Episode 3626

- [Announcer] Tennessee Crossroads is made possible in part by

- I'm Tennessee Tech President Phil Oldham.

- [Phil] Here in Cookeville, Tennessee's college town. We are bold, fearless, confident, and kind. Tech prepares students for careers by making everyone's experience personal. We call that Living Wings Up. Learn more at tntech.edu.

- [Joe] This time on Tennessee Crossroads we'll discover what attracts eager diners to Lockeland table in East Nashville. Then meet an artist who loves capturing bare winter trees. We'll visit a Riverside retreat in Clifton called the Commodore Inn and finally explore an infamous prison. Now open for temporary visits.

- Hi everybody, I'm Joe Elmore. That's the lineup for this edition of Tennessee Crossroads. Sure glad to have you. Our first stop is an award-winning restaurant that's been called quintessentially Nashville. A mixture of old and new with a menu that keeps visitors and locals coming back. Well, Laura Faber has a reservation for us at Lockeland Table.

- This building has been part of this community since 1935. First is a grocery store, then a beauty salon and for the past 10 years, it's been the community kitchen and bar known as Lockeland Table.

- [Laura] It's a place where there is a good chance everybody truly knows your name.

- [Cara] It kind of has something for everybody. You know, we it, we have a wood burning pizza oven from that all the way down to, you know, a strip steak like I feel like it just kind of covers the board of anything that you make. There's something for everyone. It's elevated comfort food with awesome people.

- [Laura] Cara Graham is one of three partners at Lockeland Table. Her expertise is knowing what everyone in the restaurant needs at any moment.

- [Cara] I think once you have it in your blood, you always know. It's either one of those things that you absolutely have or you don't.

- [Laura] In charge of the food is Chef Hal Holden Beach. Also a partner.

- [Chef Hal] I worked at a bakery in the ninth grade. I'd always worked with my mother in the kitchen, you know since I was four or five years old. I knew when my mother says, I think you should go to culinary school and study food. It felt right. I didn't want to just be a mediocre chef. I wanted to be a good chef.

- [Laura] Hal honed his skills with a degree and experience at places like the Greenbrier Resort. Gramercy Tavern in New York and Nick and Rudy's in Nashville. He met Cara at another East Nashville restaurant and worked together for years. Eventually they ventured out to do something entirely on their own.

- [Chef Hal] These grits come from Kentucky Weisenberger. We use yellow and white grits, and then we finish these with cold butter and smoked Gouda cheese.

- [Laura] The third partner in this culinary equation is Floyd Schechter who had known Hal for some time and knew that Hal and Cara were a winning pair.

- Hal and Cara are great people, and when you invest in people, you're likely to be successful if you choose the right people, and they are the right people.

- [Laura] Their dream began by renovating this old building in East Nashville. A huge task, but a special one too.

- [Chef Hal] We did get to basically make every decision for this restaurant during the building phase because we basically gutted it and redid it all. So it was a fun process to do and a chef's dream come true to get to build his own kitchen from the, you know, basically from the ground up.

- [Laura] The community itself actually helped build a wall inside the restaurant.

- [Cara] It was right when we first got our first Facebook page and we put a note out to the neighborhood and said, Hey come help us build a wall. Come be a part of, literally be a part a fabric of our community. So like 50 people showed up, people we knew you didn't know. The most beautiful part is, is when people come and they're like, I picked out that one board and or I nailed this in, or I, you know, it just it literally made them a part of the fabric of Lockeland Table.

- [Laura] So what's good here? Many would say the wedge salad with fried green tomatoes and red pepper jam or the bone marrow appetizer. But there are a couple dishes that Chef Hal is known for. Anything with his special chimichurri sauce like the empanadas and the strip steak.

- [Chef Hal] That's the signature right there Armando. That's the dish that made us famous. That's how the west was won. It's a Southern Natural Farm, dry-aged strip steak that we serve with green beans, toasted almonds some blistered small tomatoes, and the chimichurri sauce which is, you know, the big deal. And this is a dish that I've been cooking since college. Usually mostly cilantro instead of parsley, along with jalapeno pepper and garlic and vinegar and oil. But it's delicious.

- [Floyd] I think the pizza is my favorite station in the restaurant. We pull our own mozzarella cheese, we make our own dough. Everything that's served on that pizza was prepped that morning and it is fantastic.

- [Chef Hal] The margaritas are the most important pizza Armando. That's the top of the pyramid right there. The king of all pizzas named after a queen.

- [Cara] I do love a margarita pizza. I know probably somebody already said that but it's just so simplistically, deliciously good. I say that collared greens and mac and cheese are in a marriage. They love each other and they're married. That's why they stay on the plate together.

- [Laura] One of the most popular things Lockeland Table does is its community hour and everyone is welcome. It's a happy hour with a mission minded twist. It was Cara's idea to give back and now part of the proceeds go to local schools. It speaks to the experience customers get here and why this neighborhood and this restaurant have embraced each other.

- Hi, how are y'all?

- [Laura] Hiring great staff that is treated like family. No one was let go during the pandemic. Locally sourced food, high quality prep and executing Hal's recipes to perfection and just making customers feel welcome. That may be Lockeland Table's secret sauce

- Lockeland Table has been a blessing. It's, it's been a, a fun journey and I think I'm one of the few people maybe in the world that is actually lucky enough to get to do what I actually, you know, want to do.

- [Cara] Gratitude is my, my word that I use all the time. The journey that that, that it's been. I'm just so grateful for all of it.

- Thank you, Laura. The pen is mightier than the sword. That's an adage penned once by an English author in 1839. I'm sure you've heard it well, that may be true. But let you see what a talented young Nashville man can do with a simple pencil. It's mighty impressive. Let's pay a visit to the home studio of Richard Bowers Pencil Artist. They say beauty's in the eye of the beholder. And when most people behold a bare naked wintertime tree like this. They don't see too much beauty, however they don't see this tree through the eyes of pencil artist Richard Bower.

- I kind of developed this affection for 'em over the years and you can kind of see their raw beauty and kinda all their curves and flaws. I think I was always drawn to that and I love the leaves as well but there's something about it being exposed. I think that really drew me to the bare trees.

- [Joe] When Richard Bowers left Sanford University in Birmingham with a degree in Business, Billy brought home something even more exciting. An ambition to pursue a career as a pencil artist and while trees would become his calling card. It all started with landscapes and portraits.

- [Richard] That was the first thing that I sold was, was a portrait. So I guess I started as a portrait artist and they've still been a great source of income and I actually really enjoy kind of mixing the trees and the portraits. They're really fun. And I do a lot of portraits, mostly children and but I'll do dogs, I'll do whatever.

- [Joe] You don't have a lot of different materials you have to buy, right?

- Nope. Just pencils. And I use some brushes to shade and that's about it. An eraser?

- [Joe] While no two trees are alike. The process of capturing one with graphite and paper is the same.

- [Richard] First is pick the tree and then I'll photograph it. Pick a good one or two and I'll do a rough outline. And I pretty much just start shading. And I try to make it look as close to the photo as possible in general. And about a hundred hours later, I'm done.

- [Joe] By the way, when deciduous trees like maples and oaks lose their leaves and go dormant their metabolism and energy consumption slows down. That way they can survive the harsh winter season when water and sunlight are more scarce.

- [Richard] I think the process is, is the part of what draws me to it. It's slow and it's hard sometimes and it kind of makes me really see every detail of the tree. And I think that's part of what I love about it.

- [Joe] Any different technique involved in doing a portrait versus a tree?

- There is mostly just, I have less freedom I think in the portraits, 'cause if you kind of go crazy on somebody's nose, everybody's gonna notice. But I can have a little more freedom with the trees. I can make up a branch or fix something easily. Portraits are much more concise.

- [Joe] Since Richard went full-time with his pencil art in 2015, his uniquely detailed work has attracted national recognition and a roster of a-list collectors including music stars and professional athletes. He sells his works through his website. And when travel permits at art shows throughout the southeast.

- [Richard] You know, I bring a handful of art to and meet people and sell some art and make a lot of connections for commissions. And then the third avenue is through designers. A lot of interior designers will be redoing a house and they know my name and they'll show my art to the client. And you can kind of put 'em in the traditional homes or the modern homes 'cause change the frame and it changes the whole thing. It's just black and white.

- [Joe] Future artists. I can tell.

- [Richard] Uh huh.

- [Joe] In 2020, Richard and wife Jordan were blessed with a third family member, Bo. Now Bo likes to draw too, and whether or not he follows in his dad's footsteps, well he's destined to be the subject of his favorite portrait someday.

- [Richard] What do you think about all this Bo? You don't know you like that camera though?

- He did.

- [Joe] When Winter changes to Spring the trees will again start blooming and flowering until the woods are full of green warm weather beauty. Well, Richard will photograph and draw many in full blossom like this. He'll spend most of his Spring and Summertime turning old winter photos into new creations of pencil artistry. Capturing trees in their raw naked beauty.

- Huge blessing to be home and make my own schedule. And I kind of have to adapt to Bo and sometimes work at night but I love doing it so I wouldn't change anything.

- Well, next we head to southwest Tennessee where Cindy Carter found a beautiful old home providing wonderful memories for new visitors. It's a Victorian B & B on the banks of the Tennessee River called the Commodore Inn in Clifton.

- [Cindy] In Clifton, Tennessee, a front porch is a revered space a place for conversation and relaxation.

- We have a front porch, a back porch and a side porch you can take your choice.

- [Cindy] And the porches at the Commodore Inn at Clifton offer a great view of a world where life moves at a much slower pace.

- Everybody in town knows everybody.

- We are a very small town. We don't even have a traffic light

- [Cindy] Inn keepers Sharon and John Demont are often invited to sit a spell with their guests who have chosen to vacation or staycation at this beautiful and historic Victorian home.

- Ambiance of a, of a time going by where people sit here and they just feel as though they're they're back in the 19 hundreds with modern conveniences.

- We try to make people feel like this is their house.

- [Cindy] The house was built in 1892 and renovated into a bed and breakfast in 2016. A blend of past and present day delights.

- [John] We have five rooms each with a king size bed private bath with all the amenities of, of

- [Sharon] A modern hotel.

- [John] A modern hotel. They, they have the parlor seating area to to sit and have conversation and, and fellowship.

- [Cindy] The inn is positioned about a block from Clifton's Main Street and the Tennessee River a prominent location for the prominent family who originally lived here. William Hughes and his wife Lillian raised their nine children in their lovely and a bit lavish home.

- [John] Mr. Hughes was local businessman, kind of one of the movers and shakers of the whole area. And they pretty much ran the town, I guess for for quite some time. Very opulent. I, I think for the time.

- [Sharon] I think they had were the first families with electricity. They had the, the extras here.

- [Cindy] And many of those historic extras remain intact and contribute to the Inn's modern day guest experience.

- [John] Pretty much everything in the house, floors, woodwork, hinges, knobs and shams it's as all original. If you look later at all, even the hinges on the doors are very ornate with all stamped diagram, you know designs in them and whatnot.

- [Cindy] The home's original pocket doors close off the parlor a favorite room in the house. The bedrooms are also furnished in a way that reflects the home's overall ambiance, including the vintage clawfoot bathtubs. The hallways are spacious. After all, they did once accommodate a lot of children and the stairways bring you to that bygone era with each and every step. The property features this fully restored one room schoolhouse right next to the main building. Now William Hughes built this schoolhouse specifically for his nine children and a few cousins and it remains relatively untouched. You can still see chalk writing on the wall. This says correct sit down.

- A piece of history here that there isn't any other homes that have it.

- [Cindy] The Innkeepers plan to eventually hold artist gatherings at the little schoolhouse and on the grounds. Believing there is plenty of inspiration to be found on the property and in the surrounding community.

- It's a cool little spot, right?

- Thank you.

- These are my cranberry pecan scones.

- [Cindy] The Demots enjoy bringing people together. The couple settled in the area after fleeing their Florida home during a hurricane so they completely understand why visitors are drawn to the Commodore Inn. In fact, they say their guest book is filled with the names of visitors who hail from all around the world. People who are looking for a unique experience as they slow things down.

- [John] The peace and quiet and tranquility, I guess is the big

- But it's also the Location

- and location.

- We're halfway between Nashville and Memphis. So people who come here to visit from especially from other countries. They fly into one of the cities to travel to the other city and they will look for historic bed and breakfast and that's how they've come here.

- [Cindy] The Inn is now listed on the National Historic Register. It's been a part of this community for more than 100 years. And so folks around here are glad the old home brings new faces, new friends into Clifton.

- We have numerous townspeople come by, stop and say I just want to say thank you for bringing this home back and making it what it is today.

- [Cindy] And today the Commodore Inn at Clifton is a picturesque place with an inviting front porch where guests and neighbors can just relax, take a few breaths and stay a while.

- Okay, Cindy, thanks. You don't usually think of a prison as a good vacation destination especially one like Brushy Mountain State Prison. You know, for more than a century the worst of the worst criminals were sent there. It was closed in 2009, but now it's been reopened. Oh, not for inmates, but for tourists. Rob Wilds takes us for a look at this once infamous lockup.

- [Rob] All Brian May knew about prisons was that he had no desire to go to one. Then he got his first look at Brushy Mountain.

- The first thing that strikes you when you come around the bend and you see it for the first time

- [Brian] is this almost castle like structure, but then it's surrounded by Frozen Head State Park and these mountains that look like they spring up from out of the prison. And it's really difficult to describe until you see it for the first time. It's just absolutely gorgeous. And that's something that we felt like should be seen by as many people as possible.

- [Rob] So Brian and his company decided to reopen the prison as a tourist attraction which includes a museum containing some unusual artifacts.

- There's a bible right here where they've cut the inside out to hide some homemade needle stuff and and a homemade weapon and find it interesting that they decided to use Proverbs ten seven as one of their marking points for the cutout. The memory of the just is blessed and the name of the wicked shall rot. It's pretty interesting.

- That Is interesting. Kind of ironic.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- It's ironic too about the Tennessee code here, I Guess.

- Yeah, there's some cutout Tennessee code here out of a book that holds some drug paraphernalia and

- Right above the robbery section.

- Yeah, right above the robbery section which is kinda fitting for this place.

- [Rob] The museum has plenty to show. By the time the prison closed in 2009 administrators had collected many artifacts and confiscated even more.

- [Brian] When I say we have three or 400 weapons that were made by prisoners we have three or 400 weapons made by prisoners. They kept everything tubs and tubs and tubs of shanks and shives and knives and random, you know, weapons made out of everything from toothbrushes to parts of beds. You'll see photographs of James Earl Ray when during his booking process, we've got all the files for him. You'll see log books that go back to the early 19 hundreds boots and uniforms and hats, and if you can think of it and it was in this prison over the years, we have it.

- [Rob] There's a restaurant here and the old exercise yard is now a concert venue.

- [William] What they would do is you was given one bucket to use the bathroom in and you was given a bucket of water. And when they put you in that cell and close that door, that's what you had.

- [Rob] What makes the place really interesting is the tour guides.

- Over the next six, seven Former guards like William Harvey and inmates too, like Wayne Davidson a convicted burglar who first got a taste of the harshness of this prison in 1969.

- I remember saying to my cellmate once the man gets out of here they ought to kill him if he come back to prison. Six months later after getting out, I was in Georgia doing a seven year sentence in the Max Security prison down there.

- [Rob] Wayne's been a total of 32 years in prisons, a big hunk of it at Brushy Mountain. He has vivid memories of the place going back to the very first meal he was having in the chow hall.

- I watched this guy jumped up with a knife threatening officers and inmates you want to kill 'em all? Well, I'm, I'm scared, I'm thinking he's a tough guy. And asked my cell mate, I said, what's going on? He said, just be quiet, I'll tell you when we get in. So later on he told me what a term check-in in prison meant. That means an inmate was scared and he does things on purposes just to get locked up. When you see an inmate do that in front of an officer, he's asking for help.

- [Rob] Remembering, being enclosed with the worst of the worst Tennessee criminals brings back a nostalgic feeling to William Harton.

- It was like a brotherhood. Whether they liked you, disliked you, they took care of you. If you had a fight on the yard and you was attacked they'd come running in drones. I mean, they, you never had you you never had to worry about yourself. Somebody always had your back.

- [Rob] For Wayne Davidson, being back here telling the stories of his life at Brushy Mountain is, well, it's therapeutic.

- I remember I used to have dreams every or at least twice a week. I'd have nightmares. But since I've started working here it's sort of like counseling. Just being here and talking to people and telling my story and I haven't had a nightmare yet.

- [Rob] Some of the stories Wayne and the other guides tell may at times disturb the sleep of the visitors who are flocking here. But Brushy Mountain was a prison for better or worse. Now it has a reprieve, a pardon, if you will and the chance to serve as a reminder of the history of its notorious past.

- Hey, where'd the time go. Well, ours is just about up, but I wanna remind you of that PBS video app you can get and watch Crossroads shows and all the others on PBS anytime, anywhere. Also, check out our website, tennesseecrossroads.org. Follow us on Facebook and please join us next time. See you then.

- [Announcer] Tennessee Crossroads is made possible in part by

- I'm Tennessee Tech President Phil Oldham.

- [Phil] Here in Cookeville Tennessee's college town.

- [Phil] We are bold, fearless, confident, and kind. Tech prepares students for careers by making everyone's experience personal. We call that Living Wings up. Learn more at tntech.edu.