The first president’s residence of the institution was the stately home of Charles McClung, which included most of a 74-acre tract of land north of the Hill. This residence and its extensive grounds were bought in 1826 as an inducement to Dr. Charles Coffin to leave Greeneville College, where he was serving as president, to become president of East Tennessee College. The house was to serve as the president’s residence and complement his $1,500-per-year salary. This land was subsequently sold.
In 1888 a president’s residence was built on the southeast slope of the Hill. It was occupied by President Dabney and then by President Ayres. Dr. Harcourt Morgan, who succeeded President Ayres in 1919, had moved from his house on Rose Avenue to a house (2420 Kingston Pike) on the agriculture campus when he was named dean of agriculture and chose to continue to live there as president. Since he was to continue living in the house he had occupied as dean, the 1888 president’s residence was converted into a dormitory for women. It was razed in 1930 for construction of Ferris Hall.
Morgan continued to live in the house on the agriculture campus while a director at TVA. His presence gave the name Morgan Hill to the section of that campus where sorority village now is. In 1949 he notified the board of trustees that he had moved out of the house and recommended that the house be razed and the bricks used on the UT farms—Cherokee Farm and Blount County Farm. The board approved and the house was razed.
When Dr. James D. Hoskins became president in 1934, he lived removed from the campus, in north Knoxville, and the university was without a president’s residence. The university offered him his choice of a house at 834 Temple Avenue or the Shields House (which became the Faculty Club) as a president’s residence. Hoskins chose the house on Temple Avenue, believing that the Shields House would make a better Faculty Club. He lived in the house on Temple Avenue (now Volunteer Boulevard) during his presidency and after his retirement until his death in 1960. Following his death, the house served as the Extension Library for Continuing Education. The building was razed to construct the Stokely Management Center.
The next institutionally owned president’s residence was obtained in 1960 through a gift-purchase arrangement with attorney Ray Jenkins and his wife, the former Eva Nash, who offered a brick residence on Cherokee Boulevard, a structure to which the woodwork from the Nash residence on Main Street had been moved. Presidents Holt and Boling occupied this residence during their presidencies. During Lamar Alexander’s presidency, the board of trustees sold the chancellor’s residence next door to the president’s residence, and the president’s residence became the chancellor’s residence in 1989. President Joseph Johnson continued to live in his Knoxville home while president. In 1999 the university was again reorganized, and, with the abolition of the office of chancellor, 940 Cherokee Boulevard again became the president’s residence, although President Wade Gilley resigned a month before he was scheduled to move into the extensively renovated home. President John Shumaker occupied the house and had additional extensive renovations done during his brief tenure as president, and President John Petersen then occupied the house. Nash Hall was sold for $2 million in 2013.
A structure on Lyons View Drive, a house and grounds willed to the university by Eugenia Williams, had additionally been proposed to serve as the president’s residence, and funds were beginning to be raised for its renovation when President Gilley indicated his preference for the house on Cherokee Boulevard as a president’s residence.