Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art is located in Nashville that includes a mansion with accompanying gardens. Usually referred to as Cheekwood, the grounds of 55 acres and a 30,000 square foot museum is a very popular attraction. It is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. It is also used for many special occasions. Tours are available for visitors during the day or upon request.
Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art is located in Nashville that includes a mansion with accompanying gardens. Usually referred to as Cheekwood, the grounds of 55 acres and a 30,000 square foot museum is a very popular attraction. It is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. It is also used for many special occassions. Tours are available.
Other prominent art museums in Nashville include the Frist Center.
Cheekwood is approximately 8 1/2 miles southwest of downtown Nashville and is adjacent to the Percy Warner Park and Golf Course on Forrest Park Drive.
Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art is located in Nashville that includes a mansion with accompanying gardens. Usually referred to as Cheekwood, the grounds of 55 acres and a 30,000 square foot museum is a very popular attraction. It is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. It is also used for many special occassions. Tours are available.
Christopher T. Cheek moved to Nashville in the 1880s and founded a wholesale grocery business. He married Mabel Wood of Clarksville, Tennessee in 1896. Their son, Leslie Cheek, joined his father as a partner in the grocery business.
During this time period Cheek's cousin, Joel Cheek, developed a superior blend of coffee that was marketed through the best hotel in Nashville, the Maxwell House. Leslie and Mabel Cheek were investors. In 1928, Postum (now General Foods) bought Maxwell House's parent company, Cheek-Neal coffee, for more than $40 million.
With the money from the proceeds of the sale, the Cheeks bought 100 acres of woodland in West Nashville as a country estate. The family hired a New York residential and landscape architect to handle design, landscaping and interior furnishings. The result was an estate called Cheekwood, which was completed in 1932.
In 1933 Leslie and Mabiel Cheek moved into the mansion. Leslie lived there just two years before he died at the age of 61.
In 1943, Mabel deeded the house to her daughter, Huldah Cheek Sharp and her husband, Walter Sharp. The Sharps lived at the estate until the 1950s when they gave it up as a botantical garden and museum.
Futher deverlopment of the property and home was spearheaded by the Exchange Club of Nashville, the Horticultural Society of Middle Tennessee and many other civic groups. The Nashville Museum of Art donated its permanent collections and proceeds from the sale of its building to the effort. Cheekwood was then opened to the public in 1960.
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