Cheekwood: One of the Nice Things
Few institutions have shaped Nashville’s cultural identity as profoundly or as consistently as Cheekwood. Nestled atop the rolling hills of West Nashville, the estate has evolved from the private residence of the Cheek family into one of Tennessee’s premier destinations for art, horticulture, music, dance, public engagement and essentially all those pursuits that make life in a southern city rich. Over the course of nearly a century, Cheekwood has become far more than a museum or botanical garden. It is a place where artistic excellence meets public accessibility, where local traditions exist alongside international masterworks, and where generations of Nashvillians have discovered that the arts are not a luxury, but an essential part of civic life.
The story begins with the completion of the Georgian-style mansion in 1932. Central to the estate’s enduring beauty was the vision of renowned landscape architect Bryant Fleming, whose comprehensive design integrated architecture, sculpture, gardens, and the surrounding Tennessee landscape into a unified artistic composition. Fleming approached the grounds not merely as ornamental gardens but as an extension of the house itself, carefully orchestrating vistas, terraces, water features, stonework, and plantings to create an immersive aesthetic experience. His philosophy—that landscape architecture should function as a work of art in its own right—continues to shape the way visitors encounter Cheekwood today. Every pathway, garden room, and carefully framed view reflects an understanding that beauty emerges through the harmonious relationship between art and nature.
This integration of landscape and artistic vision remains one of Cheekwood’s defining characteristics. The gardens themselves have become classrooms, gathering spaces, and places of inspiration for countless visitors. Since at least the late 1950s, organizations including the Tennessee Garden Clubs, The Volunteer Gardener, and the Tennessee Horticultural Society have met regularly on the estate. Cheekwood’s year-round gardening lecture series, culminating in a certificate program, has educated thousands of amateur and professional gardeners alike. By teaching horticulture alongside artistic appreciation, Cheekwood has cultivated generations of Tennesseans who understand that creativity flourishes equally in studios and gardens.
While the landscape provides the setting, Cheekwood’s art collections have steadily elevated Nashville’s place within the national cultural conversation. The museum’s permanent collection introduces visitors to some of America’s most significant painters, including Childe Hassam, John White Alexander, and William Merritt Chase. Equally important are paintings by The Eight, also known as The Ashcan School, the influential early twentieth-century New York artists whose commitment to depicting everyday American life transformed the nation’s artistic identity. By presenting these works alongside changing exhibitions from other collections, Cheekwood has allowed Middle Tennessee audiences to engage directly with the evolution of American art without leaving their own city.
The collection also embraces more contemporary voices. Portraits by Andy Warhol and Jamie Wyeth illustrate two strikingly different approaches to portraiture and identity while demonstrating the remarkable breadth of American artistic expression. Warhol’s fascination with celebrity culture stands in provocative dialogue with Wyeth’s psychologically nuanced realism, inviting visitors to consider how portraiture has evolved across generations.
Cheekwood has likewise played a vital role in celebrating artists whose stories are rooted in Tennessee. Among its most significant contributions has been the preservation and interpretation of the work of William Edmondson, Nashville’s celebrated self-taught sculptor and the first African American artist to receive a solo exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Edmondson’s limestone carvings occupy a special place within Cheekwood’s collections, connecting visitors to one of the state’s most important artistic legacies. By presenting his work within the broader narrative of American sculpture, Cheekwood affirms that artistic innovation has long flourished in Middle Tennessee and that Nashville has produced artists of national significance.
That commitment to sculpture extends beyond the museum walls. Throughout its gardens, visitors encounter an ever-changing dialogue between art and landscape through permanent installations and rotating exhibitions. The Ann & Monroe Carell Jr. Family Sculpture Trail encourages guests to discover contemporary works nestled among historic gardens, while Edmondson’s work serves as a powerful reminder that sculpture can emerge equally from local traditions and international artistic conversations.
Cheekwood’s commitment to artistic excellence is perhaps most visible through its Masterpiece Art Series. Dedicated to exhibiting a single iconic artwork—or a small group of extraordinary masterworks—the series continues Cheekwood’s long tradition of bringing internationally celebrated art directly to Nashville. Recent exhibitions have featured Edgar Degas’s Étude de nu pour la danseuse habillée, a bronze from the renowned Marlene and Spencer Hays Collection, allowing local audiences to encounter one of history’s greatest sculptors without traveling to Europe or New York. Previous installments have similarly introduced visitors to works of exceptional importance, reinforcing the principle that Nashville deserves direct access to the highest achievements of world art.Lily Pons
Cheekwood’s influence extends beyond museums and galleries into the performing arts. One of the institution’s earliest contributions came the second year of its existence when Lily Pons, the great soprano from New York’s Metropolitan Opera, visited the grounds in 1932, becoming the rage of Nashville society. In December 1946, Cheekwood hosted a reception on the evening of the Nashville Symphony’s inaugural concert. That historic gathering linked Cheekwood to what would become one of the nation’s leading orchestras and established the estate as a cultural meeting place for the city’s artistic community. Today, that relationship continues through performances, special events, and collaborations that bring music into the gardens and historic mansion. More recently, Nashville Opera and the contemporary music ensemble Intersection have presented performances on the grounds, demonstrating that Cheekwood remains an active partner in the city’s vibrant performing arts ecosystem.
Dance has become an equally important part of that story. Rather than limiting performance to traditional concert halls, Cheekwood has transformed its gardens and outdoor spaces into living stages where choreography unfolds amid sculpture, architecture, and seasonal landscapes. The institution has welcomed performances by organizations including Nashville Ballet, whose appearances have paired classical and contemporary dance with the estate’s natural beauty, and New Dialect, Nashville’s acclaimed contemporary dance company known for creating immersive performances that respond directly to place. Cheekwood has also presented site-specific works during seasonal festivals, allowing audiences to encounter dancers unexpectedly along woodland paths, across terraces, or beside reflecting pools. These performances dissolve conventional boundaries between performer and audience while reflecting Bryant Fleming’s original conception of the estate as an integrated artistic environment. In these moments, landscape itself becomes a collaborator in artistic creation.
Education has remained central to Cheekwood’s mission throughout its history. School tours, artist demonstrations, gallery talks, and family workshops invite visitors to engage actively with art rather than simply observe it. Children have become a particularly important audience. Seasonal festivals such as Cheekwood Harvest, Holiday LIGHTS, and Cheekwood in Bloom introduce young visitors to art through immersive environments that combine creativity, storytelling, and outdoor exploration. Among the estate’s most beloved traditions is its elaborate model train exhibition, considered one of the finest in the region. For many Nashville families, the trains have become an annual pilgrimage, creating cherished memories while introducing children to museums, gardens, engineering, and artistic craftsmanship in ways that feel playful rather than instructional.
These educational experiences ensure that Cheekwood serves every stage of life. Students discover American painting for the first time. Gardeners deepen their horticultural knowledge. Artists find inspiration in exhibitions and landscapes. Families gather for festivals that make art approachable and joyful. Scholars encounter significant collections that illuminate American cultural history. Few institutions successfully bridge these audiences while maintaining such consistently high artistic standards.
This accessibility has become one of Cheekwood’s defining achievements. It serves professional artists and first-time museum visitors with equal generosity, offering opportunities for reflection, education, recreation, and community gathering. Whether someone arrives to study Childe Hassam’s luminous landscapes, encounter William Edmondson’s sculptures, hear a chamber ensemble perform beneath centuries-old trees, watch dancers move through Bryant Fleming’s gardens, or simply spend an afternoon surrounded by beauty, each visitor becomes part of an institution that has always believed art belongs to everyone.
For nearly a century, Cheekwood has embodied the belief that a thriving city requires more than economic growth; it requires places where beauty, history, creativity, and community intersect. Through its stewardship of art, gardens, education, music, dance, and public life, Cheekwood has helped shape Nashville into far more than Music City. It has established the city as a place where the visual and performing arts flourish together, where local achievement stands comfortably alongside international excellence, and where every generation is invited to participate in an ever-evolving cultural legacy.
In recent months, Cheekwood has found itself at the center of a contentious legal and political dispute with a neighborhood organization over its operations and plans for a new on-site parking facility. What began as objections to a parking project has expanded into broader challenges alleging that Cheekwood’s activities exceed the scope of zoning approvals granted decades ago. The neighborhood group has appealed Metro’s permitting decisions and filed litigation seeking enforcement of zoning restrictions, while Cheekwood argues that the actions threaten not only the parking project but the institution’s ability to continue serving the public.
The organization has responded with a public “Save Cheekwood” campaign, emphasizing its role as one of Tennessee’s leading cultural and educational institutions and warning that prolonged legal uncertainty could jeopardize educational programming, exhibitions, concerts, and access for hundreds of thousands of annual visitors. Much more background can be found here: https://cheekwood.org/savecheekwood/ The legal questions will ultimately be resolved in court. The larger question, however, is one of civic values: whether Nashville will continue to embrace the cultural institutions that have made it a richer, more beautiful, and more humane place to live.
Cheekwood is not merely a destination for tourists or a pleasant amenity for a single neighborhood. It is a public trust, one that belongs to every child who has marveled at the holiday trains, every student who has encountered American art for the first time in its galleries, every gardener who has learned beneath its trees, every musician, dancer, and artist who has found a stage within its grounds, and every Nashvillian who believes that a great city should aspire to more than commerce alone. Institutions like Cheekwood cannot be recreated once diminished; they are built over generations through vision, philanthropy, stewardship, and public goodwill. We should protect them with the same care that created them. If Nashville truly wishes to remain a city where culture flourishes alongside growth, then one of its first responsibilities is to preserve one of its nicest things. After all, why can’t we have nice things?
Courtesy of Cheekwood Estate & Gardens.
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Joseph E. Morgan is a father of two, husband, teacher and recovering guitarist in Middle Tennessee.
It’s great to see Cheekwood getting so much attention. I’ve always loved the rose garden there – it’s such a peaceful spot.