Davidson County · Middle Tennessee
Living in Old Hickory
Old Hickory is the village in Hadley’s Bend on the eastern edge of Davidson County, wrapped by the Cumberland River and Old Hickory Lake. DuPont built it from nothing in 1918 as a company town for a gunpowder plant, and the street pattern, the housing and the name all come from that. It is unincorporated Metro, about ten miles from downtown.
- County
- Davidson
- Distance to downtown Nashville
- ~10 miles
- Founded
- 1918, as a DuPont company town
- On the water
- Old Hickory Lake, operated by the Army Corps of Engineers
What’s actually there
- A planned village laid out in 1918, with the original supervisor and worker housing still standing in it
- Old Hickory Lock and Dam on the Cumberland at river mile 216.2, built between 1952 and 1954
- Old Hickory Lake, 22,500 acres running 97.3 miles upstream, with eight marinas and 41 boat access sites lakewide
- The Old Hickory Post Office, listed on the National Register in 1985
- Hermitage Golf Course along the river
- The DuPont plant site that became rayon and cellophane manufacturing after the First World War
The housing stock
This is the part that makes Old Hickory different from any other Davidson County neighborhood. The housing was built by DuPont starting in 1918: a permanent village of more than 300 homes for supervisory staff and a much larger temporary settlement for laborers, expanded again in the 1920s when the plant converted to rayon. DuPont ran the town and did not sell the houses to the people living in them until 1946. What that leaves is a coherent early 20th century village, small bungalows and larger Colonial Revival houses, much of it renovated over the last two decades. I do not publish a median for it, because the range between an untouched cottage and a finished lake-adjacent house is too wide for one number to mean anything.
Getting around
About ten miles to downtown, twenty to twenty-five minutes off-peak, with Old Hickory Boulevard and Briley Parkway the practical routes. Hermitage is just south across the bend and Madison is west.
Things to do in Old Hickory
Places worth knowing before you decide whether you want to live here.
Old Hickory Lake
22,500 acres of Cumberland River reservoir at normal pool, running 97.3 miles upstream, with eight marinas and 41 boat access points around it.
Old Hickory Lock and Dam
The Army Corps of Engineers dam at river mile 216.2, closed in 1954 and generating power since 1957.
Hermitage Golf Course
3939 Old Hickory Boulevard, two courses along the Cumberland.
Old Hickory Library
The Nashville Public Library branch at 1010 Jones Street.
Old Hickory Post Office
The Colonial Revival building listed on the National Register on August 6, 1985.
Checked against each business as of August 18, 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 Old Hickory
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.
Old Hickory Village
Not a subdivision. It is a company town DuPont built in 1918, and it is a National Register historic district today.
- Established January 29, 1918 by DuPont and the federal government as a gunpowder plant and planned town, originally named Jacksonville. Nine units, each capable of 100,000 pounds of powder a day, and the largest industrial facility in Tennessee history at the time.
- The plant closed within two months of the November 1918 armistice and the population fell to about 500 by 1919. DuPont converted the site to rayon in 1923 and 1924 and renamed the community Old Hickory for Andrew Jackson.
- Listed on the National Register May 24, 1985. The district covers 43.2 acres with 316 buildings, 276 of them contributing, bounded by Hadley Avenue and Jones Street, Eighth Street, Riverside Drive and 15th Avenue.
- Ten documented house types were built: Haskell, Georgia, Florence, Denver, Cumberland, Arlington, Ketchum, Wellford, Bay Tree and Davis. DuPont managed the village until 1946 and began selling the houses to employees that year.
- The Colonial Revival post office from 1934 and library from 1937 are both still there. No HOA.
Rayon City
Platted in the years right after DuPont converted the Old Hickory plant to rayon production, and named for it.
- 250 lots across two original plats, 96 recorded September 3, 1926 and 154 recorded September 24, 1929. About 170 parcels carry the name today.
- Genuinely mixed use, and worth checking before you assume: roughly 110 parcels are single family, but the name also covers duplex, triplex, two residential condominium parcels, plus church, office, auto repair, warehouse and retail.
- The 1926 and 1929 plat dates follow DuPont’s rayon conversion of 1923 and 1924. The connection between the conversion and the name is obvious but is not actually documented anywhere I could find.
- No HOA I can verify.
Brandywine Pointe
The peninsula community on the east side of Old Hickory Lake, platted across twelve phases in the 1990s.
- 306 platted lots across 24 recorded plats between June 1990 and November 1996, with Brandywine Harbor adding 21 more in 1999. About 251 parcels today.
- All single family detached per the Assessor, no condominium or Horizontal Property Regime classification.
- A clubhouse, pool, tennis and pickleball courts, walking trails and a community boat dock are described by a community marketing source rather than by a recorded document, so confirm what is actually there and who owns it.
- One recorded plat references common area, which means a recorded common area exists, but I could not locate the association document itself.
- Old Hickory Lake is an Army Corps of Engineers lake. Buying waterfront conveys no dock right: the Corps issues permits only in Limited Development Areas allocated for private docks, which is about a third of the 440 mile shoreline, and its own plan says the designation does not guarantee a permit at a specific location. Permits are privileges rather than rights, they are nontransferable, and a new owner must reapply. An individual dock needs at least 65 feet of allocated shoreline.
Brandywine Farms
The older Brandywine, immediately west off Shute Lane, platted across nineteen numbered sections from 1964 to 1976.
- 297 platted lots across sections 1 through 19 recorded between September 1964 and November 1976, with Brandywine Place adding 23 in 1985. About 470 parcels carry the name today, so some sections are not represented in the plat layer.
- Almost entirely single family detached, roughly 467 of 470 parcels.
- The street names are a single Delaware set: Barley Mill, Louviers, Montchanin, Kennett, Rising Sun, Brandywine. Those are all DuPont’s Brandywine Valley place names, which given Old Hickory’s history is hard to read as coincidence, but the naming intent is not documented and I will not state it as fact.
- No HOA I can verify.
Lakewood
A city that stopped being one. Lakewood incorporated, existed for fifty years, and voted itself out of existence.
- Incorporated as the City of Dupontonia in 1959, renamed Lakewood and reincorporated in 1961, covering one square mile.
- A charter surrender referendum on August 5, 2010 passed by a single vote, 400 to 399, and was challenged in court. A second election on March 15, 2011 returned 458 to 447 to surrender the charter and merge services with Metro Nashville.
- The plats that matter are Dupontonia Park, 24 lots recorded October 27, 1959, and Lakewood Heights, 17 lots recorded November 1, 1965, on Riner Drive, Iris Avenue and Rifle Range Road.
- It is now part of Metro Nashville like everything else in Davidson County, which means one tax bill and one permitting authority.
Schools
Metro Nashville Public Schools
Look up an address with the district →
Served by Metro Nashville Public Schools, assigned by address, with the choice and magnet application running separately. Confirm the specific address in the district’s Zone Finder.
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, and the first is the one people get wrong. Dock rights are not a deed right. The Army Corps of Engineers manages the shoreline of Old Hickory Lake, private docks require a Corps shoreline use permit, and not every stretch of shoreline is permitted for one. Before you pay a waterfront premium, we confirm with the Corps what that specific shoreline segment allows and whether an existing dock is permitted and transferable. Second, flood. The village sits inside a river bend with lake on one side, so flood zone is a parcel question and an elevation certificate belongs in the file. Third, the plant. This ground held a gunpowder plant and then decades of chemical manufacturing, so on any parcel near or downstream of the plant site a Phase One environmental review is a fair thing to ask for. Fourth, the historic question. The post office is individually listed on the National Register, and I have not been able to confirm whether a Metro historic or conservation overlay covers the village itself. That distinction matters: National Register listing alone restricts nothing you do to your house, while a Metro overlay reviews exterior changes and demolition. Confirm it at the parcel with Metro Historic Zoning before you plan a renovation.
Common questions
Why does Old Hickory look different from the rest of Nashville?
Because it was designed all at once. DuPont and the federal government agreed in January 1918 to build a smokeless gunpowder plant here and a town to house the people running it, and at its peak the operation employed somewhere between 35,000 and 56,000 people, the largest industrial facility in the state’s history. DuPont built the housing, the hospital, the churches, the theaters and the commissary. The plant shut two months after the armistice and the population collapsed to about 500, then DuPont came back in 1923 and converted the site to rayon and cellophane, renaming the town for Andrew Jackson. It stayed a company town until DuPont sold the houses to residents starting in 1946.
Can I put a dock on my Old Hickory Lake property?
Only with the Corps of Engineers’ permission, and not every shoreline qualifies. Old Hickory Lake is a federal reservoir managed by the Army Corps, private docks require a shoreline use permit, and the rules cover setbacks, vegetation and construction standards. Owning the lot next to the water is not the same as owning the right to build on the water. We call the Corps with the address before you pay a premium for a dock that may not be permitted.
How big is Old Hickory Lake?
22,500 acres at normal pool, running 97.3 miles upstream from the dam at river mile 216.2. There are eight marinas and 41 boat access sites around it. The dam itself was closed in 1954 and has been generating power since 1957, and the Corps still operates the whole system, which is why the shoreline rules are federal rather than local.
Thinking about Old Hickory?
What are some of your must haves to make it a perfect home for you in this neighborhood?