Earlier this season, we highlighted The Southern Turf Building and The Union Station Nashville Yards — two of Nashville’s architectural icons. Now, we’re pulling back the curtain on The Liggett Building in SoBro. While you may not immediately recognize the name of this long-standing neighborhood landmark, you’ll undoubtedly be intrigued by its history, going all the way back to the days when trains still rolled right down Broadway.
Amid the honky-tonks and Downtown hustle-bustle — at the corner of Second Avenue and Demonbreun — sits The Liggett Building.
It has undergone several transformations in recent years, but its history dates back to pre-World War II. “It was built in 1933 by my great-grandfather for his seed business, C.L. Liggett & Son,” says Lester Turner, who co-owns the building with his sister, Currey. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t an architect. If there was, [his name] was lost to the mists of time.”
The building’s original interior was an open-plan facility with a small office for operations. “There weren’t a lot of architectural features of the building other than the bones of it,” says Lester. “It’s cast-in-place concrete, post-and-beam, with monolithic concrete floors and brick infill, just like 1,000 other buildings built back then. It was purpose-built for my great-grandfather’s business. Hence, the piece of limestone on the front of the building that bears his name.”
“They didn’t spend any money on architecture here, and they didn’t spend any money on details,” he continues. “This was a working building. It’s not industrial, but it was a tool, so it was built like a tool. Everything about it was practical.”
While The Liggett Building may mimic the structure of other nearby buildings, it has its own set of quirks. “The front of the building originally had a roll-up door and a ramp that went out to the sidewalk,” Lester tells us, “because when you came in to buy feed, they would load it on a two-wheeler cart and roll it down to the sidewalk to load it in the back of your pickup truck on Second Avenue.”
Of course, Lester notes, this might raise the question, “Why didn’t they just build the building at the sidewalk?”
The answer is twofold — one, eminently practical. “In 1933, the interstate system didn’t really exist, and bulky freight moved on rail — just like it still does, but more so then,” says Lester.
“So, there’s a rail siding at the back of the building that went all the way to Broadway. They would back a train into Broadway, so the building floor is built at rail height. You could roll freight right off a railcar and onto the floor of the building. So the floor grade was set for the height of a railcar so they could bring freight in the back doors.”
The second reason is location-driven. The Liggett Building happens to be at the lowest point of South Broadway — a fact discovered in 2010 when the Cumberland River flooded the Downtown area.
“The sidewalk is two feet above the middle of the intersection, and the building floor is two feet above the sidewalk,” Lester explains. “On that day, the water was two feet above the floor. Everything below two feet was underwater, including the basement’s crawl space. For about a month, I had an Olympic-sized swimming pool down there, installed by the angry gods of the Cumberland.”
The Liggett family history also elicits some intrigue, particularly when it comes to Lester’s great-uncle, Walter Liggett.
“It is alleged that after my great-grandfather was gone and my Great Uncle Walter was operating it, some hay or straw caught on fire in the back half of the building,” Lester says. “As reported — potentially apocryphally — Walter Liggett was continuing to do business out the front door while the fire department was going in and out the back door trying to put out the fire.”
While the Liggett Building has changed hands several times through the years, it has always remained in the family. “By 2005, [my sister and I] decided SoBro was looking like a better place to own space, so we renovated the building,” Lester tells us. “We converted it to office space and leased it to a medical software company.”
In the years since, there have been additional renovations as other companies have come and gone. And while the building may have been initially constructed to support stacks of oats and corn, it’s now home to Nashville City Club, a members-only Nashville institution since the 1950s. .
“We were vacant for a while, and then the Nashville City Club came along and needed a new home,” says Lester. “Since we already had a purpose-built club here, it was a great opportunity for both of us.”
Thankfully, despite multiple renovations, quite a few historic elements remain.
“If you look up at the ceilings, you can see the original concrete,” says Lester. “You can see the grain of the lumber — not the sort of thing you would see in a modern building. The only thing that’s not still here is the elevator. The original elevator was probably 12-foot-square and big enough to roll carts of heavy grain bags in and out. It was cable-operated and dangerous as hell.”
We’ll stick with the modern elevator, thank you!
**********
To stay in the know on the best of Nashville, subscribe to StyleBlueprint’s daily emails HERE!
