The Wren's Nest - Bills-McNeal Historic District - Bolivar, TN
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 35° 15.212 W 088° 59.527
16S E 318765 N 3902978
Built for Lucy Bills wedding present, and is building number 10 in the NRHP listing.
Waymark Code: WMY9YC
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 05/17/2018
Views: 0
County of house: Hardeman County
Location of house: SW corner, Bills St. & S. Lauderdale St., Bolivar
Original Owner: Wilbur Armistead
Current Owner: Unknown
Built: 1860
Architect: Fletcher Sloan
"10. Mark House "Wrens Nest" (308 Bills Street): ca. 1860, 1 story frame Gothic-Revival
cottage with weatherboard siding, some round headed windows, built for John
Houston Bills.
Italianate influence on essentially vernacular forms appears in the Mark House
"Wren Nest (No.7 and again in the Wright-Smith House (No.5)." NRHP Nomination Form
NOTE: The family name was MASK, not MARK as repeatedly listed in the nomination form
"This home was a wedding gift for Lucy Bills, the youngest daughter of The Pillar's owner John Houston Bills. Lucy married Wilbur Armistead, the editor of The Bolivar Bulletin. The home received its name because a nesting wren held up final painting of the home in 1870.
"The house was designed by Fletcher Sloan an architect well known for his Swiss chalet cottages. It originally consisted of four rooms on the ground floor with a detached kitchen, which later was connected to the house. Fletcher Sloan designed the home in the Victorian architecture style seen in the intricate dental work, called "gingerbread trim".
"The Armisteads sold the property to the Parran Family who owned it for three generations. Then it was acquired by the Mask family in 1939." ~ Visit Bolivar