Christmas lights in Lenoir City

Older houses near downtown

Lenoir City was built on purpose. A group of mostly Knoxville investors formed the Lenoir City Company in 1889 and bought the 2,700-acre Lenoir family estate to lay out a town. The company's 1890 office, a Victorian cottage on Depot Street, is now the Lenoir City Museum.

Many of the older houses on the lettered streets, Kingston Street and the numbered avenues went up between about 1900 and the 1930s, and they have the porches, trim and steep gables to show for it. Those houses look best when the trim is part of the plan. We outline the main gable and the porch roof so the shape reads at night, and the lights stay on the gutters and eaves, off the old siding.

Avalon and the lake

Avalon, the gated golf community on the Farragut side of town, has homeowners associations whose dues and covenants differ by section, from Traditions at Avalon to The Legends. Send us the rules for yours and we'll match the design and takedown date to them.

The Tennessee River and Fort Loudoun Lake make up the city's southern edge. TVA closed the gates on Fort Loudoun Dam in 1943, and the lake behind it covers 14,600 acres. Lake houses tend to save their decks and big windows for the water side, so we can light the back rooflines over the deck as well as the front.

Lenoir City's Christmas parade

The city's parade comes through downtown, from C Street to Pike Street, on an evening in early December, usually a Thursday. If you live near Broadway and want your lights up for it, call in the fall.