Davidson County · Middle Tennessee
Living in Belle Meade
Belle Meade is a separately incorporated city of about three square miles and roughly 2,900 residents, entirely surrounded by Nashville and incorporated in 1938. It is almost purely residential estate property, it runs its own police department, and it is the only one of Davidson County’s satellite cities that charges a city property tax on top of Metro’s.
- County
- Davidson, satellite city
- Property tax
- Metro GSD $2.782 plus city $0.3011 (2025)
- Design review
- Citywide conservation overlay
What’s actually there
- A city of about 3 square miles and roughly 2,900 residents, incorporated in 1938
- Belle Meade Boulevard, which ends at the main historic entrance to Percy Warner Park
- Its own police department at 4705 Harding Road, with patrol, a detective and house checks
- Five zoning districts, from Estates A down to Residence C
- Essentially no commercial district. The shops on Harding Pike are outside the city line
The housing stock
Estate property across five zoning districts, from Estates A, which preserves the large estate character with deeper setbacks, through to Residence C, which allows a more urban pattern on smaller lots. A new dwelling must be at least 2,000 square feet of gross floor area, and no building permit or subdivision approval is issued unless the lot has at least fifty feet of frontage on a public street. Belle Meade adopted an entirely new zoning ordinance in 2024, replacing one that had been substantially unchanged for more than thirty years, so any advice older than that is stale. Sales volume is very low, so published medians here are built on a handful of transactions and should be read as anecdotes rather than as a market.
Getting around
Roughly six to seven miles west of downtown, about fifteen to eighteen minutes off-peak by Harding Pike or West End. Percy Warner Park is at the end of the main boulevard.
Things to do in Belle Meade
Places worth knowing before you decide whether you want to live here.
Percy Warner Park main entrance
The gates at the end of Belle Meade Boulevard. The park itself is a Metro park, not a city one.
Iroquois Steeplechase
Run each spring at Percy Warner Park, on the Belle Meade side of the Warner Parks.
Belle Meade Police Department
The city’s own force at 4705 Harding Road, with 24 hour dispatch.
Belle Meade Historic Site and Winery
5025 Harding Pike. The 1807 mansion and former thoroughbred farm, with tours and tastings.
Cheekwood Estate and Gardens
1200 Forrest Park Drive, the 1930s estate with botanical gardens and an art museum.
Sperry’s
5109 Harding Pike, the steakhouse that has been there for decades.
Hill Center at Belle Meade
4324 Harding Pike, Publix-anchored shopping and dining.
Checked against each business as of August 14, 2026. Nashville loses restaurants faster than most cities, so if something here has closed since, tell me and I’ll get it corrected.
Subdivisions and named developments in Belle Meade
Once you are actually looking, you stop searching by city and start searching by subdivision. These are the names that come up, and what is true about each one that will still be true in three years. No prices, no dues, no days on market, because those change and this page would go stale telling you about them.
Belle Meade Links
The 1915 golf course subdivision, and the one that catches people out: it carries the Belle Meade name but it sits in Nashville, not in the city.
- Platted in 1915 by Bransford Realty, with Chicago landscape architect O.C. Simonds and engineer James Roy West laying out the curving streets. Bransford plats were recorded in 1916 and 1920.
- In Metro Nashville, not the City of Belle Meade. Every parcel sits in the Urban Services District under Metro zoning, which is the only reason a Metro overlay can apply here at all.
- Listed on the National Register on July 7, 2004, and separately covered by Metro’s Belle Meade Links Triangle neighborhood conservation overlay, ordinance BL2003-1418. Exterior changes visible from the street go through Historic Zoning review.
- About 150 parcels carry the Golf Links legal description, on lots of roughly a quarter to a half acre. That is a fraction of the size of the city lots a few blocks east.
- Arts and Crafts from 1915, then Tudor Revival through the 1920s and 1930s. The streets were deliberately drawn narrow and curving to keep through traffic out, and they still do.
Deer Park
The other Bransford plat, and the one that ended up inside the city line rather than outside it.
- Recorded June 25, 1914 as Bransford Realty’s Deer Park, Belle Meade, a year before the Golf Links plat.
- Inside the incorporated City of Belle Meade. Parcels carry the city’s tax district and the city’s own zoning rather than Metro’s, so permits, variances and zoning letters come from city hall.
- Jackson Boulevard is the spine. Lots run from roughly four tenths of an acre to well over an acre.
- No historic or conservation overlay applies here, and none can. Metro’s overlays stop at the city line, which is a real difference from Belle Meade Links a few streets away.
Belle Meade and Belle Meade Plan 2
The original city core, platted off the Belle Meade plantation two decades before there was a city.
- Belle Meade Sub recorded April 1, 1909. Belle Meade Plan 2 recorded in March and April of 1916.
- The city was not incorporated until October 25, 1938, and the reason was the calendar: the original private deed restrictions were due to expire at the end of that year.
- Its first act as a city was a zoning ordinance banning apartments and all commercial use. That ordinance is why there is essentially no retail inside the city today.
- Belle Meade Boulevard lots run roughly one and a half to two and a third acres, with Howell Place and Shepard Place closer to half an acre. The boulevard ends at the entrance to Percy Warner Park.
Highlands of Belle Meade
A two-wave plat, 1930 and then just after the war, and the clearest place in Nashville to see what a city line does to a street.
- Highlands of Belle Meade No 2 recorded February 24, 1930, with further plats recorded in October and December 1945 and May 1946.
- About 365 parcels carry the Highlands of Belle Meade legal description, on residential lots of roughly half an acre.
- In Metro Nashville, in the Urban Services District, under Metro RS20 and R20 zoning.
- Page Road physically crosses the city line. The low-numbered houses on Page Road are Metro at around half an acre. The 1300 block is City of Belle Meade at one and a half to two acres. Same street, two governments, two sets of rules.
- Laid out in lettered blocks along Page Road, Taggart Avenue and Old Harding Pike. No historic or conservation overlay covers any of it.
Whitworth
The 1990s outlier: small lots and tight streets dropped in among century-old estate subdivisions.
- Phased plats recorded from 1989 through 1995, including a platted tennis club in 1992 and a separate commercial section in 1991. The predecessor tract plat, Bosley-Whitworth Farm, was recorded in 1979.
- About 217 parcels on lots of roughly two tenths to a third of an acre, which is a different product entirely from everything around it.
- In Metro Nashville under R10 zoning, in the 37205 zip.
- Streets are Whitworth Boulevard and Whitworth Way. Not to be confused with The Grove at Whitworth on Elmington Avenue, which is an unrelated property with a similar name.
Schools
Metro Nashville Public Schools
Look up an address with the district →
Belle Meade does not run its own school district. Addresses here are served by Metro Nashville Public Schools, and there are no public schools inside the city limits. Zoning here is by street address, not by neighborhood name, and Metro runs a choice and magnet application separately from it. I pull the assignment for the exact address before you write an offer.
I publish district and school zoning as published fact and nothing more. No ratings, no rankings, no comparisons. School zones are set by the district, assigned by address rather than by subdivision or city name, and they change. Confirm any address with the district itself, and evaluate the schools yourself against what matters to your family.
What a buyer needs to know here
Four things are specific to buying inside the city line. First, you pay two property tax bills, the Metro general services rate of $2.782 per hundred dollars of assessed value for the 2025 tax year plus the city’s own $0.3011, so roughly $3.0831 combined. What that extra thirty cents buys is tangible: a dedicated city police department with house checks. Fire and ambulance are still Metro. Second, permits come from Belle Meade, not Metro Codes. Different office, different reviewers, different timeline. Third, and this is the one people miss, the entire city sits under a conservation overlay administered by a city historic zoning commission, established in 2019 with design guidelines published in 2022. Construction, alteration and demolition on significant properties require a certificate of appropriateness, additions must be secondary in scale, and demolition requires historic research and a materials salvage plan. Fourth, short-term rentals are prohibited here by ordinance adopted in November 2018. And a statewide point worth knowing anywhere in Tennessee: under the Short-Term Rental Unit Act, a grandfathered rental permit terminates when the property is sold or transferred. If a listing advertises grandfathered nightly income, the buyer inherits the prohibition, not the exemption.
Common questions
Does Belle Meade have its own property tax?
Yes, and it is the only Davidson County satellite city on this site that does. For the 2025 tax year you pay Metro’s general services rate of $2.782 per hundred of assessed value plus Belle Meade’s $0.3011, so about $3.0831 combined. Oak Hill and Forest Hills, by contrast, levy no city property tax at all. Rates are reset annually, so ask me for the current figures before you run your numbers.
Can I tear down and rebuild in Belle Meade?
Not without review. The whole city sits under a conservation overlay run by its own historic zoning commission. Demolition of a significant property requires historic research, building records and a materials salvage plan, and new construction has to be compatible in massing, scale, proportion and materials. Budget the review time into your plans, and remember the zoning ordinance was fully rewritten in 2024, so old precedent will not help you.
Can I short-term rent a house in Belle Meade?
No. The city prohibited short-term rental units by ordinance in November 2018. And if you are ever shown a Tennessee property operating under a grandfathered permit, understand that under state law that protection ends when the property is sold. You would be buying the prohibition, not the exemption.
Thinking about Belle Meade?
What are some of your must haves to make it a perfect home for you in this neighborhood?