Sequoyah Hills

By Jennifer Montgomery Photography by Leigh Krieps

If you're scouting a nice outing, visit Sequoyah Hills.

You'll start on Cherokee Boulevard. This grand early twentieth-century street stretches from Kingston Pike to the popular park for which the neighborhood is well known. Share the center median with fellow guests and neighbors as they recreate along this well-worn path. Admire historic homes on generous lots, many along the riverside.

The history of Sequoyah Hills is one of Great Depression-era Knoxville. When it was developed, the neighborhood was on the west edge of town. Fort Sanders, then known as West Knoxville, was well developed and featured a number of fine mansions with smaller homes around them. The area that is now Sorority Village had been surveyed to become a neighborhood called Cherokee Park, in 1891, but had never been developed.

But, in 1925, E.V. Ferrell, a developer from Winston- Salem, North Carolina, bought a large tract of land and began developing Sequoyah Hills and the town expanded west. The development included underground utilities and the wide boulevard, Cherokee Boulevard.

A year later, Robert L. Foust, a partner with the real estate firm Alex McMillan Company purchased 100 acres adjacent to Ferrell's Sequoyah Hills and began developing a separate neighborhood called Talahi. Features included concrete streets, fountains, parks, and a commercial center called Council Points, at Keowee and Kenesaw avenues. Home plans were restricted to English, Early American, and Colonial styles.

Lots in Talahi went on sale in the Spring of 1929. They were expensive for the time, between $4,000 and $10,000. And, unfortunately, marketing of the new neighborhood coincided with the crash of the New York Stock Exchange in the Fall of 1929. Only one lot sold. Lots later sold at auction in the 1930s.

Original features of the Talahi neighborhood remain as loved landmarks today. Many of them, including the Sunhouse Fountain with its recently restored clay (originally brass) frogs, are in Talahi Park, at Talahi Drive.