Since 1945

The cottage stood here long before we arrived.

It stood before the dogwoods grew tall enough to cast shade across the garden. Before ivy found its way along the stone. Before decades of seasons settled quietly into the grain of old wood and the corners of well-loved rooms.

It has quietly stood here since 1945.

As the war came to an end beneath Tennessee skies, a small Cape cottage began its life. But this cottage was a bit different. It was not purchased or manufactured. It was built by intentional hands, board by board and room by room, by a young husband and father who would call it his family home.

For more than fifty years, the cottage belonged to him and his small family. It witnessed ordinary mornings and holiday gatherings, changing seasons and changing generations. It watched trees mature, gardens shift, and the neighborhood grow around it.

The years passed gently, and in the blink of an eye, after a lifetime spent within its walls, the craftsman’s chapter came to a close. Yet the house remained in the care of those who loved it.

A decade later, the craftsman’s daughter entrusted the cottage to a new family, and over the next decade they carefully restored and refreshed the home, preserving much of its character while helping it step gracefully into a new century.

But eventually, life moved on, and the family left. The rooms grew quiet, and the gardens began to wander. The paint weathered, and the pathways softened beneath fallen leaves. The cottage was never abandoned, but it entered a kind of silence.

And for a time, it waited.

When we first stepped inside the cottage, it did not feel like a project. It felt like a conversation already in progress. There were places that seemed to whisper what they needed. Gardens that wanted tending. Pathways that wished to be uncovered. Rooms that felt less interested in being redesigned and more interested in being understood.

The cottage seemed to know exactly what was needed, and our task was simply to listen.

That has become the guiding philosophy of our stewardship here. Not to transform. Not to reinvent or erase. Simply to pay attention and understand what has always belonged.

We are honoring the vision of the craftsman who built this house with his own hands so long ago, and we work each day to preserve the quiet English character that has endured through generations. While the ownership of the cottage has now passed to us, we are only one small chapter in a much longer story—a story of a little cottage that lived a full life before us and, if we are fortunate, will continue for many years after we are gone.

And somewhere between those two truths, we will spend our years tending gardens, restoring old paths, celebrating the seasons, listening closely, and adding our own pages to a story that has been unfolding since 1945.

This is The Cottage at Foxhavens.

Next Time

Long before we started our chapter in The Cottage’s story, it belonged to others. In 1945, as the world began settling into peace once again, a young husband and father began his journey to craft a family home. Hurcil’s dream began a chapter that would quietly shape the origin story for more than half a century.