History

by Nancy Beth Glascock Gerkins Miller (1920-1989)

"This house was built by Mr. Pete Hood between 1900 and 1910. I've been told he took three years to build the house and the out-buildings. There was a barn, which is now an apartment house with three small rented apartments and a guest apartment for my use. Originally, there were also stables, a cow barn, and the brick pump house, which my family has always called "The Tower." The property was outside the city limits. Even when I was a kid, the city limits ran right through the yard on the west side of the house. The Tower has a well under it and when the pump was used, there was a surge tank on top of the structure which was built solely to house the pump for the water system."

"Mr. Hood never lived in the house for any length of time. The Aluminum Company of America in Alcoa bought it for my Dad to live in when he came here from the Plant No. 1 in Niagara Falls to be the second superintendent (called the "works manager" today) of the plant in Alcoa. Soon after Dr. and Mrs. Glascock moved into the house around 1915, the Glascocks indicated they wished to buy the house. When be left the Alcoa Aluminum Company, to go into the insurance business, he purchased the house in 1926."

"Before my Dads death in 1961, be planted the many daffodils above the stone wall. They bloom less profusely now, but they are still a very early harbinger of Spring. After my Mom died in 1972, my first husband and I bought the place which was inherited by the three children, Jane Glascock Edris, Jim Glascock, and myself. We restored the house to the way it was when I was a child."

National Register of Historic Places

"During the Great Depression, an apartment and rooms were rented upstairs in the house, but now it looks a great deal as I remembered it. I was born here and married my first husband, Byron Gerkins, in the house in 1941. Incidentally, the wallpaper in the hallways upstairs and down was put there for that wedding."

"Mr. Hood built the house with great care. All the beautiful woodwork is quarter-sawed chestnut before it got wormy. It has never been re-finished. I understand that Mr. Hood personally supervised the sawing of the wood at the Little River Saw Mill in Townsend and hauled it to Maryville on the Elkmont Railroad which he owned. The heating system is the same hot water system as he put in the house. The radiators are now heated by a gas furnace in the full basement instead of coal as jt was originally."

"The stained glass was custom-made for the house. The leaded glass beside the front door is especially beautiful when the morning sun beams rainbows into the house. The bookcases in the living room were built-in with the beveled glass doors. There is an interesting pattern to the upper sashes in the windows in the east side of the living room and these designs are especially noticeable in the windows upstairs. All the windows have recessed screws which make it possible to remove one side (or both sides) of the molding and swinging the window into the room on its sash cords to wash the outside of the windows."

"The house, for its vintage, has an unusual number of large closets and storage cabinets. The front upstairs closets even have windows. The largest change I made was to put in an elevator which runs from the second floor to the basement. One large bathroom upstairs was divided into two shower bathrooms for convenience."

"The Glascock house is a joy to live in. My second husband, William M. Miller, and I wrapped the house in siding and put on a new roof. He also did a great deal to enhance the yard. I'm grateful to the Blount County Historical Trust for obtaining the placement of the house on the National Register of Historical Places by the United States Department of the Interior."

--Nancy Beth Glascock Gerkins Miller