After being vacant for years, big plans for Nashville’s George W. Hubbard House are coming to fruition after the historic home was awarded a grant to preserve the work of African American architects.
The house, located on the orignal campus of the historically Black Meharry Medical College, will receive $100,000 for conserving Black modernism from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.
“We’ve been on this journey for 11 years, trying to get the Hubbard House up and running,” said Robert Churchwell Jr., a leader at Seay-Hubbard United Methodist Church, which owns the house. “This is the first phase out of a larger plan.”
The Hubbard House was designed and built by McKissack and McKissack, one of the oldest Black-owned architectural firms in the United States, in 1921 after Meharry alumni, students and faculty raised the funds to build the home.
It was named for the first president of the college and is the only remaining building of the original campus. The school moved to North Nashville in the 1930s.