BROWN COUNTY — When the gavel fell on the auction of much of downtown Nashville, the owners changed, but much of the town likely won’t.
The properties housing the most downtown shops for sale — the Franklin Complex and Antique Alley — went to local buyers.
Barry and Debbie Herring bought the Franklin Complex at the corner of Van Buren and Franklin streets, home to Rhonda Kay’s, Fearrin’s ice cream, the Lawrence Family’s glassblower shops and others.
Andi and Lance Bartels bought Antique Alley, home to 15 shops including the Old Ferguson House.
Andi Bartels is the youngest daughter of Andy Rogers, whose estate was being sold at the auction. She said her plan for Antique Alley was to make repairs and basically keep things the same.
She and her husband also bought Rogers’ home and the 59.7 acres connected to it. It was where Andi grew up.
“It was hard coming here today,” Andi said, as auction observers found the new owners of various properties in the History Center’s Great Hall and offered their congratulations.
Approximately a third of the properties in downtown Nashville were included in this sale, which was organized about a year and half after the death of Rogers, a bedrock of Nashville’s business community. As he advanced in age, Rogers also had sold some of his other holdings, including two hotels and a downtown restaurant.
Bartels, a teacher, inherited The Nashville House, the landmark restaurant that closed last fall after 91 years of operation. She said she has some plans in the works for it, too, and that it would remain a restaurant, but she wasn’t ready to share specifics. “We’re not going to tear it down,” she said, in case anyone was concerned about that.
The Herrings, too, planned to make few changes to the Franklin Complex. The couple bought another Andy Rogers property, the Brown County Inn, in the summer of 2015, and gave it a major facelift the following winter. Debbie Herring also owns a flower and gift shop downtown.
“We wanted it to stay local,” Barry Herring said about the property they bought at auction. They also bid on Antique Alley and on the Bartley House, but were outbid in later rounds.
Among the other major properties in the auction, the Bartley House went for $370,000 to Brown County resident Danielle Nolan, who was bidding on behalf of her parents; and the Professional Building at the corner of Main and Van Buren streets went for $785,000 to a phone bidder who was not present in the auction room. The auction company said they could not disclose that person’s name.
Before the auction started, four properties that had been on the original auction list sold privately: The building housing 58 South women’s clothing shop; the building housing The Totem Post, September Elm and Jack and Jill Nut Shoppe; and two vacant, wooded lots on State Road 135 North. The names of all of those new owners weren’t immediately available.
Bidders’ numbers and the high bids were projected onto a screen at the front of the packed auction room, but the names associated with those bidder numbers were not publicly released. Observers at the auction had to know the people holding up their hands and numbers to determine who was buying what.
Here’s the list of what sold and for how much; it is incomplete because not all bidders were physically present and because some sales happened in advance of the auction.
1.) 1527 Jackson Branch Ridge Road (home, garage and 56.53 acres) AND 2.) 59.7 acres on Jackson Branch Ridge Road: $500,000 to Lance and Andi Bartels
3.) 10 N. Van Buren St (The Professional Building): $785,000 to an anonymous bidder whose name was not released.
4.) 75-95 S. Van Buren St. (The Franklin Complex): $985,000 to Barry and Debbie Herring
5.) 96 S. Van Buren St. (The Bartley House): $370,000 to Danielle Nolan on behalf of her parents. She said she wasn’t sure yet of her parents’ plans for it, as the current tenants still have quite a bit of time on their lease.
6.) 74 S. Van Buren St. (The Totem Post, September Elm and Jack and Jill Nut Shoppe): undisclosed amount settled upon before the auction to an undisclosed buyer
7.) 75 Jefferson and 78 Franklin St. (Antique Alley and The Old Ferguson House): $725,000 to Lance and Andi Bartels
8.) 58 S. Van Buren St. (58 South): undisclosed amount settled on before the auction to Bruce and Rhonda Kay Williams, owner of the shop in that building
9.) Old School Way parking lot: $90,000 to Andrew Tilton.
10.) 189 Commercial St., lot A (vacant corner of Commercial and East Main streets): $180,000 to David Mann of Centra Credit Union. Mann said Centra needed it to place the sign on for the credit union, which is going in the place of First Merchants Bank, which Rogers also used to own.
11.) 189 Commercial St., lot B (parking lot between/behind Redbud Terrace and Trilogy Gallery): $105,000 to Andrew Tilton. “I just like buying parking lots,” he said with a smile, when asked about his plans for the two lots he bought.
12.) 27 Honeysuckle Lane parking lot: $40,000 to Ted and Loretta Hayes. He said he needed it for the Mulberry Cottage, which he and his wife own.
13.) 108 Town Hill Road: $65,000 to John Niehart
14.) 1.1 acre on State Road 135 North: undisclosed amount settled upon before the auction to an undisclosed buyer
15.) 0.61 acre on State Road 135 North: undisclosed amount settled upon before the auction to an undisclosed buyer
16.) 1.08 acre lot on Oak Run Drive: $25,000 to Beverly White. She said her parents and her sister live in that neighborhood, so she was happy to be able to join them.
For more on this story, see an upcoming edition of The Republic.
