Living in Shy's Hill

What’s actually there

• A rebuilt trail with stone steps and a surfaced tread to the summit, completed in February 2023, free and open dawn to dusk.
• A Battle of Nashville historical marker at the foot of the trail, off Harding Place at Benton Smith Road.
• A monument to the 114th Illinois dedicated in October 2023, and refurbished mountain howitzers reinstalled the same month.
• Land the Battle of Nashville Trust is still assembling: 1.2 acres in April 2024, the 2.32 acre summit parcel bought from the Tennessee Historical Society in November 2025, and another 1.2 acres in June 2026, all of it protected by conservation easement through the Land Trust for Tennessee and the Tennessee Wars Commission.
• Houses on one to two and a half acre lots along the upper end of Shys Hill Road and Benton Smith Road, on the 1954 Section 1 plat.
• Smaller lots nearer half an acre at the lower end of Shys Hill Road on the 1985 and 1997 plats, plus two addresses platted as units with common area rather than as lots.
• The Battle of Nashville Monument two miles east at Granny White Pike and Clifton Lane, which is the other half of the same story.
• Radnor Lake a few minutes south and Green Hills retail a mile and a half north, so a house on a battlefield ridge is still five minutes from a grocery store.

The housing stock

Three plats, three different products, all on one road. The top of Shys Hill Road and Benton Smith Road belong to Seven Hills Section 1, recorded in 1954, where Metro parcel acreages run from about one acre to two and a half and the zoning is RS40. The lower end was filled in later, Evergreen Sub in 1985 and Gilbert / McCormick Sub in 1997, zoned RS20 and R20, with lots nearer half an acre, and two addresses there are platted as units with a separate common area parcel rather than as conventional lots. A buyer who reads the street as one market will misprice it in both directions. The other thing that shapes value here has nothing to do with the houses: four parcels on Benton Smith Road are owned by the Battle of Nashville Trust and cannot be developed, so some of these lots have a permanent wooded neighbor, which is rare inside the Metro line and is worth asking me to identify parcel by parcel.

Getting around

The hill sits just off Harding Place, so you are two minutes from a through road and about five miles from downtown. Hillsboro Pike is west and carries you north to interstate 440 and Vanderbilt, Franklin Pike and interstate 65 are east, and Granny White Pike runs south past the monument toward Radnor Lake. What a map will not tell you is the grade. Driveways here are cut into a slope that rises 250 feet off Harding Place, which matters for ice, for delivery trucks and for anyone who does not want to reverse down a hill. Walk it and drive it before you commit.

Things to do in Shy's Hill

Places worth knowing before you decide whether you want to live here.

• Shy's Hill

  4619 Benton Smith Road. On December 15 1864 the Confederate line was pushed back into a fishhook with its left bent around this hill, held by Bate's and Brown's divisions of Cheatham's Corps. Late the next afternoon Union troops came up the north and northeastern slopes, the line broke, and the Army of Tennessee gave way. Lieutenant Colonel William L. Shy of the 20th Tennessee Infantry, born May 24 1838 and 26 years old, was killed by a shot to the head at the summit, and his body was laid on the porch of the Felix Compton house nearby. The hill was renamed for him. His grave was vandalized in 1977 and he was reinterred at Two Rivers Farm near Franklin. The Battle of Nashville Trust owns the core of the hill today and keeps it open free of charge from dawn to dusk.

• Battle of Nashville Monument

  Granny White Pike at Clifton Lane. Giuseppe Moretti sculpted it and it was dedicated on Armistice Day, November 11 1927, to the Confederate and Union dead of this battle and to Tennesseans lost in the First World War. A tornado destroyed it on March 31 1974. The bronze was cleaned and resealed, the obelisk and angel were rebuilt because the original marble proved too fragile, and it was rededicated on June 26 1999 at this location. The Tennessee Historical Commission owns it, and the two acre interpretive park around it has parking, paths, benches and signage.

• Radnor Lake State Natural Area

  1160 Otter Creek Road. Just over 1,400 acres around an 85 acre lake with 7.75 miles of trail, restricted to hiking, photography and wildlife watching. Dogs, jogging and bicycles belong on the Otter Creek Road Trail and nowhere else in the park. The Walter Criley Visitor Center is reached from the west parking area off Granny White Pike.

Checked against each business as of September 28, 2026. Nashville loses restaurants faster than most cities, so if something here has closed since, tell me and I’ll get it corrected.

Schools

• Metro Nashville Public Schools

  Look up an address with the district →

This is a Metro Nashville Public Schools address. Zoning is set by address and not by street or subdivision, and this short road crosses three separate plats, so confirm the specific house with the district rather than assuming it matches a neighbor. Nothing on this page substitutes for the district lookup.

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.

Common questions