Two Rivers Mansion is one of the last of the antebellum country homes built in the Nashville area and one of the earliest and best preserved of the ornate Italianate houses in Middle Tennessee. It was once part of an 1100-acre plantation located on fertile, rolling land between the Stones and Cumberland rivers. The junction of the two rivers suggested the name of the property to its first owner, William Harding, whose family owned the Belle Meade Plantation in west Nashville.
The mansion, built by David H. McGavock in 1859 on the eve of the Civil War for his beautiful wife William ( Willie ) Elizabeth Harding but not finished until the 1870’s, was inhabited by the McGavock family for three generations until 1965, when the last heir died and the property was purchased by the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County. Today the 14-acre tract, which includes the mansion and one of Nashville’s oldest brick house built in 1802, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
