John Shearer: Alice Lupton And Others Recall Pringle And Smith Structures

Exploring the attic, playing touch football games in the yard, enjoying the latest technological gadget, and having cousins stay for a while sound like typical human experiences that could take place in about any part of Chattanooga.
 
But they are actually the memories of those who enjoyed living in some of the nice Riverview homes or historic Baylor School buildings designed by the Atlanta architectural firm of Pringle and Smith.
 
Ever since I wrote a story back in January on Dr. Robert Craig’s 2012 book, “The Architecture of Francis Palmer Smith: Atlanta’s Scholar-Architect,” I meant to go back a short time later and do a part 2 story on the memories of some of the residents or former residents. It took me longer than expected, but I was recently able to track down a few people with remembrances.
 
One person who kindly offered some reminiscences was Mrs. Alice Lupton, the widow of the late Coca-Cola bottler and philanthropist Jack Lupton. As the daughter of banker Scott Probasco Sr., she grew up in the home at 1609 Edgewood Circle in Riverview that was completed in the early 1930s.
 
About four years old when it was built after plans were drawn by Mr. Smith and his then-business partner, Robert Pringle, she has fond memories of it.
 
“It was a wonderful, wonderful home,” she said, also calling it gorgeous. “It was very huge.”
 
Living in the brick and colonnaded home until her wedding reception was held there in 1948, she considered it a great place in which to grow up. She recalled the home’s suspended curved staircase, which did not have carpet over it originally. As a result, it was a little treacherous originally.
 
“My brother (Scotty Probasco) and I called it the dangerous stairs,” she joked, adding that they usually used another staircase in the home.
 
She obviously enjoyed going up rather than down, as her favorite place in the home as a child was a large storage room in the attic, which was turned into a playroom.
 
She also recalled the large four-car garage with servants’ rooms above it. This was where chauffeur Joe Rosser held court. “We used to go down there,” she said. “He used to tell us the biggest stories and we believed him.” He even had a pet alligator for a period, she recalled.
 
Mr. Rosser was her favorite person in the world, she remembered, other than maybe Kate Wilkin, their English nanny. “She raised us for all extents and purposes,” said Mrs. Lupton. “She would read to us every night.”
 
The family thought so much of her, Mrs. Lupton said, that her sister, Peggy Probasco Jones, gave her daughter, Margaret, the middle name of Wilkin.
 
Mrs. Lupton also remembered that the nursery where they spent a lot of time had a large sofa that she hung onto after getting married, with son Cartter using it for a period when they lived at a home on Fleetwood Drive on Lookout Mountain. Eventually, it became so worn that it was not suitable to be given to a place like Goodwill, she said with a laugh.
 
Mrs. Lupton also recalled the family playing touch football in the expansive yard. A side section of the grounds, where a swimming pool was later built, featured a badminton court when the Probascos lived there, Mrs. Lupton said.
 
She also remembered sneaking down to the Tennessee River near the home on a special path.
 
As she grew older, another familiar path was one that led to her house.  Her future husband, Jack Lupton, who was a little older, lived less than a mile away on the south end of Riverview and they started dating his senior year at Baylor in 1943-44.
 
They had actually not been super close before, she said, although she understands that both of their nannies used to walk them around Riverview in their strollers/carriages together when they were little.
 
Her husband also lived in another home designed by the Pringle and Smith firm near Riverview Park and the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club’s No. 3 fairway, but Mrs. Lupton said they never really talked much about that architectural connection.
 
The Mediterranean-style Cartter Lupton home -- which for a number of years was lived in by Joe Schmissrauter and later his son, Kurt, and their families -- featured several unusual offerings. They included an old-style telephone in the kitchen, a gas pump, a grease pit in the garage, dining room wallpaper similar to that brought to the White House by Jackie Kennedy, and a large screened porch.
 
In recent years, the home has been expanded.
 
I am more familiar with the Cartter Lupton residence than the other Pringle and Smith homes due to my friendship with Kurt Schmissrauter. When I was home from the University of Georgia in the summer of 1980, Kurt’s family all headed to Florida for a few days and he asked me to house sit their home.
 
While that normally would have been quite an honor and treat for me, Kurt not long after they moved into the home in 1977 had claimed that he saw some ghosts of servants in the residence. I am not sure if he was pulling my leg or not, but rather than enjoy my nicer-than-normal surroundings, I kept being afraid I might bump into one of these ghosts, so I had different friends stay with me each night.
 
But when anyone else was in the home, I loved admiring it, whether enjoying the nice views of it from the yard, its large-but-cozy screen porch, its unique den/library and breakfast room, or the outdoor patio facing Riverview Park.   
 
About 1988, after I had written a story for the Chattanooga Free Press on the Pringle and Smith homes and had interviewed the late Mr. Smith’s son, Henry Howard Smith, over the phone, he drove up from Atlanta with his family and I showed him some of the buildings. An architect as well, he had never seen his father’s homes and buildings before.
 
Kurt’s mother, Virginia Schmissrauter, kindly showed him their house, and a good time was had by all. He showed his appreciation a few weeks later by mailing her some copies of the house plans.
 
The old Cartter Lupton/Schmissrauter home is now lived in by John O’Brien. The former Probasco family home at Edgewood Circle in Riverview was later lived in by appliance/tire dealer William Penney, the Gordon Smith families, and the Billy Oehmig family.
 
A drive by the home in recent days showed some landscaping and other outside projects taking place.
 
That part of Riverview was in the news in May when a lawsuit was filed after a large wall was put up by some residents of Woodland Road on the north side of the old Probasco home.
 
A newer home sits at the bottom of the short Woodland Road now, but it was once the site of another large home built in the late 1920s and designed by the Pringle and Smith firm.
 
The older home was lived in for a period by Fred Lupton before his death in 1938. His widow, who later remarried and became Mrs. Emma Thomasson, continued to live there until her death in 1980.
 
Margaret Patten Smith was the niece on her mother’s side of Mrs. Thommasson and recalled visiting the home often from her nearby home, which had some spacious property off Edgewood Circle for horses and chickens.
 
“That was a beautiful home,” recalled Mrs. Smith of the Woodland Road home. “I went over there a lot and stayed sometimes. It wasn’t too far from our house.”
 
Since Mrs. Thomasson did not have any children, she was also close to the Pattens emotionally, her niece recalled.
 
Mrs. Smith – whose late husband, Blackwell Smith, was an executive with the Miller Bros. department store and later a commercial property broker – remembered that the home had a paneled den as well as some giant boxwoods outside.
 
“They kept them up,” she said of the slow-growing bushes.
 
The home and grounds were also known for a serpentine wall by the front property line and a large, freestanding terra cotta portico.
 
Mrs. Smith recalled that her Aunt Emmy and husband had some type of glass viewing slides of World War I that were considered state-of-the art at the time.
 
Of her aunt’s personally, Mrs. Smith said she was an old-fashioned, matriarchal type of person who wanted things a certain way. “But she was fun,” Mrs. Smith said.
 
She was also a world traveler, as Mrs. Thomasson’s mother, Anne Cooper, had been. “She had seen every country in the world and had no other place to go,” recalled Mrs. Smith with a laugh.
 
Although a little younger, Mrs. Smith was also well acquainted with Alice Lupton. This was not only because they lived near each other, but also because her late brother, Bome, and Scotty Probasco were very good friends growing up. She remembered that the two boys used to sell Coca-Colas at the nearby Chattanooga Golf and Country Club as children to make a little money.
 
After Mrs. Thomasson’s death in 1980, the Woodland Road home passed into the hands of Frank Harrison Jr. and was vacant for a period.
 
When I was briefly the police and fire reporter for the Chattanooga Free Press, I remember going out there one Saturday night in 1988, I believe it was, after a fire. I recall writing a followup story a day or two later and focused more on the history of the home than the fire.
 
Within a few months after that unfortunate event, the pretty white home that was not being used was torn down. The lot sat idle for a number of years before another home was built there.
 
On Minnekahda Road, just up the hill from the old Thomasson home and the former Probasco home, sits a Tudor-style home that may have been the largest and showiest of the homes designed by Pringle and Smith.
 
Since its construction in the late 1920s, it has served as the residence for a number of prominent Chattanoogans – Coca-Cola bottlers Frank Harrison Sr., Paul B. Carter and Frank Harrison Jr., as well as North American Royalties executive Gordon Street Jr. and U.S. Sen. Bob Corker. When Paul B. Carter lived there, it was named Annehaven in honor of his wife, who was the widow of Frank Harrison Sr.
 
In contrast to much of the rest of Riverview, or even some of the other Pringle and Smith homes, it appears to have been little changed over the years, at least on the outside.
 
Back in the 1980s when I used to jog through Riverview regularly, I was running up Minnekahda Road admiring that nice home when about four friendly dogs belonging to the Streets decided to join me. One of them was a little too enthusiastic about seeing me and accidentally bit me.
 
However, Judy Street felt bad and graciously secured a record of the dogs’ rabies shots after the physician that treated me requested one.
 
The other showcase Pringle and Smith home in Riverview is the one built farther up Minnekahda Road and across the street from the Annehaven home. Visible from Amnicola Highway across the Tennessee River, it was built for Mrs. D. Manker Patten and was later resided in by the C.G. Mills family of the Olan Mills photography company.
 
At Baylor School can also be found three buildings designed by Pringle and Smith. They include the original chapel, the Guerry dining hall (which has been expanded and remodeled over the years, including this summer) and Trustee Hall, which actually opened after Mr. Pringle had left the firm and died. All three surround the north end of the quadrangle on the top of the hill.
 
Longtime former Chattanooga orthopedist Dr. Barry Heywood was a small child when Trustee Hall was opened in 1936. As a result, he lived there with his family while his father, “Humpy” Heywood, served as business manager and was the highly successful football coach from 1940-60.
 
The Heywoods had formerly lived in the now-razed Elizabeth Apartments in downtown Chattanooga as well a home near the railroad tracks at Baylor, a structure later resided in by Maj. Luke Worsham and Austin Clark.
 
In Trustee Hall, there are two faculty apartments on each side. The Heywoods’ apartment was on the side facing Guerry Hall, while the apartment of longtime Latin teacher James Pennington’s family was on the side by the chapel, he said.
 
For Dr. Heywood, living in Trustee was enjoyable. “I never knew any place else to live, so it was fine with me,” he said.
 
In their multi-floor apartment, a living room, a dining room and kitchen were on the first floor, while two bedrooms were on the upper floor. Coach and Mrs. Heywood lived in the front bedroom, while Dr. Heywood and his younger brother, Tony, lived in the back.
 
After their younger sister, Rosina “Sissy,” came along, a penthouse room was built up in the attic area, and Barry and Tony moved there, and their sister had their old room.
 
Dr. Heywood also remembered that Leo and Charles Costa, two of his mother’s cousins from Athens, Ga., lived there while attending Baylor before America entered World War II. Leo Costa went on to become a kicker at Georgia and kicked an extra point in the 1943 Rose Bowl.
 
Dr. Heywood also recalled that Trustee Hall had two floors of four dorm rooms each for students, with two students to a room.
 
The building that was designed creatively for multiple uses has also had classrooms in the basement apparently since it opened. Dr. Heywood remembered that the faculty members who were in the basement when he was a child and student before graduating in 1952 included several longtime teachers.
 
Coach James Rike had his biology lab and class on one end, he said, while Roy Ashley also taught English on that floor, Doc Bock taught civics, and Andy Anderson taught Latin. He also remembered that a classroom in the middle section of the floor was made with good acoustics for the music students.
 
Dr. Heywood also has memories of the other Pringle and Smith buildings at Baylor. The chapel, which was opened in 1927, originally did not have a complete set of stained-glass windows nor an organ, he recalled, and an old workshop was later converted into a faculty lounge. The windows there were installed by the well-known Willet Studios firm.
 
Dr. Heywood also remembered that his family would often enter the old Guerry dining hall, which was built beginning in 1931, through a door near their apartment, not through the main entrance a few feet south. Though small, it offered a big view into the larger Baylor world that could be examined through the countless students and faculty who ate family style at tables for a number of decades.
 
UT-Chattanooga art and architecture professor Dr. Gavin Townsend has studied the Pringle and Smith structures and thinks the Collegiate Gothic-style Baylor structures are more restrained than the Riverview homes. Perhaps this reflects the Depression era when Guerry Hall and Trustee Hall were built, he believes.
 
He said Trustee is even more subdued than the 1929 Pringle and Smith Chi Psi (later Alpha Tau Omega) fraternity house at Georgia Tech after which it was patterned.
 
“The Baylor building lacks the variegated colored slate roof of the fraternity,” he said. “Its brickwork is laid in a simple stretcher bond, whereas the fraternity has walls of two-colored brick laid in the fancier Flemish bond.”
 
Baylor officials have said that Trustee has been pinpointed for several years to be torn down and replaced in the near future with a more modern classroom building. But Dr. Townsend, a historic preservationist at heart, thinks that would not be a good idea for several reasons, including who the building’s architectural firm was.
 
“The Baylor buildings don’t exactly form a true quadrangle, but the U-shape of the arrangement at least implies a traditional academic quad,” he said. “Destroying Trustee Hall would damage the whole composition and detract from the remaining buildings.”
 
As an idealist who went to Baylor in the 1970s and took classes in the basement of Trustee from such teachers as Dan Kennedy, Carter “Buck” Paden, Bill Hodges and Jack Murrah, I would love to see it preserved, too. Besides, I have seen few old buildings I would tear down, especially those designed by such a noted firm.
 
Jcshearer2@comcast.net