Tag: Larry Potter

Categories
News News Blog

Judge Gives Aretha Franklin House One More Month

Aretha Franklin’s home before Memphis Heritage volunteers boarded up windows.

The LeMoyne-Owen College Community Development Corporation (LOCCDC) has just over 30 days to make progress on its plan to salvage the blighted birthplace of Aretha Franklin. In court on Thursday morning, Shelby County Environmental Court Judge Larry Potter issued a stay on his order to demolish the home. 

Earlier this month, Potter put the home at 406 Lucy in South Memphis into a city receivership and ordered the home to be demolished. It was first declared a public nuisance in October 2012 due to its blighted state. The entire back half of the home was nearly destroyed by fire years ago, and one side of the roof over the porch was sagging. South Memphis Renewal CDC was appointed a receiver for the property about a year ago, and Jeffrey Higgs of the LOCCDC informed the Environmental Court at that time that his group would fund-raise and relocate the home elsewhere in Soulsville. But little physical progress had been made.

However, Memphis Heritage volunteers showed up a couple weeks ago to board up the home. Its owner, Vera House, had her son remove the partially collapsed back portion of the home last week. 

Because those steps had been taken to secure the home, Potter told Higgs that he could have 30 days to prove that his plan to save the home was actually underway. Higgs told Potter that both Mayors Jim Strickland and Mark Luttrell had stepped in to help put him in touch with Franklin, who he said may put some funding toward saving the home.

“Ms. Franklin has talked to me personally and expressed an interest in saving the home,” Higgs told Potter, after first admitting that he wasn’t comfortable discussing that deal in court.

Higgs later told Potter that Franklin had said she’d like to see the home, where she was born and lived until about age 2, salvaged and placed in a museum. Higgs also told the court that he’d had some interest from local business owners who would be willing contribute money to saving the home.

After looking at the most recent photographs of the home, Potter commended the efforts to board the home and demolish the back portion. But he instructed Higgs that he must remove debris from the property and cut the grass.

“Let’s let the country know we’re going to clean up Aretha Franklin’s house,” Potter said.

After court ended, Higgs said his next step will be approaching the partners who have expressed interest in saving the home to let them know it’s “time to put up or be quiet.”

House and her grandson Christopher Dean were present in court on Thursday morning. Afterward, Dean said he hoped Higgs would come through with his plan, but he said Potter “should have given him five days instead of 30,” adding that Higgs’ group had had plenty of time before now to make progress on the house. Dean said, should Higgs’ efforts fail, he and his family have a back-up plan for saving the home.

As for Potter, he admitted that his demolition order on the home earlier this month wasn’t “one of his golden moments,” but he said the house was in such bad shape for so long that he was left without a choice.

“The moral to this story is that you may work on a case for four years, but as soon as you order the house to be demolished, by golly, it goes national,” Potter said. “So maybe we should just order everything [blighted to be] torn down.”

Higgs must appear before the court to report on progress on August 11th.

Categories
News The Fly-By

An Inside Look at Ashlar Hall

An open house doesn’t typically show off peeling paint and bullet holes in glass, but Ashlar Hall isn’t a typical place.

An open house fund-raising event was held there last weekend to raise money for restoring the long-vacant, historic property at 1397 Central, often still referred to as “Prince Mongo’s Castle” after the nightclub Robert “Prince Mongo” Hodges operated there in the 1990s.

Now the building’s current owner, Kenny Medlin, wants to transform the old Castle into an administrative property for military veterans.

Visitors ogled the 117-year-old building during the tours, a rare event that brought people out in the hot afternoon. Organizations, some with a military focus, such as Alpha Omega Veterans Services, handed out pamphlets from under a tent.

An autographed George Strait guitar was up for auction to help raise funds. Bluegrass band Rosewater performed for visitors to promote their charity, the Homeless Veterans Project. Donation buckets were scattered around the property.

Old ashtrays still linger on the bar inside Ashlar Hall.

Medlin acquired the building last year after it was transferred to him from its previous owner Hodges. Initially, Shelby County Environmental Court Judge Larry Potter invalidated the transfer after Medlin failed to produce a plan for the property by the January 27th deadline that Potter set. At the time, Medlin had said he wanted to turn the house into a home for terminally ill children.

In February, Potter reversed his decision and upheld the 2013 transfer. But Potter said other groups could still submit their plans for the building.

The Memphis Comic and Fantasy Convention submitted a proposal to turn the property into a center for the arts but pulled out of negotiations to rent the space after conflicts about how much Medlin would charge for rent.

Medlin eventually decided to turn the building into an administrative property for military veterans, using his Urban Renaissance Initiative organization as an underwriter.

“Our goal is to take condemned properties, rehab them for nonprofits, and get them back onto the tax roll. We hope Ashlar Hall becomes the bellwether of those efforts,” Medlin said of the Urban Renaissance Initiative.

Remnants of the building’s former life as a nightclub can still be seen throughout the two-story building: a Laser Music jukebox upstairs, metal-encased CRT TVs in the foyer, ashtrays scattered around the many bar tables.

Futuristic decor such as spaceship light fixtures and random plates of shiny metal were affixed to the walls, leftover from the mansion’s partying days. The many bars within the building still had stacked cups and ashtrays lying around, almost as if the patrons and staff had left in a hurry.

Visitors took pictures in nearly every nook and cranny, finding closets of oddities like a ghillie suit sitting among broken cups and pitchers. The VIP suite on the first floor and the basement were roped off.

Even outside, the neon “ASTLE” (the “C” is missing) remains, giving a glimpse into the property’s former glory.

“We used to hear stories about this place back in the day,” said one visitor, who preferred not to be named. “If only walls could talk.”

Categories
Opinion

Club 152 on Beale is Open Again

1.jpg

Let the upscale freakism resume.

Club 152 on Beale Street reopened Friday at noon (technically 1 p.m. because the order came just after noon) after a settlement was reached in Environmental Court. Third time was the charm, as the case had been reset twice this week while Judge Larry Potter met with attorneys. The club was closed a week ago as a public nuisance due to drug sales.

“This resolution must be abided by,” said Potter. “Deviation from this will incur the wrath of the court.”

Ted Hansom, representing Club 152, and Katie Ratton from the Shelby County District Attorney General’s Office, both said it was their common interest to try to get drugs off of Beale Street.

“The club has taken steps in assuring the prevention and abatement of any nuisance activity that was alleged to have existed at Club 152. Managers of Club 152 drug tested each and every potential employee of the club and are complying with the current mandatory background check requirement,” says the order. “Respondents have been very cooperative and efficient in complying.”

The club acknowledged the allegations and will submit to court supervision and monitoring for one year. They will fire all employees involved in illegal activity and ban them from the premises. Hansom said 106 employees had been tested. He said at least two and possibly more employees face criminal charges.

Club 152, which markets its upper floors as “upscale freakism,” will pay $4,000 to the West Tennessee Judicial Drug Task Force. Most important to the club owners, however, is that the club will reopen for what is expected to be one of the biggest weekends of the year.