3313 Timberlake

Desta McGuire Shea and Walter Shea
A. D. "Bud" Suffridge
(from 1955 - 2001)

submitted by Dan Reiff, September 2009

(Following are notes from phone call with Dr. Walter C. Shea, Jr. of Lenoir City August 13, 2009)

The house at 3313 Timberlake Drive was built in 1955 by Walter Shea and Desta McGuire Shea.  They had three grown children at the time who did not live in the home. (Walter C., David L, and Margaret Ann)

I spoke with son, Dr. Walter C. Shea (age 82, wife Janice J.) in the summer of 2009. Dr. Shea was in medical school when his parents built the house on Timberlake. Previous to completing the house, they had lived in Forest Hills and rented an apartment in a home nearby on Montlake. Desta was from Kentucky originally.

Walter was an independent salesman, and Desta had operated an antique store on Magnolia Drive which she gave up to raise her kids and become a homemaker. After completing the construction of the Timberlake house, they immediately started making changes as soon as they had some equity in the home. The first addition was to enclose the area above the garage, creating a 28 x 18 foot sun room on the SW end of the home.

The garage below was originally a 4-car garage, with two doors and room for four cars. Later, the inner half would be converted to a small apartment with a kitchenette, and a wheelchair-accessible ramp to a bathroom built under the stairs. This small, windowless area of the house is where Desta mainly lived during her later years as her health declined.  While many neighbors knew the upstairs to be packed with furniture and antiques, unknown to most people in the neighborhood is that Desta suffered from retinal/macular degeneration and eventually became nearly blind, only seeing light and shadows.

Throughout the years, Desta was constantly making improvements to the property: The extensive covered back porch was added with the help of son, Walter. After a water pipe break and flooded basement, the lower level was gutted, pulling up all the old carpet over the slab and installing a vapor barrier and raised floor with 3/4 inch plywood and hard wood throughout. For a while in the 1980s, the basement was rented to a woman who taught at Webb school.

Walter Shea Sr. died in 1965. Desta later married a man named A.D. “Bud” Suffridge (Dr. Shea thought Bud was brother of Bob Suffridge, an All-American football player for UT). Bud passed away in the late 1980’s, and Desta continued to live in the home until 2001 when she moved to the Cove View Residence for the Elderly care facility on Maloney Rd.  She died in 2006 at the age of 101.

In late 2003, The house was auctioned and bought by David and Roger Kiger as investment property. They made repairs and cosmetic improvements, painted the exterior, cleaned up the lot, and sold the house to Dan and Mary Jo Reiff in 2004  [moved to Lawrence, KS, in July, 2010].

Dr. Shea recalled many things about the property and his mother’s life on Timberlake. There was a vegetable garden to the southwest side of the shed. According to Dr. Shea, the soil was excellent, and had been at one time a sweet potato farm. Desta had strawberries planted in the area above the driveway where the weeping cherry tree is.  Volunteer strawberries still grow there.

The Nowells (owners of Nowell’s Drug Store in Lenoir City) lived a couple houses up the road and raised chickens somewhere. According to Walter, Desta would buy eggs from their son.  

Walter described 20 magnificent azaleas that once lined the front of the house. Someone, (either Bud or the Nowell son) borrowed Walter Jr’s truck and got a load of chicken manure from UT farms and spread it out on the beds to fertilize the plants. Ultimately, it was far to rich in nitrogen and it killed the azaleas. Desta was furious.  He brought another truckload and she wouldn’t let him spread it anywhere, so he just left it in Walter’s truck for a year and it rotted out the truck bed.

Bud and Desta worked hard on the landscaping until they were physically unable to continue. After Bud died, Desta insisted that her son, Walter, mow the lawn because he was the “only one who could do it right.” He mowed every week for 10 years. Desta would cook him dinner on those days, and he fondly remembered coming in the house to the smell of cornbread. Dr. Shea said Desta always wanted to complete stone retaining walls where the lawn was terraced, but never got around to it. The lawn never had any large trees. A peach tree and several dogwoods were dotted across the terraces, but many were later cut down when they became diseased.

Desta was the victim of several break-ins. Security doors installed in the 1990s. As impenetrable as those appear, once — when Desta became ill and stayed with him for 6 weeks — thieves cut through one of the back security doors. After that they installed the security system and fire alarm. Several false alarms had Knox County deputies to the home. She frequently cooked, although she wasn’t supposed to with her poor eyesight. She once left a pot on the stove top and went out to sit on the back porch, dozed off and didn’t hear her alarm system going when the house filled with smoke.  Police officers first arrived on the scene, came around to the back and woke her up. Desta mentioned to the deputies that she heard sirens, so there must be a fire somewhere. They replied, “Lady, it’s your house that’s on fire.” Fortunately it was just burned dinner.

Dr. Shea said that Desta and he fought over her medical care and medication, and they became estranged in the 1990s until she died.  In the late 1990s, another small sun room was added to the NE end of the home with a wooden deck that connected to the back porch.  This was built against the wishes of Dr. Shea, who thought Desta was making needless and expensive improvements to the home. He felt she spent much of her time alone in the house, and all she had to think about was making changes to it. His brother, David, was caring for his mother at that point, and she insisted the sun room be built. It was the final major change she made to the home.