01
The Log House
Hand hewn logs, cut on this ground and raised in the 1790's. Somebody covered them in brick a hundred years later. We are taking it off by hand.
The park is the yard, and the house is the middle of it.
The William and Martha Brown Park is 0.805 acres. It is the life estate parcel, the ground the house has always stood on, and the codicil that created it names the house as its centerpiece.
- 0.805 acres
- The whole of the park
- One house
- Named as its centerpiece
- Aug 27, 2026
- When the deed was recorded
01 · What the park is
Small on purpose.
0.805 acres is the only acreage this park has ever been. It is the life estate parcel that came with the house, and it is not a recreation complex, a trail system or a campus amenity. It is the ground around a two hundred year old log house.
That has been misread more than once, and each time it has been corrected by the people with the best claim to know what was meant.
02 · What was asked for
The yard they kept.
When an alternate plan proposed something larger, and one that left the house out, Mr. Brown's niece was asked what her uncle had actually wanted a park here to be. Her answer was not complicated.
It is a small standard, and it is a clear one. Keep the ground around the house looking like the ground the family kept, and keep the house standing in the middle of it.
“grass is mowed by the county. Any invasive shrubs are removed. This would be something that looks like the yard they had there.”
The park carries both their names. The William and Martha Brown Park. Martha's name sits beside his on the instrument that made it.
A park that size does not need a plan so much as it needs keeping. Mowed, cleared, open, and with the house cared for at the center of it.
03 · How it is held
The house and the ground it stands on.
In 2026 the Sumner County Commission voted to convey the house and its parcel to a nonprofit organized to care for it. The deed was recorded on the twenty seventh of August, and the Friends of the Latimer House have held the house since.
The conveyance carries a preservation covenant, and the deed carries a reverter. If the house is not looked after, it goes back. The arrangement was built so that the outcome the codicil asked for survives whoever happens to be holding the keys.
- 0.805 acres
- The life estate parcel, and the whole of the park.
- 2026
- The Commission voted to convey the house and its parcel.
- August 27
- The deed was recorded, Book 6928, pages 761 through 769.
- A reverter
- If the house is not looked after, it goes back.
Everything about how the park is held comes back to one sentence, and it is the sentence that names the house.
“the historic home currently situated thereon being permanently maintained by the County as the park's centerpiece.”
The park was established for the house. Not beside it, and not around it. The house is what the park is for.
04 · What it will be
A place you can walk into.
When the work is finished, this will be a house people can walk into, on ground people can walk across, in a county that knows whose it was and how it got here.
It is not a large park. It was never meant to be. It is 0.805 acres, a log house raised in the 1790's, and an open invitation to come and see it.
Keep going
The rest of the story.
02
The Latimers
Charles Latimer built the house. His father Jonathan came home from Saratoga, put the family in ox carts, and brought them to Tennessee.
03
The Browns
The last family to own it privately, and the reason it is still standing. They had no obligation to this house and they took it on anyway.
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.