Chanting Steep, the recently-renovated 1928 home owned by Knowles and Bill Harper in Sewanee, Tenn., on Monteagle Mountain. It is one of the homes featured in the Blue Monarch On the Move Home Tour.
A wrought iron railing and arched doorways are seen on the second floor of Chanting Steep, the recently-renovated 1928 home owned by Knowles and Bill Harper in Sewanee, Tenn., on Monteagle Mountain.SEWANEE, Tenn.-Since Knowles and Bill Harper met at the University of the South at Sewanee, graduated from the school, sent both their sons to the college and often returned for alumni activities, it seemed only right to look for a second home on Monteagle Mountain.
The McLean, Va., residents were looking for a cottage, but they found a three-story, 7,600-square-foot Cumberland limestone home that was built in 1928 to recreate the country retreat of the original owner's English childhood.
Situated on a bluff overlooking Roark's Cove - they fell in love with the view - their property encompasses five acres, includes a cottage that originally served as a garage and gardener's quarter, and features a secret garden the Harpers have cleaned out and enhanced.
The home, called Channing Steep, is one of six on an upcoming tour of Monteagle Mountain homes that benefits Blue Monarch, a 12-month residential program near Monteagle Mountain that provides a haven for women to regain their lives and break the cycle of addiction and abuse.
The second annual tour, on Saturday, June 25, also includes Chen Hall, the home of a University of the South vice chancellor; the Crichton Home in Clifftops; Moosehead, which overlooks Dripping Springs Cove in Clifftops; Cabindore, a custom log home situated on a notch of the Clifftops bluff overlooking a waterfall; and Rivendell, a stone lodge built more than 100 years ago.
Channing Steep has 14 rooms, including six bedrooms (one used as an office) and seven baths. It is, the home's owners and home's interior designer believe, the setting for the novel "Hill Towns" by Anne Rivers Siddons.
Interior designer Deborah Ball, who was in Bill Harper's 1978 class at the University of the South, said determining the look of the home needed to reflect both the couple's taste and the university community where the home is located.
"Sewanee is very comfortable, a very low-key kind of place," she said, "but the home could be [designed to be] extremely formal. But that's not how [the Harpers] have been. So the idea was to approach 'comfortable' [and] bring it back to a 1920s feel."
Knowles Harper said she and her husband didn't want the design to be contemporary like their home in Virginia. They knew it needed to contain several family furniture pieces and needed to be a place they could entertain alumni and friends.
"I just knew I couldn't do it on my own," she said.
Ball said she began her design work around some embroidered silk drapes she saw in Atlanta that provided the "subtle feeling of being embraced." She wanted to replicate the feeling through the whole house.
Now, she said, the golds, greens, creams and cinnabars are picked up in colors throughout the home.
"They make an easy transition from place to place," Ball said.
She also was influenced by the home's many windows, which allow so much of the green color of the lawn, the trees and the gardens to come in.
"There's so much green," Ball said, "It's a part of the art of the house."
Several of the home's lighting fixtures are original, including one in the dining room with faces people either love or hate, she said.
"I think it's wonderful," Ball said.
The library, where the couple spend a lot of their time, features curved valances original to the home and a wall full of portraits, from ancient relatives to their 20-something sons.
In addition, the home's eccentricities only add to its charm, the Harpers said. There are, for example, fire hoses in two closets with which, apparently, the original owners could put out their own house fires; a panel of bells in the kitchen that once must have rung up servants; two closet, pull-down ironing boards, one of which has now been turned into a spice rack; four fireplaces, which now use gas; and ice and milk boxes, installed for deliveries, just outside the kitchen.
The home, from the outside, and its surrounding gardens have their own interest points.
Chiseled into the stone above the front door, for instance, are a circle and a cross, thought to be the trademarks of the mason who completed the stonework. The multicolored slate roof offers additional interest.
Footpaths crisscross the five acres, which prior owners generously planted with shrubs, ferns and flowers. The secret garden, just off a flagstone-surrounded swimming pool, has been enhanced by the couple. They added a twig fence inside the hedge to keep out deer, completed a circular gravel path inside the garden and planted additional items.
What makes the home so perfect for the tour, said Blue Monarch director Susan Binkley, is that the Harpers are supporters of the organization and often offer their home for its gatherings.
"The concept of this home is special to us," she said. "Bill and Knowles have been so gracious to open their home to the moms and their children and welcome them."
Contact Clint Cooper at ccooper@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6497.