Cache is located near a repurposed historical landmark. Plenty of parking available.
91-year-old Lee Estes (known to friends as LD) has called this neighborhood home since the late 1920s. When he was growing up his family didn’t have indoor plumbing. They raised chickens for eggs and meat, milked their own cow, churned their own butter, and neighbors raised hogs. The only place for a boy to go was St. Luke’s Community House, where he played basketball and went to dances. 'The Nations' was largely an industrial area. He remembers Nashville Hardwood and Flooring, Ingram Spinning Mill, and four fertilizer plants. He also remembers the silo where his mural now stands, which used to be Gilette grainery.
He’s been watching the change - houses on either side of his have been torn down for new construction, chic restaurants are opening, and young adults are moving in, finding the area more affordable than many other parts of Nashville. People constantly knock on his door offering impressive sums to buy the modest house he built in 1952.
“Now, they’re building two houses where one property was built before, and all the older neighborhood has pretty well gone out or moved other places, very few of us are left,” Estes says. “And eventually I guess they’ll get us. Hopefully I can live my lifetime where I am.
Estes spent his working years in the purchasing department at Genesco. Now he spends his days sauntering around the neighborhood, volunteering to help other seniors in craft projects at St. Luke’s, and checking in daily at a food market formerly owned by his late brother. He’s well known in the neighborhood, but his celebrity status has now skyrocketed.
“I don’t want to be famous,” he says. “I just want to be remembered.”
A 91-year-old in a short-sleeve button-down and high-waisted slacks could be seen as an odd choice to represent a hip, up-and-coming neighborhood. But the image is meant to implore newcomers to respect the past. Lee Ann Merrick, who opened her Tin Wings food shop here three years ago, says there is occasional tension between long-time residents and newbies. Shared public art eases the tension and brings people together, she says.
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