Historical Overview

On December 20, 1896, David Hitt Williams Jr. (1863-1929) and Elizabeth Cornick (1876-1914) were married at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Knoxville. It was considered the “social event of the season.” Elizabeth, the daughter of a distinguished local family, and David, a promising young doctor and professor of pathology at Tennessee Medical College, were both admired members of Knoxville society.  Together, they moved into a fashionable luxury apartment on Clinch Street in downtown Knoxville.  Elizabeth gave birth to their first child, Eugenia Floride Williams, on January 14, 1900.  Eugenia’s siblings, Elizabeth and David III, followed in 1906 and 1909.  In 1902, Dr. Williams invested $5,000 in James Patrick Roddy’s Coca-Cola Bottling Company.  The growth of this investment significantly increased the family’s wealth and solidified their social and financial reputation among Knoxville’s elite.

The Williams family’s good fortune could not shield them from a series of epidemics in the early 1900s. Eugenia’s grandmother, uncle, aunt, and mother all succumbed to tuberculosis.  Her sister died of whooping cough in 1908, and her brother died of heart disease in 1916.  In the midst of so much illness and death, Dr. Williams became increasingly motivated to move his family out of the city to the countryside, where they could benefit from greater access to nature.

The city of Knoxville grew rapidly after the Civil War.  Prosperous railroad and marble ventures brought much-needed economic development to the area, and the city experienced a residential, commercial, and industrial revolution.  As Knoxville expanded, automobiles and a new trolley car system made it easier for residents to access the surrounding areas.  Suburban neighborhoods like Bearden began to attract Knoxville’s wealthier inhabitants.  There, they could escape the noise and crowded conditions of the city in favor of fresh air, open spaces, and scenic views.  High society members could even play golf, dine, or socialize at the recently opened Cherokee Country Club on Lyons View Pike.

While most of the neighboring properties were agrarian or residential, a significant exception is the small church and graveyard visible from the property. The Mount Pleasant Baptist Church was established in the 1800s. The church played a key role in the cultural life of Bearden’s historic Black communities at Lyons View, Slatey, and the Brickyard.

The first church building was completed in the 1880s, but the site was significant to the historic Black communities even earlier, as several cemetery gravestones predate the church. Some headstones mark individuals born into slavery or who fought for the United States Colored Infantry in the Civil War. The area remained central to Bearden’s Black community into the 1900s. In 1903, the church donated land for the Lyons View School, which offered free public education to Black children living in the Bearden area. Former residents recall frequent gatherings for plays at the school and picnics at the church. The present Mount Pleasant Baptist Church building was constructed in 1943 and is still home to an active congregation.

Next door to the church and a half mile up the road from Cherokee Country Club, Dr. Williams bought a large property between 1913 and 1916 and transformed it into an agrarian estate for his family.  He constructed a two-story farmhouse and added vegetable and flower beds, an orchard, and woodland garden trails overlooking the Tennessee River.  When Dr. Williams died in 1929, Eugenia inherited the property as her “sole and separate estate,” with the caveat that she could not sell it and could dispose of the property only by will.

Though she could not sell the property, Eugenia significantly transformed it.  She removed the orchards and garden beds in favor of a rolling great lawn and engaged two well-known architects to design new structures for the property.  Barber & McMurry, a prominent Knoxville firm, designed Eugenia’s stable in 1938.  In 1939, Eugenia hired John Fanz Staub, an esteemed architect and Knoxville native, to replace her father’s farmhouse with a modern two-story mansion.  The new Regency-style house boasted neoclassical motifs, three bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms, a library, and a three-car garage.  With novel inclusions such as elaborate built-in vanities, an early dishwasher, and a pie warmer, the finished home combined historic grandeur with modern convenience. It is Staub’s thoughtful expression of both Regency revival architecture and Eugenia’s personal styles.

Elevation blueprints for the new house, c. 1940. (Aslan Foundation)

Eugenia furnished her home simply and elegantly. She decorated the rooms with antiques and served dinner on 22-carat gold plates.  Her closet included the latest fashions from Saks Fifth Avenue and a monogrammed Louis Vuitton luggage trunk.  Surrounded by these luxuries, Eugenia lived in the house for more than 40 years. Though well-loved by her friends, the larger Knoxville community often described her as eccentric and reclusive. Over the years, her reputation as a stylish but mysterious person became tied to the house itself.

In 1983 Eugenia’s health forced her to move into a nursing home, leaving the grand house vacant.  Eugenia died on February 26, 1998, having never returned to her beloved estate in those fifteen years.

Barbara Aston-Walsh. “Eugenia: Knoxville’s Poor Little Rich Girl Leaves Legacy of Mystery; Generosity.” The Knoxville News Sentinel, Sunday, September 20, 1998.

In her will, Eugenia gave the estate to the University of Tennessee with the wish that it preserve the property’s architectural features and natural beauty.  At the time, University President Edward Boling, who had encouraged Eugenia to donate the estate, believed the house could be converted into a residence for future university presidents.  This never occurred and the house sat vacant for decades, receiving only emergency repairs.

In 2020 the Aslan Foundation purchased the property at a state auction. For six years, the Foundation worked with a team of local and internationally known experts to research and restore the Eugenia Williams House for the enjoyment of the greater Knoxville community.