It’s one of many misses on my part, as I confessed to Wesley Rule, co-owner (along with his wife Lauren) of Knoxville Fine Violins at 207 Clinch Avenue. When he opened in the heart of the pandemic in 2020 wanting to sell, repair, and build violins. I really wanted him to succeed, but if I’m honest, it seemed like a very specific niche for Knoxville and maybe a longshot for a successful business here. As I have been so many times, I was completely wrong.
As detailed in the first article, Wesley is less of an East Tennessee interloper than most anyone reading this article. His family line here traces back to before the state was a state. He also has deep roots in working with wood and with instruments as his great-grandfather, Oscar Wilbur Rule, worked just off Market Square at Ledgerwood Piano, a long-since-gone music store, as a piano technician. His grandfather, Josef Fletcher Rule, built custom homes and cabinets until he died. More recently, Wesley’s father, Bradley, builds and repairs pipe organs with his company B. Rule and Company repairing most of the pipe organs in and around downtown. Interestingly, Wesley’s oldest is expressing an interest in violin making!
Wesley learned his trade at the Violin Making School of America, and became one of the first students to graduate with a focus in both making and repair. After a few years working in Little Rock, Arkansas, he and Lauren decided it was time to come home and see if Knoxville was ready for a dedicated violin shop. Turns out, their hunch was way better than my own. They packed up the three kids (they now have four) and opened a little shop on Clinch Avenue.
One of the earliest signs of good fortune for the new business came in the form of support from members of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra who had not been able to get their instruments repaired or serviced locally. That support only grew and now Wesley says they “take care of the majority of the instruments. The majority of the string players come here, and the majority of the teachers are probably coming to us.” They’ve also sold violins locally, largely after buying them at auction or other places, and rebuilding or refurbishing them. He said the majority of what they have in stock would be antique instruments, as opposed to new…