You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
The Standard.
It’s a restaurant downstairs and a private club upstairs.
The website says it is Nashville’s only remaining grand townhouse from the 1840s era still standing. It has a rich history and continues to be an integral part of life in downtown Nashville.
If that is true, it does it on a whisper and a wink.
The Standard is nestled between a financial institution and an old sporting goods store that looks like a hay barn from the 1950’s.
The edifice is a rather non descript building in a rather uninteresting part of town.
I’ve driven by this building a 100 times and never once thought about it.
I never once looked at the black awning over that lack luster entrance and said, “what the hell is that place?”
I never once said, Hey there’s the Standard, Wow that is one of the oldest, most storied buildings in all of Nashville, a city full of history and legends.
So it is on this evening that I am meeting a friend for a drink.
Where you wanna go I ask.
The Standard he says.
Huh?
Where’s that?
It’s on 8th avenue, he says.
What’s the Standard?
A private club. Members only.
Are you a member?
No, we’re meeting another friend. See ya there at 6:30.
Bang he hangs up.
It’s like a drug deal.
The Standard. 6:30pm. Click.
I don’t know whether to pack a 9mm in my waistband or bring a paper bag full of unmarked 20’s.
I drive up the street that I know reasonably well. I pass what was once the Classic Cat, a little exotic dance club next to the magnet High School.
No contradiction of imagery in Music City USA, right?
I see the sporting goods store. I know this landmark very very well.
But this is not why I know this store. It’s not because I like baseball gloves and sports jerseys. I know this place because I came here 2 dozen times in a row once upon a life.
4 years ago, on July 4th, ex-Titans star Quarterback Steve McNair was gunned down in a murder suicide. He died in an apartment near lower Broadway. He shared that apartment with a man who worked at the sporting good store next to the Standard.
That sporting good store employeewas actually the first person to find the dead bodies of Steve McNair and the woman who police say shot him and then herself.
Everyone wanted to interview the man who found them. Why did he wait 45 minutes before calling the police?
The rumors were crazy. Did that sporting goods store employee move the bodies, the gun, tamper with drugs or sex toys?
Why didn’t he call 911 right away?
My boss wanted to know the answer to those questions.
So for a month I visited the sporting goods store where he was an employee.
Those sporting goods guys hated my guts. They wanted me to buy a baseball glove or get the F out of the store.
Steve McNair’s friend had taken a leave of absence and was eventually let go.
I told the workers, all they had to do was tell him to call me and I’d leave them alone.
I assumed when he didn’t call, they didn’t hold up their end of the bargain so like the honey badger I am, I kept coming.
I walked into that sporting goods store 2 dozen times.
Did I ever look over and say; Hey there is the Standard.
Nope.
That’s why I’m surprised it is right next door to the sporting goods store. How could I miss that I think to myself.
I walk up to the front entrance of the Standard. I’m greeted by a couple of guys who smile, but don’t really say much.
I feel like I need to grease their palms or give them a secret handshake.
“yes sir?”
“I’m a guest of ….”
And like that the man at the door punches in a code on the circular lock and the door opens.
“Up the stairs, turn to the right and punch in the code 4 0 1 0”
He lets me in and the large oak door slams shut.
I look around. It’s old and quiet, and there is a smell of ghosts in the rafters.
The first floor seems ancient. The furniture is definitely not from Rooms-to-Go. It is right out of the 1900’S. Old paintings that seem so big, so gaudy, so out of place, are everywhere.
I make my way to the top of the entry way, again lined by old Civil War era furniture. There are canvas paintings of strange looking people hanging in a desultory way. The lighting is dim and I am disoriented.
At the top of the stairwell, there is a long hallway, connected to a series of rooms that all disappear into a catacomb of mystery.
The lock turns green and I hear a tumbler click, I step into another chamber, also dimly lit.
It is like an old Victorian home with catacombs of rooms, stacked on top of one another. The space is claustrophobic and dark. There is a book case before me and paintings of more dead people.
The walls are a collection of everything and anything. It’s as if a tornado of time has sand blasted the facade with historical artifacts.
Now it serves as another random piece of memorabilia in a room that has as much decoration savvy as a navy platoon on liberty.
It, like everything in this building, is dimly lit. Perhaps this room is dark because there are no windows, or perhaps because the walls are covered, like fungus with paintings and draperies and technicolor vomit.
I walk into another room, that is no bigger than a bedroom in a small apartment.
She is very light complected and she is wearing dark, Cleopatra type eye make up. She is fetching and hard not to ogle. She is like a living Vogue magazine cover.
“Can I help you?” she says in a southern voice that melts butter.
I’m looking for the smoking deck, I say, transfixed.
“Around the corner, through that door” she says, her words sweet like nectar.
I smile.
What door?
I see tables and lamps and book shelves and bears and photographs from 200 years ago, but a door?
I chuckle to myself, my eye jumping from object to object. Then I see a door knob.
My god, like a where’s waldo puzzle, the door is right in front of me.
A ray of sunlight pours into the space.
It’s only 6:30 pm and I have forgotten its still bright light outside this haunted house of nostalgia and enigma.
The sudden blast of sunshine infiltrates my DNA. If I am a vampire, I turn to vapor right there. Instead, I just sneeze as the bright sunlight tends to make me do.
I look to the wall. It is covered with photos of people from this century. Many are posing with cigars. Most of the photos are professionally taken.
I step onto the deck, which is like a New Orleans style patio. It is enclosed, but open to the sky. I will later ascertain that the huge white wall that helps form the court yard and the privacy of this space is actually the financial building, I spoke of previously.
I am slathered in a layer of cigar smoke that is floating on a gentle cool breeze.
I see another seductress at a table nearby.
“Hello. May i help you.”
“I’m here to see….”
my voice trails off.
“Cordan…”
Through the smoke and the shadows and the intrigue, I see the smiling faces of the men I have come to see.
“Grab a chair. Great place isn’t it?” he says motioning to the building around us.
I smile
“Jack and Ginger please.”
“Yes sir.”
I sit down and the men begin to tell me about the Standard. They regale me with its history, story of power brokers that meet here in the shadow of the State Capitol.
They tell me about politicians who make laws and then come here for a double malt scotch. They point out businessmen who come to unwind and smoke a stogie from a South American country before going home to their pedestrian lives. They inform me about the celebrities who come here to relax in obscurity with the other clandestine members of this secret society.
I drink my 10 dollar whisky and sit down. As I listen to the other men talk, I feel the ghosts of this venerable institution bathe over me in a cloak of secrecy.
I am glad I am here. It is another unique story and I always enjoy a new story.
And that is crazy.™