Washington Hall

Luke Lea, who lived here from 1936, was chosen U.S. senator by the legislature on the eleventh ballot and served from 1911 to 1917. He was the first editor and publisher of The Tennessean. In January 1919 he and members of his artillery unit tried to seize Kaiser Wilhelm II at a chateau in Amerongen, Netherlands; the attempt failed and the Army reprimanded them. After the 1930 collapse of Central Bank and Trust in Asheville, he was convicted in 1931 on three of seven counts, entered prison in 1934, was paroled in 1936 and was pardoned in 1937.

What the plaque says

Washington Hall Inspired by Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and Lord Burlington's Chiswick House in London, John B. Daniels built this Italianate house c. 1914. Colonel Luke Lea, a United States Senator, organizer of the 114th Field Artillery in World War I, and founder of the Nashville Tennessean, lived here from 1936 until his death in 1945. He gave to the people of Nashville 868 acres of land for the creation of Percy Warner Park. One of the leading developers of Belle Meade, he also was instrumental in establishing the American Legion, and, for many years, was active in the public life of the state.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fisk University and Jubilee Hall — 2.8 mi
  The 1866 school for freed people whose Jubilee Singers paid for Jubilee Hall, a National Historic Landmark, and whose students helped start Nashville's sit-ins.
• Fort Negley — 3.1 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 3.2 mi
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.
• National Museum of African American Music — 3.3 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.

More markers nearby

• Battle of Nashville: Harding Road — 1.0 mi
• Assault on Montgomery Hill — 1.3 mi
• Anne Dallas Dudley — 1.4 mi
• Vanderbilt Memorial Gymnasium — 1.4 mi