Who we are, and what we are for.
The Friends of the Latimer House at the William and Martha Brown Park is a Tennessee nonprofit. We hold one house, on one small piece of ground, and our job is to see it restored and kept.
- One house
- Is the whole mission
- 0.805 acres
- The park around it
- 2026
- When the house changed hands
01 · What we do
One house, and no mission creep.
We restore the Latimer House, we keep the ground around it, and we open both to the public. That is the whole of it. We are not a county department, we are not a general heritage society, and we do not hold anything else.
The narrowness is deliberate. A house this old needs somebody whose attention does not get divided, and the deed that conveyed it to us says as much in law.
02 · How we are held to it
We do not own this outright.
The house came to us in August 2026 by a deed carrying a preservation covenant and a reverter. If we fail to look after it, it returns to Sumner County. That is not a formality. It is the mechanism that makes our promises enforceable by somebody other than us.
Everything we do is measured against one sentence in William Brown's codicil, which named the house as the centerpiece of the park his gift created. That sentence is the standard, and it is a public document anyone can read.
“the historic home currently situated thereon being permanently maintained by the County as the park's centerpiece.”
We use the short name, the Latimer House, in ordinary writing. The full chartered name is the Friends of the Latimer House at the William and Martha Brown Park, and that is the name on anything legal.
We are a Tennessee nonprofit corporation. Our books, our minutes and the instruments that gave us this house are all open to anyone who asks.
03 · The record
How the house came to us.
In 2016 William Brown left five hundred thousand dollars to establish a public park here, with this house as its centerpiece. The money was wrongfully confiscated and combined into the school system's education technology trust, a fund it was never left to. An alternate park plan moved ahead that left the house out entirely, and for most of the decade after the gift the house stood empty and the work did not begin.
A small group of county commissioners caught it in 2023 and led the charge to correct it. The money was separated back out and returned to the county in 2025. In 2026 the Commission voted to convey the house and its parcel to this organization, and the deed was recorded on the twenty seventh of August. We tell it this way every time, and we always end it here, because this is the part that is easy to leave out.
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Jim Latimer
President. A direct descendant of Colonel Jonathan Latimer.
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Diane Stinson
Vice President. A direct descendant of Colonel Jonathan Latimer.
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Mike McClard
Secretary. A lifelong neighbor of William and Martha Brown.
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Cindy McClard
Treasurer. A lifelong neighbor of William and Martha Brown.
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Unpaid
Every seat on the board, and no staff.
The board is small and unpaid. There is no staff, and there is no overhead worth the name. What comes in goes into the house and the ground around it.
“There is a log house inside that brick house, and we are uncovering it.”
Everything else on this site is detail hanging off that sentence.
04 · Get in touch
Where to find us.
The Latimer House stands at 300 Wolfpack Way, Gallatin, Tennessee. Correspondence, questions about the record, offers of photographs, and anything to do with volunteering all reach us the same way, at latimerhouse@protonmail.com. Anything in an envelope goes to 1578 Latimer Lane, Hendersonville TN 37075, which is our mailing address rather than the house.
If your family has a connection to this house, we would particularly like to hear from you. The written record is thinner than it should be, and the people who can fill it in are getting harder to find.
There is a lot of work ahead, and we would welcome your help.
Every gift goes into the house and the ground around it. Thank you.