More Than A Home

A house is sometimes more than just a home. Sometimes, it’s the history of an area or family. It can be in a style from a bygone era or be full of meaningful antiques. Home is where the people are. A house is where the history is.

In Savannah, Tennessee, Mayor Bob Shutt has made a home for himself. Once owned by the Williams family, Mayor Shutt and his wife, Janie, took this gorgeous house and made it into a home they're proud of.

The home was built by Henry Williams in 1874—less than 10 years after the Civil War. While living in the home, he also built a circa 1912 grandfather clock. A wood insert resides in the glass section of the clock with the year it was built and instructions. When the Shutts moved in, the clock was still operational, but as of today it no longer runs. There are two secretaries, one in both parlors that were also built by Williams.

The Williams family owned the home from 1874 until the Shutts bought it in 2006. During the 1900s members of the Williams family did a lot of work on the house. It was probably during that time that they added the kitchen, bathrooms, and electricity. When the Shutt’s moved in, they remodeled those areas of the house; adding paint and updating features. “We did a lot of painting. You know sometimes you just have to paint, but especially the bathrooms and kitchen are what we did,” Janie told us. The people before the Shutts put up the wallpapers found throughout the first floor of the home, “The reason I know that is because I found some of it that was left over. It was red velvet and they painted over it. I like the yellow they used a lot.” The floors on the first floor are new to the home but were put in before the Shutts came to be the owners. “The pine floors upstairs are original to the house.” Many little footsteps must have been heard upstairs on those floors since Janie and Bob’s children, two boys and one girl, lived up there when they were children.

The front door of the home is a white, double glass fixture that fit seamlessly with the style of the house, making it a likely candidate of being original to the home. The Ladies and Gentleman's Parlors are across from each other with floor to ceiling, solid wood pocket doors concealed in their doorways. “They can kind of be a pain, sometimes they come out easy, but sometimes they stick.” Each of the fireplaces in the home are original to the house but have since been closed up and rely on gas to light. It’s likely the front porch was built in the early 1900s as an add-on.

Another addition to the home from the early 1900s are the radiator heaters throughout the home. These dust free heating devices are a unique addition to the home, “not many people have that in Savannah. I think, us, the Cherry Mansion, and another house down the street. There are these little special keys and all of us have one. If you lose that key, you have to borrow one until you find yours. I know my neighbors have lost theirs and had to borrow mine before.” The Shutts system runs under the house instead of having pipes that run up through the house. Their boiler resides outside in its own little building.

The doors in the home have been in place since before the Shutts bought the house. Reminiscent of doors from shops in old town squares, the glass-pane doors are the perfect addition to the downstairs. There are many different remarkable details in the home like the doors. Crown molding was added by the Shutts to different areas such as the dining room, kitchen, and bedroom. “The people who lived here before us put in the chandelier [in the dining room], so it’s not an antique. I was going to try and find one but decided to keep this one.”

When asked if she would change anything about the home, Janie remarked that she wouldn’t mind if it were more of an open concept, “We have a big family, and we’ve just got several rooms.” An open concept would be more practical, but Janie really likes the layout of the house overall, “This is just where we kind of gather. I do like our den it’s cozy and when the last owners left there were a lot of old books. I could never throw them away so I put them in our den,” the bookshelves hold the books and other bits and bobs making an interesting background addition to the room. “I just like to collect little things.”

Janie also loves antiques, most of the furniture in her home belongs to times long gone. Her eyes lit up talking about her ‘old things.’ Janie has a soft heart, that is visible clearly when she talks about the books and documents that belonged to the previous owners that stayed with the house. “You can’t just get rid of things like these, they’re part of our heritage.”