With its distinctive Queen Anne Revival design and connections to Chattanooga’s late-19th-century growth, the structure at 551 Oak St. is unlike any other on UTC’s campus.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 as the Isbester House, it was completed in 1896 as the residence of Caleb B. Isbester (1828-1899), his wife Virginia (1833-1901), and their two children.
Caleb B. Isbester was born in Scotland, immigrated to Pennsylvania with his family as a child, and moved to Chattanooga in 1877—by way of Nashville—to enter the foundry business. With a business partner, he established the Chattanooga Foundry and Pipe Company (later known as United States Pipe and Foundry Company).
Described as a “palatial home” by the Chattanooga Daily Times while under construction, the Isbester House reflects the prosperity and civic influence of local industrialists of the era. In fact, several years after Isbester died in 1899, the newspaper noted that there were “points of resemblance” between his career and that of Andrew Carnegie, writing that they were “both Scotch lads who … achieved marked success in the iron business and who did not consider money made merely for personal use.”…