Belle Meade Plantation

Belle Meade Plantation, now officially known as Belle Meade Historic Site and Winery, is a historic farm in Nashville, Tennessee, established in 1807 and owned by five generations of the Harding-Jackson family for nearly a century. At its largest the farm covered 5,400 acres and used a labor force of 136 people, including enslaved workers, and its centerpiece was a Greek Revival mansion built in 1853. Belle Meade gained a national reputation in the late 19th century for breeding thoroughbred racehorses, including the celebrated stallion Iroquois, though the mansion was pillaged when Union troops occupied Nashville during the Civil War and the estate was eventually broken up and sold in parcels in 1906 after a financial downturn and the deaths of its owner and his heir.