Lebanon Rd. Nashville, TN
Built 1903. 2-story stone home/ rebuilt in 1957
Sarah Dodson inherited land from her family in the Donelson area. When Sarah Elizabeth Dodson DeBow (1873-1903) married Judge James Dunwoody Brownson DeBow, Jr. (1861-1947), they built their mansion Ravenwood as a "Country House" during a era of the American Country Home Movement. She named the property for the large number of ravens on site. Her husband carved the name Ravenwood into the stone pillar that remains in front of the property.
Judge DeBow was the son of J. D. B. DeBow, Sr. of South Carolina. The father was an antebellum reformer who used his periodical DeBow"s Review to advocate Southerners to modernize and develop more industry. His mother Martha Elizabeth DeBow Nichol was a social reformer as well including women's suffrage. She was a member of the board of directors of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Judge DeBow was judge of the criminal court of Davidson County. Sadly, Sarah Elizabeth died just two years after the home was completed. Judge DeBow remarried to Sarah Spence DeBow (1874-1936). She was the daughter of David and Sarah Eakin Spence of Murfreesboro. She was very involved in civic and social affairs in Nashville.
Judge DeBow operated the Ravenwood boar stock farm - "Home of the Big Bone Berkshire." Across the river from the home was Andrew Jackson's Clover Bottom racetrack.
After Judge DeBow died, in 1947, the original home was demolished and rebuilt by R.D. Stanford, Jr. It remained a 270-acre estate with "terraced gardens, stone walls and a man-made lake." Stanford sold the property to the Donelson Improvement Co. in 1957.
A few years later, by 1962, the name was changed from the Donelson Park Club to Ravenwood Club. Other amenities were added: swimming pool, tennis courts, horse trails and an 18-hole golf course. Metro Nashville Parks and Recreation purchased the property in 2012. See Inglehamme/ Harpeth, Belair, Clover Bottom, Belair
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