As happens in many towns, Franklin's preservation movement dates to the destruction of a historic home.

When a handsome 19th century house on the Hillsboro Road gateway into downtown was demolished for a gas station, outraged citizens formed the Heritage Foundation of Franklin and Williamson County. The gas station didn't last: it has since been replaced by an equally jarring strip development. But the foundation and its spin-off organization, the Downtown Franklin Association, have earned national recognition and awards for the effectiveness of their continuing struggle to save the texture of the town and its surrounding landscape. This despite a city hall that is often neutral at best in keeping bulldozing and subdividing under enough control to keep the last piece of historic downtown and surrounding farmland from disappearing under asphalt.

The centerpiece of the preservation success story is Franklin's downtown, where 19th century neighborhoods surround the elegance of the revitalized Main Street. In the '70s, it looked as if Main Street would die, with its corpse removed for burial at the Highway 96 exit of I-65.

But the Heritage Foundation's proselytizing converted enough true believers to reverse Main Street's apparently terminal coma.

One of a half-dozen visionary Main Street investors in the 1980s was Calvin Lehew, who bought a seven-building commercial block downtown, then created Choices restaurant with an upstairs bar after Franklin voted for liquor by the drink. In the mid-'90s, Lehew sold his downtown property to tackle an even more financially risky project—conversion of the old Jamison Bedding factory just outside downtown into the mixed-use redevelopment project known as The Factory. (Think Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco).

But that first wave of downtown renovation pioneers left a permanent legacy finally being realized today.

The restaurant Calvin and Marilyn founded is now Sandy's Downtown Grille, and the bar has moved downstairs, but it's still a focal point of the revitalized Main Street. Next door is Merridee's Breadbasket, and across the street is McCreary's Pub. A block away in one direction is Starbucks, and a block in the other is the Mellow Mushroom. Nearby is Puckett's Gro. and Restaurant, scheduled to open this weekend with breakfast, lunch and dinner, along with offering convenience groceries, fresh meats and live Saturday night entertainment.

The downtown retail scene has lost its hardware store, its Ben Franklin five-and-dime, and its car dealerships, but a new generation of specialty shops is flourishing, not only on Main Street but also in the Second Avenue South antiques district.

The transformation is no accident. The symbiosis between investors and preservationists began in the 1980s when Main Street pioneers got consultant help from the Heritage Foundation on their applications to the Department of the Interior, certifying their building restorations and earning tax credits that made their projects financially feasible.

Local government also played a role. Franklin's survival as living town rather than museum owes a lot to decisions to keep key government functions downtown. The Downtown Franklin Association led a successful effort to keep a post office presence at the central Five Points junction, and Williamson County has just opened a new $10 million judicial center a block off Main Street, thanks to county leaders who believe the heart of the county should remain in the heart of downtown.

"We've been in downtown Franklin for 200 years and want to continue that tradition for the next 200," says Rogers Anderson, Williamson County mayor.

Not only has Franklin kept City Hall downtown (even though its in a non-descript 1970s former shopping mall), it's also built two parking garages to handle the growth in retail, office and government activity downtown. The garages, the second of which opened just last week, carefully complement the 19th century architecture of the classic Main Street buildings nearby.

And a few blocks outside of downtown on the Franklin Road gateway, the city just plunked down $10 million to buy the 200-acre Harlinsdale property, a walking horse farm that has for generations rewarded weary commuters with a spectacular sunset vista of rolling fields and nursing foals at the end of their drive back to Franklin.

The farm will be converted into a city park, but the equine heritage of the property will always be a part of the landscape there, Franklin Mayor Tom Miller promises.

Much of downtown is covered by a historic zoning overlay. Though some property owners resent anyone telling them what to do with their property, recent investors have embraced historic preservation rather than trying to fight it.

"I'm a big proponent of the Historic Zoning Commission and other efforts to make sure the people who live here 75 years from now see a town that looks like it does today," says Bernie Butler, developer of First and Church. Historic zoning ensures that the scale and style of his new downtown development complement nearby historic structures, including the 1823 Hiram Masonic Lodge, once the tallest building west of the Allegheny Mountains.

A block-and-a-half north of Butler's First and Church project, the nondescript two acres recently abandoned by Atmos Energy will be the site of a new mixed-use development, with retail planned for downstairs and condos upstairs—to be priced from $300,00 to $900,000.

The redeveloper of the Atmos property, Jay Franks, is a member of the Heritage Foundation board and wants to do something different from the conventional subdivisions he has built in and around Franklin for the past three decades.

Another downtown investor who appreciates historic Franklin's appeal is Mark Bloom, one of the partners in an investment group that has recently begun to renovate several key properties on Franklin's Main Street, including Franklin Cinema, one of the rare breed of independent movie theaters surviving in small town America.

"Franklin is unique because it has a timeless appeal, a very unusual setting that is impossible to replicate anymore," says Mark Bloom. He promises to keep Franklin Cinema in operation. ("We'd probably get lynched if we didn't," he says.)

Bloom and his partners have gutted a furniture store that was itself once a Dodge dealership. He promises "a very high-profile restaurant" in the space, "a coup for downtown Franklin."

Some downtown retailers view chain operations like Bloom's new restaurant as a threat to the town's unique synergy. The furniture store Bloom is replacing with the new restaurant was locally owned and operated, and longtime Main Street operations like Gray Drug and Robinson's Upholstery are also closing their doors. But Bloom insists that the assemblage of downtown retail offerings is still in healthy balance: "There's a great mix of businesses. There are brand names like Starbucks, Ben & Jerry's and Chico's, but then look at some of the mom-and-pop stores downtown. We want to continue to build on the momentum, the timeless appeal of Franklin."

Downtown Franklin still has a lot of loose ends. County leaders, for example, haven't decided what to do with the 1859 courthouse now that the judges, juries, criminals and clerks have moved into the new judicial center nearby. It sits empty on one corner of the square. And when the county finished a new library a half-mile out of downtown, it left the old library building vacant across the street from the post office at Five Points and has yet to reach a firm decision about the use of that key property.

Our downtown neighborhood no longer includes a full-size grocery store, but Puckett's Gro. & Restaurant plans to bring convenience shopping into pedestrian range this month.

Franklin's popularity has drawn so many congregants to its churches that some of them no longer fit downtown. Three major Franklin churches outgrew their downtown sanctuaries in the past several years, and a fourth, the United Methodist Church, recently reached an agonizing decision that it, too, can no longer fit into its historic sanctuary on Fifth Avenue downtown.

The churches may have outgrown downtown, but not the congregants. Franklin is thick with New Age Christians, and you're as apt to see a Starbucks customer reading a Bible as a business plan. McCreary's Pub sells beer, fish and chips, and Irish stew—it even sells beer on sidewalk tables on Main Street, something that would have been worse than heresy a few years ago—but stenciled in bold letters around the four walls of the pub is an inscription from St. Patrick reading, "Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ at my right, Christ at my left, Christ in every eye that sees me."

Having every eye watch us while we sip a Guinness is disconcerting, but I guess it's one of the newest quirks making Franklin a distinctive place.

From the site of the old Georgia Boot factory, where the city plans a riverfront park on the banks of the Harpeth, to the increasingly pricey restored homes on Third and Fourth avenues, Franklin is a place where preservationists came, saw and maybe—just maybe—have a chance of conquering. They're not ready to post a "mission accomplished" banner yet, as there's always another battle, says the Heritage Foundation's Mary Pearce. But so far, Pearce & Co. have won a lot more than they've lost.