Belmont Mansion was built as a statement of wealth: wealth accrued through slave trading and cotton.  The story of Belmont is the story of a pretty fierce and determined woman, Adelicia Acklen. Married at 22 to Isaac Franklin, the owner of multiple cotton plantations, 750 slaves, a 2000 acre Tennessee Farm, and undeveloped land in Texas.  She had 4 children who died with him.  He died in 1846 leaving her a very wealthy woman at the age of 29.

Three years later she married Joseph Acklen, a lawyer and had six more children, only 4 of whom survived.  The two of them built Belmont to be a summer get-away from their winter-based Louisiana cotton plantations.  The mansion and grounds were created as a statement of exuberant wealth and included a zoo, greenhouse, conservatory, art gallery gazebos, a bowling alley a bath house and elaborate gardens.  

When her second husband died, she married a third time.  She outlived all of them, dying of pnuemonia on a shopping trip to New York, just a few months after selling Belmont to developers.  

The Developers used the acreage to develop a suburban neighborhood, but sold the house to two women who created a school for young women called Belmont College which eventually became Ward Seminary School and in 1951 morphed into Belmont University, a coeducational, liberal arts school.  In my opinion this is a splendid morphing from slave money to an educational site most known for its Music, Music Business and Entertainment Studies programs.  The irony has multiple depths as the basis for much of current music comes from African musical traditions brought over by and practiced by slaves.  We will save that controversy for another day.    

Personally, Mary and I agreed, that if we should enroll in Belmont U just so we could spend all our days wandering around one of the prettiest, most enjoyable college grounds we had ever been on.  Some of the original gardens, sculptures, walkways and gazebos are still there.  The original architects vision of a calming, beautiful, graceful place is still in full bloom.  We sat in the sun, smelling the roses, gazing at the lovely landscape till we became somnolent and decided we better go before we fell asleep like Rip Van Winkle. 

Oh yes, the house was lovely as well.   Ms. Acklen had taste and where she could not get her hands on things like marble floors, she painted wood floors to look like marble.  Any accoutrements of her wealthy life that the museum could get ahold of, including paintings, sculptures, china and bric a brac collected from her numerous travels all over Europe, are on display.  Once a hot spot of Nashville society events, the mansion reflects that splendor and is quite interesting.   A visit to the mansion and grounds is well worth every minute spent there.