Taylor Place Historic Preservation Meets Modern Nashville Living

Three Projects, One Idea

The third project is the one that could have gone wrong. The old Werthan Warehouse was kept and converted, not cleared. Plenty of developers would have read that building as a demolition line item. Smith Gee Studio read it as the reason to be here.

New Work, Old Bones

Walk the Werthan Warehouse and the manufacturing years are still in the room: exposed brick, steel beams, ceilings built tall for machines that are long gone. The new work doesn’t cover any of that up. It moves in around it, and the two get along.

Hamilton and Hume House is the other half of the trick. It’s new construction, clean lines and modern materials, sitting beside a restored warehouse without apologizing for either one. Old and new, holding a conversation instead of an argument.

What the Buildings Won

The juries took notice. The awards belong to the buildings and to Smith Gee Studio. I photographed them:

602 Taylor Street took an AIA Middle Tennessee Merit Award in 2022 and a Metropolitan Historical Commission Preservation Award the same year. Design juries and preservationists don’t often hand the same building both. This time they did.

The Werthan Warehouse kept collecting: an AIA Middle Tennessee Merit Award in 2021, a Metropolitan Historical Commission Preservation Award in 2022, and an AIA Tennessee Award of Merit in 2024. Three juries, three years, same verdict.

Hamilton and Hume House went national as a Finalist for the Best in American Living Awards in 2024, up against work from all over the country.

Bigger Than the Block

Nashville is growing fast, and the old buildings are usually the first thing growth spends. Taylor Place makes the counter-argument in brick. You can add to a neighborhood without erasing it, and preservation and new construction can pull in the same direction.

That reaches past Germantown. All over the city, developers, architects and planners are deciding what to do with blocks like this one, and now they have a working example: infill that strengthens a neighborhood instead of unsettling it. The awards say the architectural community was paying attention.

What Nashville Does Next

As the city keeps building, Taylor Place is worth studying. Smith Gee Studio never chose between honoring the past and building for what comes next. They did both, on one block, and the work holds up in person.

So if you’re weighing what to do with an old building, or wondering whether new construction can be a good neighbor, go walk Germantown. The best projects in this city know where they’re building, not just what they’re building.

Taylor Place is still filling in, and Germantown still feels like Germantown. That’s the whole trick.