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Andrew Johnson Building (Knoxville, Tennessee)

USA / Tennessee / Knoxville / Knoxville, Tennessee / South Gay Street, 912
 office building, high-rise, 1930_construction, historical building, Beaux-Arts (architecture)

The Andrew Johnson Building is a Beaux Arts-styled highrise building in Downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. The 18-storey building, constructed from 1926 to 1930, has a height of 203 ft (62 m). It was the tallest building in Knoxville from 1930 until 1979. The building was originally the Andrew Johnson Hotel and was named after President Andrew Johnson. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

The building's eighteen storeys consist of fifteen floors, a mezzanine, and a two-storey penthouse. The building is rectangular in shape, with a recess running up the middle of the west facade. The ground floor extends out beyond the rest of the building to provide a base for the unique second story, which includes an open-air pavilion. While most of the building's exterior consists of brick, the ground floor's Gay Street facade is sheathed in concrete cast to appear as rusticated stone. The second story of the Andrew Johnson was designed as the main story, and originally contained the hotel's lobby and front desk, a ballroom, and a pavilion. The pavilion consists of a five-bay arcade, with arches flanked by Ionic pilasters. Each side of the pavilion was originally flanked by terraces and balustrades, which were replaced when the ballroom was expanded in the 1960s. The second story is higher than the building's other stories to accommodate a mezzanine, which overlooks the lobby. Most of the windows for floors four through fifteen are simple, rectangular windows, with exception of the fourteenth-floor windows, which are topped by small arched pediments. Atop the building is the penthouse, which is seven bays wide, and is adorned with brick Ionic pilasters. The second story of the penthouse originally had oval windows, but these have been replaced with simple rectangular windows. From the mid-1930s until the late-1970s, a large neon sign reading "Hotel Andrew Johnson" stood atop the building.

In its early years, the Andrew Johnson Hotel was popular with foreign dignitaries visiting Knoxville to inquire about the newly-created Tennessee Valley Authority, as well as with tourists en route to the newly-created Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Hank Williams spent the last night of his life at the hotel on December 31, 1952. During the 1930s, radio station WNOX was located in the 17th floor of the hotel. In the 1940s, R.J.Reynolds, Jr. purchased the Andrew Johnson Hotel. After his death in 1964, his widow maintained ownership until 1973. By that time, the Hyatt Regency had usurped the Andrew Johnson as Knoxville's premier hotel, and the Andrew Johnson began to decline. The hotel changed owners several times throughout the 1970s, and in the 1980s, the building was converted into an office building by the Aetna Casualty and Surety Company. It has a floor area of 140,000 sq ft.

The Andrew Johnson Building currently houses offices for Knox County. The primary occupant is Knox County Schools. It also houses the Finance, Property Development, and Telecommunications offices of the county's Public Building Authority, human resource offices for the Knox County Sheriff's Department, and the County's Probation and Pre-Trial Services.
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Coordinates:   35°57'40"N   83°54'55"W
This article was last modified 6 years ago