Created by the Tennessee River’s Looney Bend, a peninsula to the south of Kingston Pike is home to the historic lakefront properties within Sequoyah Hills.

The historic homes of this leafy and relaxed community have been attracting Knoxville’s most distinguished residents since the 1920s. Visionary early developers E.V. Ferrell and Robert L. Proust’s plans to create a lakefront retreat for Knoxville’s wealthiest residents were eventually ruined by the Great Depression. Their vision eventually did come to fruition in the decades that followed and Sequoyah Hills today is an elegant community full of grand homes in a relaxed wooded waterfront community.

 

Sequoyah Hills’ real estate portfolio includes exquisite 1920s prairie-style homes dating back to Ferrell’s development of Scenic Drive as well as refined English Cottage and American Colonial Revival homes within Proust’s oak-covered Talahi sub-division. Homes that were constructed later exhibit refined mid-century architectural styles.

Proust envisioned Sequoya Hills’ Talahi district as a neighborhood catering for residents “who insist upon and can afford the best,” and a place where “all the ugliness of city life has been shut out.” Today’s Sequoyah Hills lives up to those lofty ideals, with gorgeous properties lying among an area wooded with mature oaks. These spacious homes typically exceed Proust’s goal of no property is less than 5,000 square feet in size.

 

Residents on the peaceful Sequoyah Hills peninsula enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of this secluded lakefront community. It is no accident that demand for the luxurious homes of Sequoyah Hills increased dramatically alongside the rise of the automobile. Today, residents of Sequoyah Hills are able to commute into Downtown Knoxville in about 12 minutes while still enjoying the serene atmosphere of a neighborhood that feels far more than five miles from the city.

This refined setting has attracted many of Knoxville’s most prominent citizens, with Sequoyah Hills’ most notable current and former residents including the authors Alex Haley and Cormac McCarthy, Clayton Homes magnate Jim Clayton, Tenessee Volunteers football coach Robert R. Neyland, and a number of political figures including two Knoxville mayors, Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr., and current Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam.