DUANE SHERRILLEditor

The Fox House at 502 Lake Hills Road in Tullahoma is under consideration for addition to the National Register of Historic Places.

The State Review Board will meet on Wednesday, May 17 to examine Tennessee’s proposed nominations to the National Register of Historic Places. Beginning at 9 a.m. (CST), the meeting will be held at the Tennessee Historical Commission, located at 2941 Lebanon Road in Nashville as well as virtually. Meeting information will be available on the THC State Review Board webpage.

The Board will vote on four nominations from across the state. Those nominations that are found to meet the criteria will be sent for final approval to the National Register of Historic Places at the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The nominations are:

• Melton’s Bank, Cannon County

• Fox House, Coffee County

• Bruce High School, Dyer County

• Haynes Haven Stock Farm, Maury County

The State Review Board is composed of 12 people with backgrounds in American history, architecture, archaeology, or related fields. It also includes members representing the public. The National Register program was authorized under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The Tennessee Historical Commission administers the program in Tennessee.

The public is invited to attend the meeting. For additional information, please contact Rebecca Schmitt with the Tennessee Historical Commission at (615) 770-1086, or at National.Register@tn.gov. For more information about the Tennessee Historical Commission, please visit www.tnhistoricalcommission.org.

The nomination was submitted in a detailed 34-page application listing all aspects of the house including architecture and historical significance.

The Fox House was built ca. 1910 as the home for Walter Dennis Fox and his wife Sara Bell Fox. Walter D. Fox (1869-1912) was born in Rutherford County, Tennessee and later became editor of the Murfreesboro Free Press. Fox was also a member of the Knights of Pythias fraternal organization and rose to the level of Grand Keeper of Records and Seal. Fox played a major role in the establishment of the Knights of Pythias Ovoca Home for Widows and Orphans. Later newspaper accounts described him as the home’s founder and lifeblood, virtually giving his life to the home’s creation. At the same time as land was being purchased for Ovoca in 1908, Sara Bell Fox bought 20.6 acres on the ridge just east of the Ovoca property.

The Fox Home was built soon after and sited to overlook the Ovoca Home. The Ovoca Home was constructed with multiple cottages, farmland, and community buildings to the north and west of the manmade Ovoca Lake, created just south of Ovoca Falls when the Knights dammed Carroll Creek. Walter Fox did not live to see the home in operation for long; he died in 1912, but his contributions were later recognized by the construction of the Fox Memorial Hall administration building, which stood at Ovoca until it burned down in 1986. The Ovoca complex is almost completely non-extant today.

The Ovoca Board bought the Fox House property in 1922. It is unclear how the board used the property. The board sold the property to Sam and Blanche Cook in 1933. The Cooks built the property’s garage/apartment for their cook and gardener, utilizing the same Craftsman-style design as the Fox House. They sold the property in 1940 when Sam Cook accepted a new job in Nashville. C.W. and Vivian Marlin took ownership, and they sold the property ten years later to J. Ralph and Eula Harris. J. Ralph Harris was a real estate developer, and he established the Lake Hills Development by subdividing the Fox property into multiple lots.

The Fox House became Lot 2 Tract 1 in the development and retained about three acres. The land around the Fox House gradually developed with single-family homes in common mid-twentieth-century forms and styles such as Ranch, Split-Level, and Colonial Revival. Ronald and Marie Smelt bought the property in 1953, followed by Charles and Margaret Preston in 1957. They sold the property to the Wurst family, the current owners, in 1995.