Ours is a diverse city, filled with great restaurants, shops, outdoor recreation spaces, and entertainment options. At the heart of it all: community. Many lovely neighborhoods — more than we could fit into these pages — flourish in our stretch of West Tennessee. We’ve spoken with Memphians throughout the region, including Collierville, Cordova, and Germantown, about where they live — and why they’ve planted their roots there.
Tanya Middleton Burton • Cherokee Heights
It was in 1968, the year that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, that Tanya Middleton Burton and her family moved into Cherokee Heights. She was only 4 years old. During this era, upwardly mobile blacks with professions as accountants, doctors, lawyers, and educators were looking to move their families into better housing.
“We were one of four African-American families to move onto our street,” Burton says. “As [white] families moved out and others moved in it seemed my parents were the welcoming committee imparting that Southern hospitality to everyone.
“You’ve heard the old African proverb that it takes a village to raise a child? Cherokee is my village,” continues Burton, a Shelby County Schools elementary teacher. “We had mentors and neighbors who became family. All the kids rode bikes and played kickball and dodgeball with each other. It was beautiful.”
Burton has lived in the neighborhood her whole life, having bought her own first home there when she was 25. Cherokee Heights is an “oasis,” she says — tucked into a community near Prescott and I-240. The two-story and brick ranch-style homes with neatly manicured lawns surrounded by mature trees are distinctively different from the more modest frame houses in the area. The homes were built on the old Cherokee Golf Course, which was sold to developers in 1962.
“It is very rare to see a ‘For Sale’ sign in this neighborhood because homes are snatched up and sold by word of mouth to other family and friends,” she says. That includes Burton, and so many others who grew up in Cherokee and wanted to call the close-knit, family-friendly community home for their children. Her husband, Jewell, along with their sons, Carter and Jalen, also now call Cherokee Heights home.
Burton says, “It’s definitely something special we have here, looking at the next generation of people who still live here.” — Michelle McKissack
BIANCA PHILLIPS • CROSSTOWN
Bianca Phillips moved into her home in the Evergreen Historic District in Crosstown in 2008, when the former Sears distribution center that once drew thousands of employees and shoppers to the area was still a shadowy “big empty.”
Formerly a Memphis Flyer reporter, today the communications coordinator for Crosstown Arts, Phillips hadn’t heard more than a whisper of potential for the Crosstown building’s comeback when she purchased the home (her first) in 2012 after renting the property for four years, but she’d fallen in love with the neighborhood. That love has grown exponentially with the recent — and still to come — developments at and around the Crosstown Concourse.
While the neighborhood is changing, she’s pleased that “it’s not super-developed — it’s still got that authentic, gritty Midtown feel.”
Her office at Crosstown Arts — where art shows, live music, and other events are hosted throughout the week — is a short walk from home. The Hi-Tone, a longstanding music venue, and several restaurants are right around the corner, too. A vegan foodie — she maintains a popular food blog (Vegan Crunk) and has published a cookbook, Cookin’ Crunk — Phillips enjoys the nearby Midtown Crossing Grill’s meat-free dishes and vegan brunch and the all-vegetarian menu at Mama Gaia, the first restaurant to open in the burgeoning Crosstown building. Her active lifestyle includes yoga sessions at the Church Health YMCA, which also opened in the building this spring, and hula-hooping classes at Co-Motion Studio on Cleveland Avenue.
She’s happy to have settled into this walkable spot in the city. “It’s close to everything that is fun and important to me,” she says. “Sometimes my car will sit in my driveway for two or three days before I need to go anywhere in it.”
Her most anticipated upcoming Crosstown openings: the Juice Bar and Curb Market (“I can get Dave’s Bagels bagels there!”).
Phillips assures: “It’s going to be the coolest neighborhood in Memphis.” — Shara Clark
Ron Childers & Joyce Peterson • Pidgeon Estates
Ron Childers and Joyce Peterson fell in loveas colleagues at WMC Action News 5. You gain a variety of views of the city you call home as a news anchor (or in the case of Childers, a meteorologist). For Childers and Peterson, Memphis meant Midtown, where they lived (on North Parkway) the first five years of their marriage. Then they discovered Pidgeon Estates.
“Lush and lovely” are the words Peterson uses in describing her first impressions of the East Memphis neighborhood. The couple moved to Pidgeon Estates in 2006, seeking a suburb-city hybrid, which is precisely what they discovered. “I didn’t want to go far,” says Childers. “At the time, I had to be at work [in Midtown] at 3:00 in the morning. My commute quadrupled, from two minutes to eight.”
“We loved the old trees,” notes Peterson. “We didn’t want to move where trees had been taken down.” (The neighborhood was spared much of the destruction of the May 27th windstorm, though Childers — an expert on the subject — says this had as much to do with good fortune as with the strength of those old trees.) “We’re still city-dwellers,” she adds. “We didn’t want to leave the city.” Peterson has come to call her neighborhood “the new Midtown,” as a resident can be downtown in less than 20 minutes, or on Germantown Parkway in less than 10.
“Even though we’re close to Sam Cooper, we don’t hear a lot of traffic,” says Peterson. She points out the short drive to Grahamwood Elementary, White Station Elementary, and Richland Elementary for families interested in high-quality public schools. Residents also have easy access to the Shelby Farms Greenline (pictured at left).
Proximity to Summer Avenue meant new discoveries for the couple, among their favorites La Michoacana (a Mexican ice cream parlor), the Pancake Shop (open 24 hours), and the Peanut Shoppe. “Everything I need is right here,” says Childers. “This is it. Our next move will be to the [seniors] home.” — Frank Murtaugh
Dottie & Thara Burana • Walnut Grove Lake
Dottie Burana is paddling her kayak as twoducklings trail behind. She rescued the orphaned mallards back in April and is raising them in her lakefront yard until they can fly. She considers it a perk of lake life. In fact, the different birds Dottie sees from her home on Walnut Grove Lake are impressive: Ducks, herons, bluebirds, even bald eagles have been spotted here. They likely come for the reason she does.
“It’s so peaceful,” she says. “When I come home, I never want to go back out again.”
This Cordova enclave is a restful retreat for Dottie and husband, Thara, owners of the Bangkok Alley restaurants. When the food world proves too hectic, lake life awaits. Dottie knows a majority of her neighbors. Like her, many who live on the lake have ties to the neighborhood that stretch back 20 years or more.
Thara came from Thailand to study civil engineering. The couple met while working together at a restaurant in Overton Square during college in the late 1970s. After marrying, they moved away briefly. But upon returning to Memphis in 1988, this hilly suburb proved to be ideally suited to family life and they raised their two boys here.
“We spent lots of time at the parks and on the lake, or in winter, sledding down the hill at the dam,” she says. Traditions that entertained their family continue, like the colorful July 4th celebration, with its firework display and boat-decorating contest, which Dottie has won three years running.
The 458-home subdivision, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015, was originally marketed as an urban retreat, and many of the early homes have a casual, contemporary feel. While the Buranas initially lived elsewhere in the neighborhood, they kept their eyes open for lakefront property. In 2007, they lucked into their airy home (once featured in Southern Living magazine), where they enjoy sweeping lake views and the contented quacking of two ducklings who also are home.— Jane Schneider
Gayle Rose | Chickasaw Gardens
Clarence Saunders never dreamed so many people would end up living in his back yard.
In the early 1920s, when the inventor of the supermarket hired Scottish stonemasons to erect the mansion that would later be called the Pink Palace, other workers scooped out a scenic lake and laid out gardens and paths in the woods behind his private estate, which stretched from Central to Poplar. Financial misfortunes prevented the founder of Piggly Wiggly from ever living in his sprawling home, which later became the city museum, and developers transformed his property into the Chickasaw Gardens neighborhood.
“Everyone here is so connected to the story of Clarence Saunders and the Pink Palace,” says Gayle Rose, who came to Chickasaw Gardens in 2001, moving into a spacious residence built in 1926. “It was one of the city’s first planned communities, and when the first houses went up in the 1920s, this was considered pretty far east.”
Raised in Iowa, Rose spent much of her life in East Memphis, then moved to the Germantown area. “My three boys were going to St. George’s School, so it made sense at the time,” she says, “but as they grew older, I felt a real disconnect with the city where I spent so much of my time. I wanted to live somewhere that reflected my commitment to the city that I was so engaged in.”
Among those commitments, Rose is founder and president of EVS, a national data storage company, chairman of the Rose Family Foundation, and chairman of the board of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. She was also one of the driving forces behind bringing the Grizzlies to Memphis.
“The central location is perfect,” she says. “I am within 15 minutes of FedExForum and my offices in East Memphis, and that has improved my quality of life. I have practically eliminated the freeway from my daily activities.”
Just a short walk away is her favorite spot in the neighborhood, the Chickasaw Gardens Lake. “I’m really enchanted by the park, and by all the magnificent trees here,” she says. “Especially with the rows of giant magnolias, it’s like living in our own private nature preserve.” Admiring the homes along her street, each one a different age and style, she says, “This place has such a rich history. I feel like I’m a steward, not an owner, of the property.” — Michael Finger
James Reed & Kathryn Goforth • Sea Isle Park
James Reed and Kathryn Goforth discovered a strong sense of community in Sea Isle Park. The recently engaged couple bought their first home in the East Memphis neighborhood in February 2016. Goforth, a counselor at Bradford Health Services, points to the “amazing neighbors” who’ve helped make the area a comfortable nook in the city. Before moving to Sea Isle Park, “we never spoke to any of our neighbors,” she says.
Today, “We know everybody’s name at every house all the way through the street,” says Reed, a board member of the Sea Isle Park Neighborhood Association. “Everybody’s always looking out for each other.”
The tight-knit neighborhood hosts community events, like the recent Cop Stop at McWherter Senior Center, organized to feed local first responders, police officers, and firemen. Residents meet and mingle over rounds of bowling at neighborhood parties held at Billy Hardwick’s All Star Lanes. Reed gathers with friends to play basketball at nearby churches. And it doesn’t hurt that his office — he’s a legal assistant at Mendelson Law Firm — is less than a mile from home. Having worked at the firm for a decade, and having friends who’ve lived in the area for at least twice as long, he says, “I’ve just always loved it. It’s the central part of the city for me. Everything you need, you have it over here.”
Favorite nearby spots include the bowling alley, of course, Three Little Pigs Bar-B-Q, and, just down the road on Sanderlin, The Sear Shack. Coming soon to Sea Isle: a dog park. “We’re a big dog community,” Reed says. He, Goforth, and their rescue dog Roo enjoy strolls through the neighborhood, where several locals walk their pups.
Goforth feels they’ve made an excellent choice for their first home and hopes others will join them: “We’re always trying to get our friends and family to move out here by us.” — Shara Clark
The Bob & Joanna Young Family • Poplar Estates
When people think of established neighbor-hoods in Germantown, Poplar Estates often comes to mind. Developed in the 1960s and 1970s with attractive, ranch-style homes, it’s long been described as “a community-within-a-community,” and that connectedness appealed to Bob and Joanna Young.
Joanna’s must-haves included a home within walking distance of Riverdale Elementary for children Grace Ann and Tucker, as well as easy access to shops and restaurants.
“I love driving down Neshoba, passing horse pastures and open fields,” she says. “It’s like country living but you’re still in the city.”
Once ready to sell their starter home in Cordova, the couple walked through a handful of properties. They knew they had to act quickly, since houses here sell in a heartbeat. Bob, a former Marine who brokers corrugated boxes and does home renovation work, was ready to make an offer, but Joanna waffled. Sensing her hesitance, he reassured her, saying, “I know it’s not your dream home, but I can make it your dream home.”
She took a leap of faith, and once the contract was signed, work began. Friends arrived for a demolition party, gutting the downstairs, laying new flooring; even the kitchen received a fresh coat of paint. And that funky vent-a-hood? Gone. Now, Joanna says, “Bob is constantly talking about making other renovations.” In fact, many of the families they know who live nearby are updating, too.
The neighborhood offers camaraderie, with kids frequently running between homes. Joanna volunteers at Riverdale and helps coordinate the July 4th parade, while Bob routinely fires up the grill to host friends and neighbors. The couple launched Cop Stop, inviting Germantown police to a monthly Friday night steak supper with neighbors. The program has been such a hit that new chapters are forming, “and we can’t host any more because so many people do it in Germantown.” Joanna’s volunteer efforts were recognized last year by the Leadership Germantown Alumni Association, and she was the Grand Marshall of the Christmas parade, a salute to what it means to be a good neighbor. — Jane Schneider
David & Penney Williams | South Bluffs
David Williams, president and CEO of Leader-ship Memphis, wanted to move Downtown from the time the first home went up on Mud Island in 1989.
For years, he had lived in the University of Memphis area and loved it.
“But when they started building houses on Mud Island, I thought that one day I would be Downtown,” he says. The opportunity came when he was about to get remarried. He and his wife-to-be, Penney, a nurse practitioner, wanted to consolidate households.
“We felt the right fit was the South Bluffs,” he says. “In 2002, we bought a home on Rienzi and I was consulting and working out of our house and loved it. But a couple of years later we realized we could use more room and I mentioned it to a realtor who found a house nearby.”
David didn’t care for it at first. But Penney liked the 20-foot ceiling in the living room and pointed out some additions they could make. So they made the offer and got the house they still live in today.
“We love the convenience and access. Some people say we don’t have a grocery store or retail nearby, but we don’t go to a grocery every day. We love to take our two small dogs — Bella and Pico — walking along the river. We love the Farmers Market and the restaurants. The whole ambience of Downtown and Center City living fits us — it’s a great lifestyle, and the best life we could have hoped for.”
A big part of it is the proximity of the homes and the scale and scope of the development. “When you’re on the front porch, you feel like you’re really part of the neighborhood. It’s very friendly, everybody waves, and for a lot of us, it’s a dream place to live.” — Jon Sparks
John Griffin • Uptown
Top-shelf home-and-garden design guru John Griffin could have lived anywhere in Memphis. The Parsons School of Design grad liked Midtown well enough, and swears he could have picked up a nice place in Central Gardens for less than $40,000. “But I didn’t want that,” he says with a trademark chuckle.
When Griffin moved to Memphis in the 1970s, the Virginia native and recent New York transplant wanted a more classically urban environment. He wanted to live closer to the street in a place with real streetlife. But mostly he wanted a great old home he could tear apart completely and reassemble to his satisfaction.
That brought him to the Greenlaw neighborhood, 20 years before renewal efforts resulted in an influx of residents and a new name for the area north of Downtown, running from Danny Thomas to Front, and from Chelsea to St. Jude: Uptown.
Established in the 1840s, and annexed by Memphis in 1870, the Greenlaw neighborhood made a natural home for Pinch District merchants. It was racially and economically diverse from the very beginning, but by the time Griffin was looking to settle down, the area had clearly seen better days. Before Uptown arrived in force, he was involved with the neighborhood renewal effort, personally restoring a healthy mix of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cabins, cottages, duplexes, and townhouses in Memphis’ oldest streetcar suburb.
“More warm bodies are always good,” Griffin says of Uptown’s recent forward progress, even though the suburban design that’s taken hold in the area frustrates him. The houses are too far apart for his taste, and commercial development has been relegated to specific areas instead of being woven directly into the fabric of the neighborhood. But he still has this great rosemary-hedged house with a view of the Pyramid and the M-bridge, where he can grow figs and grapes in the heart of the city. — Chris Davis
The Gustavo & Claudia Kornitz Family • Fleming Gardens
Twelve years ago, the Collierville community welcomed Gustavo and Claudia Kornitz as soon as they stepped off the plane from Sao Paolo, Brazil. An invitation awaited from another Brazilian family they’d met, and so they attended a birthday party in the Fleming Gardens subdivision. “That was our first Saturday in Memphis,” says Gustavo. “And that really kick-started our networking here.” Six years later, the Kornitzes purchased a house on that very same street in the neighborhood.
Fleming Gardens is at the southern end of Collierville, bordered by Shelby Drive and Fleming Road. Shopping areas, restaurants, and medical facilities are all nearby, while a five-minute drive to Bill Morris Parkway or Poplar Avenue allows quick access to the rest of Memphis.
Gustavo, a corporate strategy manager at FedEx, lives with his wife Claudia, the owner of 901 Cleaning Patrol, and their two sons, Kevin and Victor. When the family made the choice to move, the kids were the first priority. “We wanted to move to a good school district, and we knew that Collierville would be an excellent option,” says Gustavo. Both Kevin and Victor attend Sycamore Elementary School.
Family activities abound in the neighborhood. “What we really like about Collierville is the small-town feel; that’s a huge plus,” Gustavo says. Last November, a new park opened at the edge of the subdivision, complete with playgrounds, walking trails, a lake, and even a disc-golf course. To the north lie the Shops at Carriage Crossing, where they frequently go for ice cream.
Close friends of the family live in Fleming Gardens as well, each within walking distance of the Kornitz home. The tight-knit community has provided a stable platform for the family, especially for Kevinand Victor.
Perhaps one of the best perks? “We have great neighbors and great friends, but it’s still only 10 minutes from work.”— Samuel Cicci
Ekundayo Bandele • Central Gardens
Ekundayo Bandele has spent a lot of time in Midtown, but he only moved into his Central Gardens home a year-and-a-half ago. Nationally recognized for its elegant vistas and assortment of beautiful older structures, Memphis’ garden district is a perfect location for Bandele, who founded the Hattiloo Theatre in The Edge District between Midtown and Downtown, before moving his successful production house into a custom-constructed new home in Overton Square in 2014.
Located on the neighborhood’s northern edge, his home is equally convenient for accessing the theater’s original location on Marshall Avenue near Sun Studio, which Bandele has maintained as the Baobab Filmhouse, a boutique cinema showcasing films about the black experience. It’s also a short hop, skip, and jump from Otherlands, Bandele’s favorite coffee house in Cooper-Young.
Central Gardens is known for its mix of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century housing stock. You can find beautifully detailed craftsman-style houses and Queen Anne cottages. Bandele says he’s proud to have acquired one of the eclectic neighborhood’s few English Tudor-style homes. “It’s not every place you can find a house that’s got three good-sized bedrooms on the first floor, and one upstairs,” he says. Bandele and his wife Nicole care for an aging parent, and a daughter with special needs. Ground-floor accessibility was a big concern.
Bordered by York Avenue on the south, Rembert on the east, and Cleveland on the west, the Central Gardens neighborhood was established in the mid-nineteenth century but boomed at the turn of the twentieth, rapidly becoming a haven for the city’s most affluent citizens. “But it’s not all exclusive,” Bandele says, pleased to have found a place that fits his lifestyle and his budget.
“We’re really close to Union Avenue,” Bandele says, acknowledging that proximity to so much traffic and noise might be a turnoff to some. “But we’ve also got this huge fence in the backyard, and when you’re sitting back there in the evenings it’s so quiet and peaceful. It’s like you’re out in the woods.” — Chris Davis
Onie Johns • Binghampton
Today’s Binghampton isn’t the same as the Binghampton Onie Johns came to know when she moved there 17 years ago.
“It was very different,” say Johns. “There was one Latino family, one Vietnamese family, and lots of vacant housing. It was mostly African-American and a few older whites who had stayed.”
Now, she says, “It’s very diverse. It’s African-American, Latino, Vietnamese, and Caucasian all living in a four-by-eight-block area. It is cool.”
The Caritas Community, which Johns co-founded, is the major reason Binghampton is cool. “When we moved in, we moved in simply as a ministry presence — to be here and build relationships.”
She lives in Caritas House, which was bought after Caritas Community became a nonprofit.
Johns, who retired last December but still works in the community, began Caritas Village in 2006. “It’s the coffee shop, community center, and cultural arts center.”
She has watched housing prices rise. “When we bought Caritas — and it has a double lot — we paid $70,000 for it. And it was one of the larger houses in the neighborhood at the time. It had about 2,000 square feet in it.”
Last year, five 1,400-square-foot houses with two bedrooms and one bath “sold in the high 90s.”
She’s seen more renovation going on in the past few years. “Lots of people have moved in intentionally; some for faith reasons,” she says. The SOS [Service Over Self] people live in the neighborhood. And Christ Community doctors have moved in.”
Johns, who grew up on a farm in Ackerman, Mississippi, near Starkville, says Caritas House is “a lot like the farmhouse, although it was a big, old Victorian farmhouse. It had a wrap-around porch and lots of big oak trees.”
Johns plans to remain in Binghampton, but may stay in Caritas House rather than the house she owns down the street. “I thought I would retire in it, but I’m not going to tell you why I won’t. Vanity reasons.”
Then she relented. “Closets aren’t big enough.” — Michael Donahue
Photography by Larry Kuzniewski
