Beale Street is mostly known for its two blocks crammed with blues joints and bars. Few people know about one of Memphis best kept secrets, the Hunt Phelan house, a few blocks further east on Beale. This antebellum house was built between 1824 and 1828, designed by Robert Mills, known for his design for (parts of) the White House. It was intended as a second house, and for business.
During the Civil War it served as a hospital and as general and later president Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters. During a renovation in the 1990’s, bones of amputated limbs were found underneath the house. When the airconditioning is turned off, you can smell the blood of confederate soldiers. Or so the story goes.
In the seventies, the neighbourhood of the Hunt-Phelan home deteriorated. Whole neighbourhoods were cleared during a big urban renewal program (also called “urban removal” – urban planner’s humour, ha!) and the inhabitants – mostly blacks – were relocated to public housing projects spread across the city. The house, that had been serving as a museum, was closed, and the property got overgrown. And that looked like the end of it.
In the beginning of the nineties, the owner hired his sister, who had a art studio up in New York, to renovate the house. She invaded the house with a team of fourty artists from five countries. They needed job students. Since this was during the school year, only homeschoolers were available. Heather, 15 and very interested in art, joined the team. She and her friends painted gold stars on the ceiling, stained the wood floors, and basically decorated every surface according to the styles of the time. The southern students made the New York artists laugh by calling them “Sir” and “Ma’am”. Since then the house has served as a restaurant and as a place for events, and recently as a bed and breakfast. And that’s where we treated ourselves to a fancy brunch this morning. For Heather it was a trip down memory lane.
