington and the fire was almost out when he got to town. “They ran out of water,” he said. “There were people crying in the streets.”
All the volunteers had was a bucket brigade until help arrived from the Bloomington fire department. At that time, the town’s greatest water source, besides Salt Creek, was a couple of hand pumps stationed around town.
Before he would rebuild, Jack Rogers wanted a better water supply, Andy Rogers remembered.
This was the second fire in less than five years to threaten The Nashville House; a blaze in December 1939 had wiped out three buildings on Main Street, but the Nashville House was saved by a cooler explosion that leveled an ice cream shop next door, putting a gap in the burning block which the flames couldn’t breach, according to newspaper archives.
It took four years to rebuild after the 1943 fire and World War II. The Nashville House reopened in December 1947. “The structure will be as different from the conventional hotel as Brown County is different from the rest of the world,” the newspaper story said. “As A.J. Rogers, the owner, says, ‘We do things differently here in Brown County.’”
It was made of native timber and some reclaimed pieces, including a window from a former downtown building and a large piece of sandstone that townspeople had used to sharpen their knives. That stone became a windowsill, a story about the opening said.
The Nashville House was rebranded as a restaurant and gathering place with a large lobby and massive fireplace, intended to be the focal point for parties “which, it is thought, will acquaint the people of Brown County with one another more thoroughly,” a newspaper column predicted.
As tourism grew with the opening of Brown County State Park and two state highways, it was often out-of-towners who visited the Nashville House and its adjoining businesses. Those now include Our Sandwich Place downstairs, the Creperie & Cafe in a walk-up stand outside, and the Spears Gallery in the shop space on the end.
On Friday afternoon, the line to buy old-fashioned candy wound around the merchandise tables in the country store. Families gathered in the hall and on the porch, waiting for their names to be called to sit for a meal together one last time.
Any saving it?
The Nashville House was the first in a long line of holdings for Andy Rogers, including several shops and commercial buildings downtown, the Brown County Playhouse, The Seasons Lodge and Conference Center, the Brown County Inn, The Ordinary restaurant (now Out of the Ordinary) and the Professional Building across the Main-Van Buren intersection from the Nashville House.
The Seasons, the Brown County Inn, The Ordinary and the Playhouse have passed into new hands; the Professional Building was put up for sale.
About the Nashville House: “That’s the basis of the whole operation,” Andy Rogers told The Democrat in 1991. “That’s the whole beginning. Its viability is very important to this community. It allowed us to expand the operation.”
The futures of the building and business are unknown. The Nashville House is not currently for sale, as it is part of the Rogers estate.
The Nashville Town Council and Nashville Development Review Commission have been talking about a historic preservation ordinance for the past several months. Its purpose is to identify buildings of historic significance downtown and put protections on them so that it would be difficult for them to be torn down or significantly altered.
David Martin, a DRC member and former antique shop owner, has been leading that charge.
Currently, if anyone wanted to take down any building in downtown Nashville — even clearly historic ones — the most the town council could do would be to delay it by 45 days.
Martin called the news that the Nashville House was closing “very disappointing” because it’s “a landmark in our community, not just the architectural side but (also) the country store and restaurant.”
He’s hopeful that the historic preservation ordinance can move through the approval channels.
“I know that things have to change, but that’s part of Brown County, that things kind of stay the same, and people come back expecting to see the things that they have appreciated in the past, and it’ll be too bad to have (the Nashville House) gone,” he said.
