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As first reported here (“Bredesen’s Bunker,” Oct. 18), the satellite city of Oak Hill has recently given birth to a variation on NIMBY—“Not In My Back Yard.” The new acronym is NITFY, for “Not In Their Front Yard.” A cast of neighbors who live on and around Curtiswood Lane near the governor’s house, also known as the Executive Residence, are savaging Gov. Phil Bredesen and his wife Andrea Conte over the first lady’s proposal to construct a 12,714-square-foot entertainment space under the sod of the front yard.

In the last week, the newfound cause of the Oak Hill overprivileged set has taken a turn for the absurd, with at least one resident suggesting that construction for the proposed underground space might cause psychological damage to children who live nearby.

One of the concerned mothers and a leader of the opposition is Lorelee Gawaluck, who has lived across the street from the governor’s house for two years. Gawaluck is especially concerned about the blasting necessary to make a hole for the structure. “They’ve done no seismic study, no designer has looked at any of our homes to consider the negative impacts. Are we going to need to tape our windows? And what if our foundations are cracked, but the effects don’t show up for two to three years? Are they going to set up a fund to reimburse us for damages? And what about the psychological effects of two months of blasting on small children? Are they going to send in a psychologist to tell us how to prepare our children?”

She concludes, “Gov. Bredesen was elected to represent us, to defend us. Instead he wants to blast up our neighborhood.”

Conte, who was castigated by neighbors during a meeting last week, explains that the facility is needed because the dining room in the governor’s house “only seats 22, which means for gatherings larger than that you have to truck in and set up tents on the lawn.” That also means trucking in stage flooring, lighting, sound equipment and, depending on the season, heating or cooling. “It just doesn’t work well,” Conte tells the Scene. “When you’re doing a business recruitment event, you want a comfortable, kind of special space where a company’s representatives can meet with our political and business leaders without the constraint of 22 people.”

Mike Fitts, Tennessee’s state architect since 1971, says entertaining large groups at the governor’s house “has been a problem as long as I can remember.” Fitts recalls that Gov. Don Sundquist proposed attaching a big room to the street facade, but Fitts advised against that “because it would destroy the architectural character. The challenge with an above-ground building is how to get the space you need to, say, host the legislature and their spouses, and touch lightly on the residence rather than overpower it.”

Touching lightly is especially difficult because, unlike most houses, the governor’s residence has two primary facades: the loggia that faces Curtiswood and the rear with the ceremonial entrance. Attaching a large addition to either would create an architectural carbuncle on the building’s face.

In developing a permanent entertainment facility for the governor, Conte first explored the option of a glassy conservatory—transparency reads as less bulky—adjacent to the pool area with a rather tenuous connection to the house. “That raised questions about a service road, the adjacency to neighbors’ property lines and the impact of all that density on the site,” says assistant state architect Alan Robertson.

When architects with the Memphis firm of archimania and landscape architects with Knoxville’s Ross/Fowler were retained a year ago, they came up with the underground concept. “I was very skeptical at first,” Conte says. The designers “showed me how below ground made more sense, because it would have almost no visual impact on the residence or the neighborhood and would be much more energy efficient.”

Because of the green roof and general enviro-friendliness, the project was christened Conservation Hall.

In the plan, a drive branches off from the main driveway to form a circular drop-off in front of the entrance. A large stair leads to the space below surrounding an open-air courtyard encircled by an atrium. On one side of the courtyard is the 3,000-square-foot public area, designed to seat 160 for dinner or accommodate a maximum of 499 in meeting format. On the other side are service spaces: catering kitchen, rest rooms, coat room, storage, telecommunications, mechanical systems. At ground level, a glass wall surrounds the oval courtyard. The wall, the entrance and the circular drive would be all that’s visible from the residence or surrounding neighborhood, according to Robertson. The underground facility would be funded with $4.8 million in private funds, and another $3.86 million in public money would cover the drive and an ADA connection linking residence to underground.

To make the concrete-walled room look like something other than a glorified fallout shelter, Conte says she envisions a gallery to celebrate Tennessee history and the history of the residence. “When we took the old draperies down in the residence, we gave them to textile artists and they’ve made quilts and wall hangings from the sections. The lack of light is good for textiles.”

Conte and her design team may think that going underground would have the least impact on the neighborhood. But to Oak Hill city officials and some neighbors, the idea of any permanent entertainment space this big—above or below grade—packs a wallop.

“The size and scope of the project, which will be almost two times that of the residence, is totally inappropriate,” says city manager Bill Kraus. “The streets are narrow, and mothers with children are concerned about traffic and safety.”

Assistant state architect Robertson points out that the executive residence has always hosted large events, and that the new facility will utilize the same traffic plan used previously: park cars in nearby church lots and shuttle guests to the house.

But that’s not good enough for Kraus.

“A permanent facility is different than tents because it will increase the attractiveness of having [events] and therefore increase their frequency. And with a meeting hall this big, with 14 to 20 people in a van, you could have 20 trips each way.”

Robertson explains that technicians have calculated the radius of the blasting zone to be approximately 500 feet. He says that the closest residence to the blasting will be the newly renovated governor’s house itself, which “has materials—handmade plaster and ceramic tile—very sensitive to blasting and excavation. So the first lady above all wants to control the impact.” He says that members of the construction team will take exterior and interior photos of structures within the zone—five houses and some additional outbuildings—so that if there are damage claims “we’ll know if a crack was not there before.”

One neighbor with a positive attitude toward Conservation Hall is Judy Danner, a 32-year resident of the house immediately behind the governor’s. “This is 2007, and the governor cannot continue to host the kind of events he needs to do in a tent, which is a lovely but outdated Southern tradition. I do bigger parties than what they’re talking about, and if you live on Curtiswood Lane, you know you have to park off-site and shuttle. “ Danner wonders, “And just what is commercial? When my husband [Ray Danner] was head of Shoney’s, we had Christmas parties for 500 people in the business. Do you think they were all my personal friends? Andrea Conte is trying to do an innovative thing that can help the state.”

Before the governor gained an official home in 1907—the first of three, culminating on Curtiswood—there were various proposals to give the chief executive some rooms of his own. The most interesting from the standpoint of symbolism was an 1860 suggestion by state Sen. R. W. Bumpus to remodel the state’s old lunatic asylum for an executive residence. The scheme came to nothing. But these days Phil Bredesen and Andrea Conte may be musing on the lunatic asylum with fond regret.