National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, Mountain Branch, Administration Building, Lamont & Veterans Way, Johnson City, Washington County, TN

Significance: The Administration Building was constructed in 1903-04 as the primary office building for the Mountain Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. The NHDVS was a federal institution authorized by Congress in 1865 and charged with caring for Civil War veterans disabled by their military service. Its ninth branch, the Mountain Branch, was a Beaux Arts campus of French Renaissance Revival structures built between 1901 and 1905. The location was chosen at the urging of local Congressman Walter P. Brownlow for its healthful climate and proximity to underserved veterans in Tennessee and other southern states. Although founded for Civil War veterans of the Union Army, the NHDVS membership had expanded over the decades to include veterans of the Mexican, Indian, and Spanish American Wars. By 1930 the system had eleven branches and became part of the new Veterans Administration.

The winning competition design for the Mountain Branch by New York architect Joseph H. Freedlander incorporated the latest ideas of comprehensive design and Neoclassicism as taught by the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Freedlander created a hierarchy of communal buildings, barracks, and service functions arranged along a central avenue with views south to the nearby mountains. The Administration Building serves as the western terminus of the main avenue, facing the Hospital. Eschewing the ornamentation and monumental scale of other structures such as the Mess Hall or Barracks, the understated red brick façade of the Administration Building created a transition to the officers' houses clustered behind and set a tone of sober efficiency for the Branch management.

Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N1794
Survey number: HABS TN-254-Y
Building/structure dates: 1904 Initial Construction