Tulip Grove: The President's Secretary Built Next Door

Across Lebanon Pike from the Hermitage stands Tulip Grove, a Greek Revival mansion built between eighteen thirty-four and eighteen thirty-six for Andrew Jackson Donelson, Rachel Jackson's nephew and President Jackson's private secretary. Donelson commissioned the house while he and his wife Emily were still living in the White House, modeling it on pattern books by Boston architect Asher Benjamin. The thousand-acre cotton plantation was originally called Poplar Grove; former president Martin Van Buren reportedly suggested the new name during an eighteen forty-two visit, noting the tulip-shaped blossoms on the poplar trees.

Tragedy marked the house from the start: Emily Donelson died of tuberculosis in December eighteen thirty-six, just months after the house was completed, two days before her husband could return from Washington. Today the Ladies Hermitage Association manages the mansion alongside the adjacent Hermitage estate.