Jump to: Radnor Lake         The Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

Warner Parks

The Warner Parks consist of two adjacent parks operated by Metropolitan Board of Parks and Recreation of Nashville and Davidson County: Percy Warner Park and Edwin Warner Park.  Together, their 2684 acres form one of the largest city parks in the United States.  The parks contain significant blocks of forest as well as other types of areas more typical of city parks, such as picnic areas and grassy open spaces. 

When the parks were first created over 70 years ago, they were located far from urban Nashville in a largely forested area.  However, since that time the growth of the neighboring suburban communities of Belle Meade and later Bellevue has reduced and fragmented the forest habitat in the area.  Homes directly surround the park on many sides.

High property values and intense development pressure has increased the importance of the parks as a refuge for wildlife and diverse plant life. 

Over the course of the parks' history, they have been impacted by a variety of ideas about the most appropriate use of the park land. 

For instance, a large part of Percy Warner Park is devoted to a steeplechase course, which is used once a year for the Iroquois race.

There are also cleared picnic areas extending deep into the forest, such as the Deep Well Picnic Area shown here.  Two golf courses also take up a significant fraction of the park property.
 

Radnor Lake

Radnor Lake is an artificial lake originally created in 1913 to serve as a water supply for the nearby rail yards.  The surrounding forested hills served as a hunting and fishing preserve for railroad officials.  Over the years, the lake and surrounding forest became a haven for migrating birds, wildflowers, and trees.  In 1962, it was bought by developers who planned to build roads and houses in the hills around the lake.  Grassroots fundraising and political lobbying resulted in Radnor Lake becoming Tennessee's first State Natural Area. 

Because of the park's protected status as a natural area, the forested hills around the lake (such as Ganier Ridge seen in the views above) have largely recovered from logging and other disturbances that occurred early in the last century.  With the exception of two small parking lots, a visitors center, and a few maintenance buildings, the park is one contiguous forest.  A power line right-of-way separates some of the outlying soutern parts of the park from the main block of forest around the lake. 

Although there are some tracts adjacent to the park (including the Vanderbilt University observatory) that remain largely forested, development has encroached to the edge of the park on many sides.  Suburban homes and yards come right to the boundary of the park in many places.  

The State of Tennessee has managed to acquire several parcels of forest to be added to the park since it was founded, but development continues to the present, with a major new development under construction in the forest just to the east of the park. 

The Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

The Nashville Zoo at Grassmere is commercial zoo located in the heart of the urban Nolensville Road area of Nashville. 

Grassmere began about 200 years ago as a family farm.  As Nashville grew to the south, urbanization surrounded the farm, transforming it into a small green island amid a sea of asphalt and concrete.  Faced with the possibility of having their farm taken through eminent domain for public use outside their control, the last two elderly members of the Croft family donated it to the Cumberland Science Museum (now the Adventure Science Museum) with the stipulation that they could live there for the rest of their lives.   Following their deaths, Grassmere was developed by the museum into a wild animal park featuring native Tennessee species.  Due to financial difficulties and competition with the Nashville Zoo (then located in Cheatham County) the park was eventually closed after a few years and was taken over by the Nashville Zoo. 

Under financial pressure to expand and become self sustaining, the zoo now has a distinctly commercial atmosphere.  Although the zoo still contains some relatively intact forested areas, the zoo master plan envisions the eventual development of the entire property into animal exhibits with few or no natural areas. 

Photos by Steve Baskauf, April 2006