Built as a wedding promise in 1890, Westwood is open for tours and events and is home to Knox Heritage and the Regional Center for Preservation Education.
Historic Westwood was built as a “wedding promise” in 1890 by John Edwin Lutz and his wife, Ann Adelia Armstrong Lutz, on property owned by her grandfather, Drury P. Armstrong. The couple moved into the Queen Anne Victorian mansion from Adelia’s parents’ home, Bleak House, a short distance away on Kingston Pike. The Lutzes’ home, designed by notable architects Baumann Brothers, was constructed of brick and stone with a slate roof in the grand Richardsonian Romanesque style popular in the late 19th century and originally was surrounded by 12 acres.
Four generations of the same family lived in the house between 1890 and 2012. The distinctive serpentine wall was constructed in 1933 for the wedding reception of Cecil Holloway, Adelia and John's granddaughter, to Albert Matheny II, who were married at St. John's Episcopal Cathedral.
Westwood is one of three houses built by the Armstrong/Lutz family on Kingston Pike. All of the homes were built as wedding promises by the succeeding generations of the original landowner, Drury P. Armstrong, who built Crescent Bend, a Federal style home, in 1834. His son, Robert Houston Armstrong, built the Italianate style Bleak House in 1854. His daughter, Ann Adelia Armstrong Lutz, built Historic Westwood in 1890. These treasured houses are known as “The Three Sisters.” Crescent Bend and Bleak House, the other two “Sisters,” have been restored as house museums.
The highlight and most significant component of Historic Westwood is the studio which was designed by Ann Adelia Armstrong Lutz, an accomplished artist who studied art at Mary Baldwin College, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and throughout Europe. She was Tennessee’s first professional female artist and one of the founders of the influential Nicholson Art League in Knoxville. The studio where she taught and painted has cathedral ceilings and large skylights which let in the natural light she needed for her painting.
