Besides the Carter Mansion being the oldest frame house in Tennessee, visiting the mansion allows you the opportunity to block out the sights and sounds of modern America and experience a simpler time. When this house was built, the United States did not even exist! Great Britain still made the laws, including one that prohibited settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. Imagine how isolated these settlers were from the luxuries of colonial life. Most people on the frontier lived in log cabins with chimneys made of sticks, mud, and fieldstone. However, the Carter Mansion is an exception.
Today, you will find the Mansion decorated throughout with hand-carved panels, crown molding, and chair rails. Two rooms boast landscape paintings on the wooden panel directly above the fireplace, a rare survival in early American homes. These are considered the earliest paintings executed in Tennessee.
The property was acquired by the State of Tennessee in 1973 from the Thomas family, who lived in this house from 1870 until the late 1960s. Only 4.2 acres of the original 640 remain with the house. In 1973 and 1977, archaeologists from the Tennessee Department of Conservation excavated areas around the house and in the vicinity of some outbuildings.
In 1978, in an effort to preserve the house, the siding was replaced, and one chimney top was rebuilt. One piece of original siding was found wedged behind the chimney; it was used as a model for the siding on the house today.
Over 90 percent of the materials in the interior of the house are original! A wing had been added to the north side of the house in the mid-1800s. This wing was in very bad repair and threatened the rest of the structure.
Click on the link below to register and prepare to step inside the mansion, and mentally rewind to a time before America was America.
Carter Mansion Guided Tours
Wednesday through Sunday
10:00 AM
August 3, 7, 9, 13, 15, 17, 21, 23, 27, 29; 31
1:00 PM
August 6, 8, 10, 14, 16, 20, 22, 24, 28,30
Cost: $10 Adult \ $8 Seniors 65+ \ $8 Veterans & Active Military \ $5 Ages 17 & Under
Maximum of 12 participants per tour
Registration required –https://tnstateparks.com/parks/events/sycamore-shoals