The Home of Mr. Banks

Born and raised in Brownsville, Tennessee, Michael Banks had a dream; he wanted an old house, but not just any old one would do. Michael took his time to decide what he wanted and what he planned. When Michael finished planing and knew what he wanted, he had to find the perfect place to build. When it came time to find a place, he looked to the lot next to his childhood home, where his parents still live. This was the place where he would build his very own dream home. It was perfect because “all my friends were in the neighborhood and my parents owned this lot. They said if you want to build here, we’ll give it to you. With the price of the house, the free lot just kind of made sense.”

Before building his house, Michael Banks had “for about 10 years kept a file in my desk, at the office, with house plans and things I liked and didn’t like.” He eventually came across the plans for a Southern Living dream home in Savannah, Georgia. Which, after a few alterations, he knew was his and broke ground in 2005.

Michael liked these particular plans because they fit all his criteria; it had the perfect amount of windows, a front and back porch, and the number of bedrooms needed for the three Banks children. It also had the charm Michael wanted. “For years, I mean I was born and raised here, and for years I wanted—when I came back—to buy an old house. At the time, properties were so expensive, old houses were hard to find at a reasonable price. So this was like an old house, built new and I knew I could make it look like an old house. When I saw the plan, the design, everything like that, it just stood out. It had everything that I wanted. It had the balcony, the front and back porches—which were really important to me—it had enough room for the kids upstairs, the bonus room and everything like that. I never particularly had one sort of design in mind. I just had things that I knew that I wanted and this had it all.”

The inspiration behind some of the touches on the house came from those ten years he spent compiling his folder “When I saw something that I liked, I’d either jot it down, kind of draw it out, or rip a page out of a magazine and stick it in there. As I built the house, I tried to incorporate some of that stuff.” One of the examples Michael gave was the old columns in the dining room. “I got them out of an old house that was getting ready to be torn down and used those in there.” Special touches like these are present throughout the house.

Many of the doors were pulled from older buildings. Doors from the old Brownsville Courthouse were reclaimed for the house. Two doors upstairs were pulled from an old shop near the courthouse. Both of the doors are white, matching the style of the house, and they have frosted glass windows. Any new doors in the house have been made to match the style. It’s difficult to pinpoint which are new and which are old if you don’t already know, but one trick is to look for latches in the doorframes; the new ones have latches.

Michael’s goal was to have a home he and his family could live in, “I wanted to make a house that was livable, I’ve got three teenage kids now. At the time they were ages 6, 4, and 2. I really wanted it livable and fun, but it needed flow and to be able to entertain, so that’s why we have the wide doorways, the big kitchen. I expanded the original kitchen and the dining room several feet, just to accommodate. I wanted kind of a combination of a house that was good for the kids but also to be able to entertain.” The spacious home’s layout does work really well for entertaining.

The front entry opens up to the dining room on the right and Michael’s office on the left. Glass doors are used to close off the office when not in use. The floor of the entryway is brick. Michael wanted durable floors that would not be easily ruined due to foot traffic and the weather. The entry passes a set of stairs and goes right into the living which is next to the spacious kitchen.

Michael describes the architecture of the home as Southern Plantation, “I’ve got a history of the Banks family. Some relatives owned a plantation down in Mississippi—I’ve got pictures of it. I never really paid a whole lot of attention to it, but there’s a plantation home and it’s got a widow’s walk up on the top, which mine could have. I have a flat area on the roof, but inside their widow’s walk was just kind of a glass room where they could look out at the plantation. To me, this house was kind of more of a southern plantation style house more than anything. All the trim work, the way the pictures are hung off of the crown molding. I went to Biltmore, certain old homes like that, a lot of different pieces helped it all come together.” Wallpaper also plays a part in the home, though most of the walls are painted. The guest bathroom has a wallpaper that is a little more unique. The off-white wallpaper contains Victorian era figures while harkening to the perfection of the Golden Ratio with snippets of building dimensions. To quote the Bank’s family, “You never know what you’ll see next” when it comes to looking at the walls. The dining room has a striped wallpaper that compliments the floors nicely.

The most distinguishing feature of the house is the beautiful hardwood floors, which Michael agrees with. “The floors are kind of interesting, they are hardwood floors, I was pretty particular about those. These are called Tiger Wood and they don’t harvest it anymore because of the ban on the Hardwood Forest in South America. It’s got the dark stripes in it with the grain, hence the name. It’s a Koa, but they don’t make it anymore.” That alone makes the floors worth having in the home, but it has caused some trouble. “When a pipe burst upstairs about 8-10 years ago, it just ruined one side of the house upstairs and down. The dining room floor, same as this (the Tiger Wood in the living room) had me calling all the hardwood manufacturers. I was ordering single pieces of it basically. I got just enough, plus the scraps, to redo that floor. In the sunlight, instead of fading the floors get darker, so at Christmas, I rotate the rug around and put the Christmas tree in from of the windows to the right.” The floors are an absolutely stunning addition to this amazing home.

Michael Banks’ home is a testament to making a house your home. It also proves that if you have dreams of owning a historical home, it doesn’t have to be a 100-year-old building. New builds have the ability to appear old, so follow your dreams and make them happen any way you can.