It’s a time-burnished Inside of Knoxville tradition to recap the Old North Knoxville Victorian Holiday Home Tour; we’ve covered it most years since 2012. (See the bottom of this post for links to previous coverage, including addresses of all featured homes.) But the Home Tour itself, whose 2025 edition took place Dec. 6-7, has been running for over 35 years, a testament to the community’s shared emotional investment in the determined caretaking of one of the City’s oldest neighborhoods.
First incorporated as the independent town of North Knoxville in 1889, the neighborhood was designed as one of the city’s earliest “streetcar suburbs.” For its time, it was impressively well-equipped, offering infrastructure that matched — and in some cases rivaled — Knoxville proper: paved streets, water service, a fire station, a city hall and its own school. Homes were built with generous sidewalks rather than driveways or garages, reflecting a daily rhythm shaped by foot traffic and the streetcar line, which carried residents to downtown jobs and markets. North Knoxville was formally annexed into the City of Knoxville in 1897, and by 1899, the arrival of electric streetlights signaled the neighborhood’s full entry into a new, modern era.
Such depth of history comes with its charms and its challenges. It’s easy to wonder, when you encounter a once-spectacular old home that has since fallen upon hard times, how anyone could have let it get to that point. The answers to that are myriad and complicated, but happy endings do exist even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, thanks to stewards including but not limited to the ones featured in this series.
Rather than following the Tour in chronological order, today we’re focusing on a theme: remarkable comeback stories, starting with none other than the Bertha Clark House.
Bertha Clark House (523 E. Oklahoma Ave.)
For many years, this condemned, vine-smothered Eastlake Victorian was on my jogging route. And each time I passed it, I squinted into the overgrowth and wondered, “Is there even a house in there?”
Turns out, there was—and what a house it is. Since rescued from the brink, it’s been on the tour the past three years, beginning in 2023 (when it had been de-jungled, at least, but was still in dire shape and literally raining inside) …
… to 2024, when it was beginning to come around but still barren and rough around the edges …
… to now.
Built in 1889 for Thomas and Helen Peed, this real-life dollhouse has a history as layered as its intricate design. Once thought to be the work of famed architect George Barber, it was recently confirmed as a creation of the Baumann Brothers. Inside, the dining room showcases extraordinary tilework designed by Herman Carl Mueller, whose artistry graces the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And that’s just the beginning. This house has ties to Knoxville’s most famous gunfight, George Barber, the YWCA and even Mark Twain.
The home’s central staircase has been carefully reconstructed, with new spindles, newels, and balusters crafted to match those removed during its years as a triplex. Stained-glass windows were taken out, repaired, and reinstalled, while the home’s signature rounded walls remain intact. Original Eastlake hardware survives throughout, and historic details — from trim and mantels to clawfoot tubs and doors — were preserved and thoughtfully reused wherever possible.
Referred to in our previous articles as the Bolin-Hardy Home, it has been rechristened the Bertha Clark House. The name honors its longest resident, Ms. Clark, who lived here from the 1930s through the ’50s and was the founder and first conductor of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra—a remarkable achievement in 1930, or really, any era.
Having completed the restoration with Sean Bolen over the past two years, Alison Hardy is delighted to now call this house her home.
Just want to shout-out this extremely nonchalant cat:
What a happy ending for one of Old North Knox’s most precarious properties. Another from the Phoenix Rising category:
Hattar House (217 E. Scott Ave.)
Built around 1904, this two-story Queen Anne frame house has lived a long and occasionally fraught life. Its story includes a striking mid-century legal chapter: a 1957 Knox County court decree transferred ownership from Elizabeth Hiscock, who was described in court records as a “widow and incompetent.” After decades of uneven care and periods of neglect, the house has entered its most hopeful era yet.
Acquired in 2023 by the Hattars, the property is now in the midst of a major rehabilitation. What visitors see today is a house very much in motion — being carefully stabilized, repaired and restored with an eye toward preserving the character it has carried for more than a century.
What a wonderful feeling that the house is in good hands.
Another happy little bit of news from up this block: the Fair-Collins House, an 1896 textbook George Barber creation that was on the market during last year’s tour, has been sold to new owners who are passionate about doing it justice.
The hour is getting late, but I promise to finish out Part II tomorrow.
Previous IOK Old Old North Knoxville Victorian Holiday Home Tour coverage:
2024
- 2024: Part I Guilford House (1333 Armstrong Ave.), Mays House (1235 Armstrong Ave.), Sparks-Golliher House (206 W. Glenwood Ave.), Bertha Clark House (523 E. Oklahoma Ave.), Bentley House (317 E. Oklahoma Ave.)
- 2024: Part II Crenshaw-Summerow House (1124 Stewart St.), Turpin House (1365 Shepard St.), Fair-Collins House (241 E. Scott Ave.), Rose Funeral and Cremation (1421 N. Broadway), Fourth United Presbyterian Church (1323 N. Broadway)
2023
- 2023: Part I Rose Funeral and Cremation (1421 N. Broadway), First Lutheran Church (1207 N. Broadway), Repass-Mills House (700 E. Scott Ave.), Brechko House (510 E. Scott Ave.)
- 2023: Part II Rider House (229 E. Scott), Kloss House (204 E. Scott), Sale House (205 E. Oklahoma), Marshall House (321 E. Oklahoma), Bolen-Hardy/Bertha Clark House (523 E. Oklahoma)
2022
- 2022: Part I Guilford House (1233 Armstrong Ave.), Roberts House (224 W. Glenwood Ave.), Paulist Fathers House (707 E. Scott), Moffat House (701 E. Scott Ave.), McGowan House (522 E. Scott Ave.),
- 2022: Part II Martin/Lou Mar House (505 E. Scott Ave.), The Irwin/Smith House (911 Irwin St.), King House (139 E. Glenwood Ave.), Lewellen House
2020 & 2021 – cancelled
2018
- 2018: Part I 405 E. Oklahoma Ave., Kyker House (254 E. Oklahoma Ave.), 230 East Oklahoma, Brownlow Lofts (140 E. Glenwood Ave.), St. James Episcopal Church (1101 N. Broadway), 138 Leonard St.
- 2018: Part II 122 Leonard Pl., 1430 Grainger Ave., 1319 Grainger Ave., Ron Williams House (1424 Freemont Pl.), 1300 Kenyon St.
2016
- Part I Sweetman Home (510 E. Scott Ave.), The Thomas House (1311 Kenyon St.), McSpadden House (1325 Armstrong Ave.), Fourth Presbyterian Church (1323 N. Broadway)
- Part II Statum House (300 E. Oklahoma Ave.), 227 E. Anderson Ave., Milnor House (129 E. Oklahoma Ave.), Madgett House (207 E. Oklahoma Ave.), Dungan House (229 E. Scott Ave.)
2015
- Part I 1523 Fremont Pl., Gaskell-Myers House (1025 Kenyon Street), St. James Episcopal Church (1101 N. Broadway), 204 E. Oklahoma Ave., 212 E. Oklahoma Ave.
- Part II 221 E. Oklahoma Ave., 225 E. Oklahoma Ave., 303 E. Oklahoma Ave., 302 E. Scott Ave., 505 E. Scott Ave.,
2014
- 2014: Cruze-Mabry House (1200 Kenyon St.), Muir House (1428 Freemont Pl.), Leach-Oats House (1236 Armstrong Ave.), Carmichael House (224 W. Glenwood Ave.), Rose Keller Johnson House (226 W. Glenwood Ave.), Russell Lodging House (424 E.Oklahoma Ave.), Kyker House, (254 E. Oklahoma Ave.), McGinley House (219 E. Anderson Ave.), Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Mission of the Holy Resurrection (1031 N. Central St.), West-Evans House (236 E. Scott Ave.)
2013
- 2013 Part I 1417 Cornelia St., 224 E. Scott Ave.
- 2013 Part II 115 E. Scott Ave., 318 Oklahoma Ave.
- 2013 Part III 108 E. Glenwood Ave., First Lutheran Church (1207 N. Broadway), 1233 Armstrong Ave.
- 2013 Part IV 214 E. Glenwood Ave., 145 Leonard Pl., 1329 Grainger Ave.,
2012
- 2012 McDaniel House (1303 Kenyon St.), Lane House (712 E. Scott Ave.), Merten House (704 E. Scott Ave.), Jesse D. Hughes House (1416 Kenyon St.), Wilkinson House (1515 Freemont Pl.), Fourth Presbyterian Church (1323 N. Broadway), Jones House (319 E. Anderson St.), Alwood-Carter House (254 E. Oklahoma Ave.), Hay-Bronstad House (230 E. Oklahoma Ave.), Sach’s House (222 E. Oklahoma Ave.), Rider House (229 E. Scott Ave.)
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