Friday, February 11, 2011
Mysteries The Epping Way Mystery
Posted by Vance Lauderdale on Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 11:03 PM
- PHOTO COURTESY BING / MICROSOFT
A friend of mine was driving along James Road in Raleigh and happened to turn south on a little road called Epping Way. The road ends after just a few blocks, and he came to a rather fancy gate, with stone pillars on either side. This gate is padlocked (I believe he told me that), and there is a rather prominent sign on one of those posts, proclaiming "NO TRESPASSING - PROPERTY OF MEMPHIS CITY SCHOOLS."
Now this, in itself, is intriguing because I never knew that Memphis had a school in that area. But it's only when you turn to Google or Bing for a good aerial view of the property that the mystery deepens. As you can see from these two images, taken from different angles, beyond that gate is a double driveway that curves back to some type of school-looking building, which seems to be rather unkempt and abandoned.
And then look to the side of it: not just one, but SIX overgrown tennis courts, side by side. There's even a nice little gazebo, if you look closely, all by the shore of a very nice lake.
I'll go ahead and tell you that if you go to Bing and rotate their birds-eye view option, looking at this site from various angles, at one point the building completely disappears, leaving only some kind of concrete foundation. So it's safe to say that this structure has been torn down, though various aerial views — apparently taken weeks or months apart — don't consistently show it.
But what was this place? Why all the tennis courts? And what does the Memphis City School system have to do with it?
Does it surprise you to learn that I sent these images to the good folks at the school system and asked them this very question, and they didn't even bother to respond? No, it didn't surprise me either. Either they don't know, or they don't want to say. And after my family gave them that fine Lauderdale School, too. So disrespectful!
If anybody know what this curious property is — or was — please tell me.
- PHOTO COURTESY BING / MICROSOFT
Comments (34)
Showing 1-34 of 34
On google earth it looks like you can get back there by trail from James Road on a motorbike, mountain bike, horse or foot from the James Road side. Take a hike Vance.
like
dislike
Wolf River Conservancy did a clean up at "MCS Property at Epping Way"...maybe they would know more.
Scroll down to almost mid-way.
http://connect.rhodes.edu/blog/2010/09/09/…
You know what's fun? I'll tell you what's fun. Go to the site on Google Earth, then use the "timeline" tool and you can see shots of the place beginning in 2004, at which point, a swimming pool is also visible and the buildings are still somewhat extant. Also, in the most recent Google shot, swing over to the Wolf River, just to the east, and check the four-wheelers along the shoreline and in the water.
I'm not well versed in legalese, but this seems to indicate the property was donated to MCS sometime around 2007:
http://register.shelby.tn.us/imgView.php?i…
Obviously a country club or a sanitarium, so I can't believe you don't have some faded references in the attic; invites, prescription labels, perhaps a receipt for towing the limo out of the lake.
I went there today. It is posted No Trespassing, Property of Memphis City Schools. But I figured since there is such chaos about who's running the school system these days, that my stepson and I could get away with a little "prospecting." I'll send Vance the pics and he can share them here if he likes. It definitely was a swimming/tennis club at one point. Also, there's a little boat launching area. Water is very clear, unlike many of the murky lakes around here.
Below is the sales record from the Shelby County Assessor's Website. The property sold for over 10M in 1990. Wow! That looks odd.
02/23/2007 07063947 QC (Left Blank to MCS)
07/10/1992 $10,000 CY6694 SW (Sears Sav Bank to Jamesbridge Assoc II)
06/01/1990 $10,630,000 BS6424 TD (Aronov Mary S Tr et al to Sears Sav Bank)
10/12/1984 $900,000 V81205 WD (Epping Forrest Club Inc to Memphis Advantages LTD)
10/31/1981 $0 S88893 UN (Allen and Ohara Dev Inc to Epping Forrest Club Inc)
10/30/1981 $0 S86708 QC (Allen and Ohara Dev Inc to Epping Forrest Club Inc)
And permits filed:
04/12/2007 DEM B0945124
03/01/1991 5000.00 60058
05/27/1987 23000.00 147189
05/27/1987 200000.00 148202
Sounds shady to me :(
Even weirder....a link to an apartment complex called Jamesbridge on Advantage Way...Jamesassoc? Memphis Advantages LTD? Weird.
http://www.apartments.com/location.aspx?pa…
It was a social/country club called Epping Forrest in the late 70s early 80s. I don't remember much about it, but I went a few times with a friend's family. At the time, many people I knew were members at various clubs so they could access the swimming pools in the summer. Most of my friends had memberships in the Moose Lodge on Raleigh Millington just north of Yale or at Scenic Hills. This friend's family was a bit more well to do, so they belonged to this higher end club. I remember it being very nice. It was definitely nicer than the Moose Lodge (but that isn't exactly a high standard).
My friend moved in the early 80s and I never made it back inside the gates after that.
At the fancy gate was the home of Berry Brooks the same person whose animal heads had hung in the Pink Palace museum before the new section was added. They named it Epping Forest Manor. His wife was instrumental in starting the Memphis Historical Society in 1943 from their home on Hawthorne later evoloving into the Tennessee Genealogical Society.
Salen White
somervillesalen@comcast.net
From the Commercial Appeal Streetscapes
EPPING WAY
By Ann Meeks
30 June 1994
The Commercial Appeal Memphis, TN
This street was named for Epping Forest Manor, the 284-acre estate of Mr. and Mrs. Berry Boswell Brooks.
Brooks was a world-famous big-game hunter and photographer, naturalist and cotton merchant. He was born in Senatobia, Miss., in 1902, and his father was sheriff of Tate County, Miss. The family moved to Memphis when Brooks was 12.
He attended Washington and Lee University and entered the cotton business in 1922 as a $25-a-month clerk. He retired as head of his own cotton company in 1972.
Brooks was the first American to be accepted into the International Hunting Hall of Fame, and his animal trophies in the Berry B. Brooks African Hall at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum were the favorite attractions for thousands of Memphians and Mid-Southerners for many years. He remarked about the sadness he sometimes felt in collecting animals but said he tried to make every animal he ever collected immortal by giving it to the museum.
In his later years, he preferred to capture the animals he hunted in photographs and he was a popular Goodwyn Institute lecturer, using his pictures as illustrations.
Brooks and his wife, Virginia, purchased the major portion of their estate - 202 acres - in 1948. Their home was named Epping Forest Manor in honor of Virginia Brooks's ancestor, Col. Joseph Ball, grandfather of George Washington. His Lancaster County seat was named for Epping Forest, the royal hunting preserve, owned by the English Crown. Brooks and his wife kept peacocks and raised cattle on the estate.
In 1972, they sold the major portion of the farm to Cook Investment Properties Inc. and Allen & O'Hara Inc. for development of a multipurpose project, to include single-family, townhouse, apartment and commercial properties, built with an old English theme.
The Brooks property was bounded on the north by James Road, on the west by Highland, and on the east by a north bend of the Wolf River. The new development was named Epping Forest and the north-south street running through the development was named Epping Way. It extends south from James Road and is east of Windermere Drive.
I miss those Ann Meeks columns. I learned a lot about the city from her work. Guess she got down-sized or something. Or she wasn't conservative enough.
One reason I never answer readers' questions about street names is that I could never do it as well as Ann Meeks, with all the history and detail that she managed to find, and I always felt like I would be treading on her turf.
Oh yeah, and also because it seemed like a lot of work.
According to the Google Earth historical photos it appears that, prior to demolition, the property had become a trash dump. The 2/27/2006 photo clearly reveals a burned-out vehicle just south of the filled-in pool. Weird.
Regarding the surrounding apartments, called "Jamesbridge":
http://www.memphisdailynews.com/editorial/…
...and a couple of years later:
http://www.memphisdailynews.com/editorial/…
Note that the "clubhouse/office with swimming pool" the articles refer to isn't the Epping Forest Club, which was already gone by this time.
But back to the real question at hand: Why was the club property donated to MCS? Anybody with real estate or tax knowledge have an idea?
Sears Savings bought a foreclosed property. After two years, in 1992 they sold it to Jamesbridge Associates III Limited partnership. They sat on it for a long time, then probably donated it to MCS for tax write off. Just my opinion. Happens all the time.
I think it was going to be part of Kriner's relocation package but Carol Johnson trashed the place on her last night in a drunken frenzy screaming, "Over my dead body"
... allegedly
Found this in a CA article from July 17, 1992:
Jamesbridge Apartments, a six-year-old, 432-unit apartment community in the Raleigh area, has sold for $8.64 million or $20,000 a unit. The sale price also included a 10-acre vacant parcel zoned for multifamily use and the former Epping Forest Club.
The recreational club was built to support planned apartments and condominiums in the area. It was supported by memberships, until it closed several years ago. The 10,000-square-foot Epping Forest facility includes eight indoor tennis courts, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and a small pool. It also includes several lakes on about 60 acres of adjacent land.
I didn't find any stories mentioning any transfer to the MCS.
I resided in Scenic Hills for about 10 years in the '60s and '70s and remember the Epping Forest development adjacent to Wolf River. The project was composed of fairly large upscale homes on postage-stamp lots (tiny front, side, and back yards). The developer (don't remember his name) told me it was patterned after similar developments in California where land was at a premium. A number of the homes included an atrium, very fancy for Memphis at the time unless you lived in Chickasaw Gardens. I wondered about the wisdom of building in the flood plain so close to the river and think flooding eventually doomed the project.
As an aside, my Mom (Virginia Raiford) told me she attended a supper sponsored by Berry Brooks that featured cooked "Mastodon." She was challenged to take a bite (a number of small portions were offered) but declined. Berry explained that the Mastodon was found frozen in Russia and kept in that state until cooked for the supper.
William H. "Bill" Raiford
I lived in the apartments 20 feet from the front gate of this Country Club back in the 1975-1982 range. During this time I was in my mid-teens and I rode my BMX bicycle onto that property almost daily. The caretaker of the grounds would attempt to chase me away in his truck. The two-lane separated driveway did a little serpentine action as it led to the clubhouse and parking. Inside was cocktail rooms and dining. There was a lake at the time and it had little boats of some sort. Going around the lake to the northeast and heading south went through a tree-line that opened up to a spacious white sand beach on the Wolf River.
It was a "big deal" to be a teen in Craigmont or Raleigh-Egypt back in those days and sneak a date back on that beach for a little ... private time. I tend to remember the club was tennis-themed and not golf-based. By 1981 the club was abandoned and the gate locked. Me and many friends (on bmx bikes) from River Grove apartments would ride back there because it was secluded and at the time unoccupied. Eventually we all moved away.
In the early 1960s, my family owned a horse farm in Ellendale. We visited almost every weekend. En route, I was always on alert along the part of James Road that passed adjacent to the Berry B. Brooks estate. The property was lower than the road so there was a good view of what I remember as a stately white house and all the charming outbuildings scattered across the beautifully maintained grounds. After many years of living away from Memphis, I returned and set out to see what had happened to some of the beauties from my childhood. I was horrified to see what had become of Epping Forest.
Great piece and comments! Here's a postcard of old Epping Forest Manor : http://www.flickr.com/photos/51992558@N00/…
Who knew it was popular enough to be the subject of a postcard? I imagine Berry Brooks had them made for himself.
Growing up in Frayser, we used to visit Mr. Brooks' estate and regale the rich girls from Raleigh and Scenic Hills with stories of spirits of African hunters and ghostly big game which still disturbed the peacable banks at night - unable to complete either their hunt or their mortality. This was a perfect place because after we completed our adventures with the girlfriends of the Raleigh and Bartlett geeks we didn't have far to return to Two Flags Over Frayser for a cold Falstaff and the Raleigh society girls could walk home with their memories.
All the years I've read the "Ask Vance" column and finally — FINALLY — there's something I know a little bit about. I lived in apartments on Raleigh-LaGrange near Covington Pike (at that time, they were called Woodhaven). When a friend's mom got remarried, they moved to new apartments on James Road (I believe the complex was River Grove that the previous commenter mentioned) and we'd frequently drive through this area. Not long after that, I remember the Epping Forest subdivision being built. It was very posh for a couple of years but was victim to a poor location. That part of Raleigh was in decline in the early '80s.
I didn't know about the country club at the time, but my friend, Carrie, told me some years later that her parents were members (they just called it the Raleigh Country Club). Her father was part owner of the successful Canerdy-Crunk real estate firm. Though when we were reminiscing, we didn't think to wonder what became of the old club. I hear it was quite nice for a while. The pictures certainly indicate that.
it was called Epping Forrest club for many yrs. my parents and relatives were members for many yrs. So sad to see it in such bad shape. Funny though,i thought everyone knew what that place was. Great pool,tennis courts,even had paddle boats...So sad EVERYTHING turns to crap in Memphis. Truly heartbreaking.
My family joined Epping Forrest Club when it first opened back in 1975. We lived in Scenic Hills and it was only a few minutes from our house and my folks were looking for a place to play tennis every single day of their lives. My father made me join the kids tennis league and I really loved playing but I unfortunately had the temperment of Ilie Nastase and John McEnroe at the ripe old age of nine so my father let me quit so he did'nt have to hear me cuss on the court and shame the family. The clubhouse had a full kitchen, full bar, game room, with pool tables and a snack bar. Outside there was a large L shaped pool(wich you can still sort of see in google earth photo)and the lake had sailboats and paddle boats. My folks hung out there every weekend, they were a pretty tight bunch back in those days. My dad and I played tennis there til around 1984 and I never remember going back after that but the place was still in good shape. I rember going back in the 90's to take a look at the place but it was closed up and looked like somthing out of a post apocalyptic "Mad Max" movie scene location. Oh well, I'll always remember "The Club" the way it used to be.
my family and i were also members of this this club in the early to mid eighties. we ended membership before the club closed. the frayser/raleigh area was in decline in the late eighties, early nineties, and we moved to arlington at that point. i remember ordering fries and burgers from the clubhouse grill( i was too young to drink) but the clubhouse and and the lockeroom were very nice. it had a very nice lounge area that was always packed with adults. i spent most of my time with my friends and siblings swimming in the pool and paddleboating on the lake of which we would jump off the paddleboat and swim in the lake. the caretaker would get in his john boat with about a 20 horse motor and tell us to GET THE HELL BACK IN THE PADDLEBOAT( INSURANCE REASONS I SUPPOSE) the club frowned on you swimming in the lake. we also spent god knows how much money playing the full size mario brothers video game in the clubhouse, so that tells you the time frame. there were alot of well to do people that frequented that club in the seventies and eighties. GREAT MEMORIES............
I went swimming everyday there one summer w/my mom & siblings, they had a high dive board, I won a diving competition there that summer, great food & juke box in game area, we lived in some townhouses just up the road from there.My name is Kevin Rochelle. Those were good times & memories from my child hood....Havent thought of that place for a while.
My memory: Around 1960, my mother sold Virginia Walton Brooks a poodle puppy. When we dropped the puppy at the estate ... I was given some childhood memories I will never forget ... a lush estate, peacocks wandering the grounds, and an air-conditioned dog house waiting for the puppy. Virginia was married to Barry B. Brooks, a cotton merchant.
Astounding to contrast the Life Magazine pictures of a 14 year-old Virginia who shot and 27 large African animals - and ... as reported in Life Magazine ... planned to use elephant's feet as wastebaskets ... to the Virginia we met who was going to love and pamper our little puppy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51992558@N00/4948840676/
I have seen many estates .... and thought this one wonderful (not the picture postcard in one of these previous posts). Here is a link to a rather poor aerial and closer up photo of the grounds. What a shame that more pictures are not up on the Internet ... fascinating family!
http://www.memphisflyer.com/AskVanceBlog/archives/2011/02/11/the-epping-way-mystery
my uncle ran the farm for mr brooks in 50 s i never will forget the place i use to spend the night with him peacocks every where they raised angus bulls for breeding i remeber going to the big house with my uncle seeing all the exotic animals stuffed the guns etc i still remember the farm the smeel of sweet feed in the air and the peacocks strutting and calling their sounds i was probally 8 or 9 yr old his name was herbert adair my uncle im 60yr old now
People who saved…
