First new house appears at Harlinsdale

Old farmhouse at park-side subdivision is under renovation

 THE TENNESSEAN • DECEMBER 19, 2008

FRANKLIN — The romantic in Ty Hasty views Harlinsdale Manor as a "work of love."

The pragmatist amends it to a "love-hate" relationship.

"When you do an old house or you do a development it's always worse than what you think it's going to be," said Hasty, a Brentwood-based developer. "But then you find little jewels and it kind of makes it all worthwhile. Now that we're starting to get some stuff finished out here it's starting to get fun."  Hasty's affection for his new Franklin development, Harlinsdale Manor, is unmistakable. There is a spring in his step and pride in his voice as he guides a tour of the 23-acre, 15-lot property that borders sprawling The Park at Harlinsdale Farm on Franklin Road at Spencer Creek.  As the development begins to take shape with the first two houses nearing completion, Hasty knows best that the project has been complicated, expensive and jeopardized during the past 18 months. Overriding the challenges is his belief that "there is nothing like it in Middle Tennessee," and the 10 available lots will be sold in a timely manner despite a soft housing market.  "This project is really unique to Franklin," said Hasty, principal broker and president of Great South Real Estate and Development. "The reason for it is it's the only residential development project in this town that is historically accurate and environmentally correct."  The development is in a Historic Preservation Overlay and will be composed of houses that complement the area's architecture — including an early 1800s farmhouse that is being renovated.  Harlinsdale Manor includes 15 acres of conservation meadow and environmentally conscious features such as rain gardens and gray water lines on each lot.  "Our goal would be that five years from now, when this is all built out, that people might drive through here and think that this neighborhood's been here for 100 years," Hasty said. "That's the feel we want."  Houses are subject to size restrictions: minimum 3,500 square feet and maximum 7,000 square feet. They must be built of natural materials such as stone, brick or wood. Designs require approval by the Harlinsdale Architectural Review Panel, as well as the Franklin Historic Zoning Commission.  Three designs are in the review stage, and another owner has a prepared design but is still choosing a lot.  "We didn't want to have boxes in here," said Hasty, who has lived in Franklin for more than 30 years. "We didn't want to build-the-biggest-thing-you-can-build in here. We looked around downtown Franklin, we made a lot of pictures of old houses down there and of the streetscapes in town, and that's what we want to replicate."

Lot sizes range from about one-third to three-quarters of an acre and are priced at $300,000 to $425,000.

Sense Of Place Sought

"The decisions they made were the right decisions," said Mary Pearce, executive director of The Heritage Foundation of Franklin and Williamson County. "It's what you want to see happen in town. Every house is not going to be as grand as those houses at Harlinsdale Manor. However, if they all could be as sensitive to the context which they're in, then our town continues to be set apart, and not Anywhere USA.

"In these tough economic times that is more critical than ever."

Franklin builder Bill Powell, an authority on historical homes who designed the first new house under construction in Harlinsdale Manor, lauded the development's authenticity.

"They're trying to focus on local architecture," Powell said. "In other words, houses that didn't land from some other country or some other region of the country. We're trying to build houses you might have seen around there 100 or 200 years ago."

Franklin architect Preston Shea wanted to be involved in the project once he and Hasty discussed the developer's vision. Shea serves as director of design for Harlinsdale Manor and chairman of the review panel. He also is a member of the city's historic zoning commission.

Shea has submitted two designs for review: a European farmhouse, for Hasty, and a stone vernacular farmhouse with gothic elements.

"The city of Franklin is known for its historic architecture and there's a real easy cohesiveness in all the buildings downtown, and for these to be respectful, if not completely spot on, is absolutely the right call," Shea said.

Nashville photographer John Guider is building to sell the first new house in the development: on Lot 1, due south of the modest entrance. He owned the centuries-old farmhouse next door and land before selling it to longtime friend Hasty for $2.5 million in May 2007, entrusting him to respectfully develop the property.

"He was the one that got it the best," Guider said. "It just raised my comfort level in being able to let it go. We talked a lot about design and shared a very similar vision for how it should be."

That vision included emphasizing aesthetics over volume and taking a minimalist approach to a parcel zoned for dozens of houses.

"Ty saw it to be more of a family community with just a select few houses," Guider said. "In a way he sacrificed his building potential to develop something beautiful. He would have made a lot more money if he would have put in 45 townhouses. The fact that he wanted to do something special, that was more important than just turning the dollar. . . . That takes a special person to want to do that."

Hasty rejected the first design for the development, which included 32 lots.

"It was just too tight. It just wasn't right. It would have been too small," said Hasty, who is developing a residential community for the first time after working exclusively in the commercial field. "It wouldn't have had the character that the historic farmhouse has. It would have destroyed that open feel that you have out there."

Huge Park Abuts Development

Harlinsdale Manor is surrounded to the south and the west by The Park at Harlinsdale Farm, a former training and breeding facility for Tennessee Walking Horses that was purchased by Franklin in 2004. Sixty acres were opened to the public for passive recreational activities in September 2007.

Pearce said Harlinsdale Manor is a "model of how you would like to see projects happen, where you have development and you don't erode community character. And then, of course, they saved the historic farmhouse."

Guider, who moved into a historic home in East Nashville after leaving Franklin, invested in Harlinsdale Manor as a show of friendship to Hasty and because of the property's special place in his heart. He is considering building a second house there.

"I wanted to build something that other people could see and be very comfortable with the development," said Guider, whose house is scheduled for completion in four months. "I wanted it to have that special house."

Powell and Guider are creating a showpiece in the 5,500-square-foot brick Federal. Powell is melding reclaimed items like fireplaces and oak doors with period-appropriate design features like 10-inch baseboards, crown molding and limestone headers and footers. The double-tiered porch is accessible from every room and offers views of Harlinsdale Farm's 200 acres and Civil War landmark Roper's Knob to the east.

"The fact that Bill and I have fine arts backgrounds got him excited because I was allowing him to create a work of art rather than controlling every little aspect," Guider said. "My contribution was to let him flourish as an artist."

The 3,500-square-foot farmhouse was owned by former Franklin mayor John B. McEwen at the end of the 19th century. It includes many of its original features, and Hasty is being diligent about keeping it authentic through the restoration.

"It's a fabulous house, and it's turned out to be just beautiful. We're very proud of it," Hasty said. "But I don't care what old house you restore, when you restore an old house take whatever you think is going to be the worst-case scenario and double it. There's things in those walls that you can't see."

At the Harlinsdale farmhouse, workers discovered a boarded-up root cellar — designed to keep produce fresh in pre-refrigeration days — that Hasty is turning into a wine cellar.

Hasty said the discovery was a "mixed blessing."

"It was like, 'Oh, this is so cool,' " he said. "But, it was like, 'Oh, my gosh. I am going to have to spend more money to bring it back.' I couldn't board it up anymore. It had to be restored."

Two years ago, Hasty had to pinch himself when plans for Harlinsdale Manor were approved on the first reading by the historic zoning commission and the Franklin Planning Commission.

Market Changed During Site Prep

By April 2007, all of the lots were sold, to individuals and builders for speculative houses. But, Hasty's decision to take a noninvasive approach to laying sewer lines underneath Spencer Creek delayed construction by several months and caused builders to vacate when the lots weren't ready by the fall of 2007.

"By that time the market had transitioned dramatically, between May and December . . . and a lot of those guys had inventory, they had other houses they had built to spec, that weren't moving," Hasty said.

It looked like the beginning of the end for Harlinsdale Manor.

"I should have been gone a year ago. Sold out. Finished. Done," Hasty said. "And I still get nervous about it sometimes."

Hasty credits his lender, Pinnacle Bank, for standing by him and chalks up his bad luck to the nature of the business.

"Anytime you get into development of any project that is substantial in nature, when you have roads and water and sewer and electrical and municipalities to deal with, you can do your best to project out a year or two all of the things you're going to run into," Hasty said. "But there's no way that you can see every hurdle that you may run into."

Hasty remains confident that Harlinsdale Manor will be a financial success and perhaps even a benchmark for future residential developments in the area.

"Anytime you have exposure in a soft market it's uncomfortable," Hasty said. "On the other hand, it's only 10 lots. It's not 300 or 400. I'm so blessed that I'm not involved in a project that has hundreds of lots that are just like everybody else's.

"I've got 10 lots that are very, very unique. So, I'm confident that eventually people will buy all the lots."