A Trip to the Cheekwood Mansion and Museum

By Ramona Shelton

Motlow Buzz Contributing Writer

        Nestled within Belle Meade, an area of Nashville known for its old mansions and very expensive new builds made to look old, is the Cheekwood Mansion and Museum. This large estate dating from the early part of the 20^th century was the venue for the latest MSCC Smyrna History Club trip.

        At the time we went, Cheekwood was holding its “Cheekwood in Bloom” festival. To get to the mansion itself, visitors have to walk through all the site’s grounds and lush does not come near to describing the landscaping. The grounds looked like someone had painted them in strokes of orange, yellow and cream thanks to the thousands of tulips currently blooming. On the day that we went, there were several families there with their young children, using the floral explosion as backdrops for some really cute kid pics.

Cheekwood is known for terraced patios (Photo by Ramona Shelton)

        Just outside of the house itself was a series of terraced patios. The bottom patio overlooked the small pond on the property but the higher up the yard we went, the more beautiful things got. After climbing a set of steps marked with the ominous sign “Historic Steps, Traverse Carefully at Your Own Risk” (which this author is proud to say that she successfully traversed without falling and breaking anything!), we arrived at the second patio level. This one had a small reflecting pool bracketed by stone statuary and an even more beautiful view of the grounds. But the top level, with its covered patio just off the back of the house, offered breathtaking vistas of not just the Cheekwood grounds but also different sections of Nashville. At the time when the mansion was built, there would not have been a skyline, so the family’s views would have been farmlands for miles.

History Professor Ramona Shelton (center) with members of the Motlow Smyrna History Club

        As we walked into the mansion’s entryway, we were greeted by a docent who told us the story of the family behind the mansion and grounds. Nashville’s Cheek family made the first chunk of their wealth in the coffee industry. In the 1920s, their Cheek’s Special Blend was sold nationwide and garnered the attention of General Mills, a company best known for their cold cereals. GM wanted to branch out into other groceries and saw Cheek’s Special Blend as a good jumping off point. In 1928, GM paid the Cheek family $40 million for proprietary rights to the coffee formula and the farms where the coffee beans came from. Interestingly, this sale occurred just before the Great Depression hit so the family’s wealth was solidified. But don’t worry about GM spending so much money at such a time. This coffee is still available for purchase to this very day under the name General Mills gave it -- Maxwell House.

        The ground level of the mansion includes the entryway where the docent told us about the family and its coffee, as well as the family parlor which opens up onto the top-level patio mentioned before. While this room is still set up fairly similar to how it looked when the Cheek family lived there, it is different than most museums. Since the Cheek family often had guests over and played games in the room, there are several tables still set up that people can still sit down at to play checkers and other games.

        While the upper two floors are set aside as art galleries, there are still several rooms that are much like the Cheek family left them. The second floor included a loggia, a formal sitting room with a grand piano, as well as a formal dining room and ladies’ parlor. The top floor included Mr. Cheek’s study which had the family crest in a stained glass window. Both of these floors currently had art exhibits including several paintings on loan as well as art pieces done by Belmont University students inspired by pieces from the Cheekwood collection. The top floor also had a couple of interesting displays. One was a series of photos and sculptures by a local artist who takes pieces of serving crystal and breaks them into smaller shards for display. The other, and slightly more disturbing, display came from another artist who works with plexiglass furniture. The centerpiece of the display was a Lucite baby bed with the left side sinking into the ground, leaving the cradle at a 45-degree angle. According to the description, the piece was made to show the juxtaposition of birth and death.

An example of fine art on display at Cheekwood Mansion (Photo by Ramona Shelton)

        Sadly, at the time that we went, the items connected the Cheekwood collection I most wanted to see were not on display. The Cheekwood Museum is one of the few museums to have displayed Fabrege Easter Eggs from the Romanov Dynasty. As a part of the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation, the Cheekwood has served as home for three of these priceless pieces of art history.

        To learn more about Cheekwood, visit http://www.Cheekwood.org.