May is National Historic Preservation Month and Knox Heritage, which champions that particular cause 24/7/365, celebrated with its annual East Tennessee Preservation Awards on May 21 at The Emporium.
Some of the honorees were high-profile projects we’ve been following closely over for years. Others are residential or smaller-scale projects rescued from uncertain futures whose stories might otherwise fly under the radar. Common denominators among them are the advocacy, patience and creativity required to bring them across the finish line.
First, a couple KH items of interest:
- KH’s third annual round of Community Preservation Grants (I wrote about this effort in March) have been named. To date, they have awarded 30 grants totaling more than $135,000 for small-scale projects in a variety of neighborhoods.
- KH also announced a new online Preservation Toolkit, intended as a centralized resource for homeowners, neighborhood advocates and preservation professionals navigating the often not-super-intuitive world of historic preservation. I spent some time clicking around in it … very handy!
And now … the awards. Per tradition, we’ll focus on the winners in downtown or downtown-adjacent areas. I’ve included links to IOK‘s previous coverage in case you’d like a satisfying before-and-after journey through their transformations.
Sanitary Laundry
The City of Knoxville Mayor’s Award went to Sanitary Laundry at 625 N. Broadway, a true preservation Cinderella story. McCarty Holsaple McCarty purchased, restored and relocated its own offices into the long-deteriorating 1925 industrial building in roughly a year. The result is a stunning 30,000-square-foot workspace that feels bright, contemporary and deeply respectful of the building’s industrial bones. It was quite the evening for MHM which had a hand in multiple honored projects, including the 612 Building and the Historic Rule House, and (spoiler alert) would see its Chairman Emeritus, Doug McCarty, with an honor of his own.
Read more:
- MHM’s 60th Anniversary Marks a New Era for a 100-Year-Old Industrial Icon, Dec. 2025
- The Sanitary Laundry Building Comes Back to Life, March 2025
- It also appeared in multiple KH “Fragile Fifteen” roundups such as this one from May 2017
Tennessee Theatre’s 612 Building
The Greystone Award went to the Historic Tennessee Theatre Foundation for the ambitious restoration and adaptive reuse of the Mechanics Bank & Trust Building at 612 South Gay Street. In addition to preserving a historic structure the project fundamentally expands what the Tennessee Theatre can be, with rehearsal rooms, public gathering spaces, a recording studio and direct physical integration with the theater itself.
Read more:
- A First Look at the Soon-to-Open 612 Building’s Gorgeous Renovations, May 2026
- Downtown Updates: Tennessee Theatre’s 612 Building, December 2025
- Inside the 612 Building: A Look at the Progress, July 2025
- 612 Building to Enhance the Tennessee Theatre: Capital Campaign Begins, October 2024
- Tennessee Theatre Expands into Neighboring Building at 612 Gay Street, March 2024
- Tennessee Theatre Purchases Four Floors of the Mechanics Bank & Trust Building, January 2019
- Exploring One of Gay Street’s Most Beautiful and Interesting Buildings: The Mechanics Bank & Trust Building, January 2018
Historic YWCA
The YWCA Knoxville & the Tennessee Valley earned a Preservation Merit Award for the stunning rehabilitation of its century-old downtown building, now home to the Jenny Boyd Keys of Hope program. The project tackled the unglamorous but essential stuff — infrastructure, accessibility, safety systems — while preserving the dignity and history of a building that has served women in Knoxville for generations.
Read more:
- Here’s to the Next 100 Years: Ribbon Cut on Renovated YWCA Nancy J. Land Center, January 2026
- A Peek Inside YWCA at the Halfway Point of Its Epic Renovation, May 2025
- YWCA Looks to Raise Additional Funds to Serve More Women, Renovate Their 100-Year-Old Building, June 2024
Historic Rule House / Anchor House
Another Preservation Merit Award recognized the Grandiflora Foundation’s transformation of the long-deteriorating Rule House at 2445 E. Magnolia Ave. into Anchor House, a transitional living facility for autistic adults operated in partnership with Autism Breakthrough of Knoxville. It’s exactly the kind of adaptive reuse story preservationists love: saving a historic building while giving it an urgently relevant second act. Just next door, Phil Lawson’s $22 million Grandiflora Foundation project will transform the former Knoxville Baptist Tabernacle into a 400-seat event venue with a public park.
Doug McCarty
This year’s Spirit of Kristopher Award honored architect Doug McCarty, whose fingerprints are all over Knoxville’s built environment, from the Tennessee Theatre restoration to major civic and university projects. Beyond architecture, his decades of work with the East Tennessee Community Design Center helped make thoughtful design expertise accessible to organizations that otherwise might not have had it.
Marsha Grieve
Knox Heritage’s Volunteer of the Year Award went to Marsha Grieve, whose decade-plus of service at Historic Westwood has included coordinating docents, maintaining gardens, serving on the board and generally being the kind of person nonprofit organizations quietly depend on. I’ve had the opportunity to get to know Marsha recently and she immediately established herself as an inspiration.
Beyond the Center City
2435 Smithland Road
One of the Preservation Merit Awards went to Isaiah Nichols and Kayla Garrett-Nichols for the meticulous restoration of a 1960 mid-century tri-level in Northwest Knoxville originally built by the family behind Smithbilt Homes. Rather than gutting the personality out of it, the team leaned into the home’s original character, preserving parquet floors, wood paneling and vintage spirit while making it fully livable for modern life.
310 Oak Park Drive
Also recognized with a Preservation Merit Award was Jimmy and Heather Ryan’s restoration of an English cottage-style home in Fountain City, a project that blended structural rescue with thoughtful modernization while preserving original materials and character details.
500 Barclay Road
Knox Heritage introduced a new category this year: the Infill Construction Award, honoring new construction that plays nicely with historic neighborhoods. The inaugural award went to 500 Barclay Road in South Knoxville, where what began as a too-far-gone structure became a thoughtfully designed Craftsman-style infill home intended to feel like it had always belonged there.
Art Miller
The Preservation Stewardship Award went to Clinton’s Art Miller, recognized not just for maintaining the 1949 Judge William Lewallen House, but for his broader civic commitment to preservation through public service and advocacy in Anderson County.
KH will present one additional award this year at the Scruffy City Soiree on Friday, Sept. 11: The Courtland Group will be honored as 2026 Preservationists of the Year. The Courtland Group’s most recent preservation success is Park City Village, new condos in a previously derelict set of three buildings at 2724 – 2736 Magnolia Ave. Additionally the group developed the historic Keystone Building, The Mews, Mews II, the Hubris Building, The Fifth Avenue Plaza and 1201 North Central in Happy Holler.
You can get a nail-biting “before” look at Park City Village project here. Here are some new photos of the three buildings:
Knox Heritage: Website | Facebook | Instagram
Discover more from Inside of Knoxville
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.