Butler's Run and the Turners

Welcome to 138 2nd Avenue North, a historic building known as Butler’s Run. It isn’t named for a developer or owner, but for a beloved dog. Butler’s paw prints are still visible in the concrete threshold. A life-sized bronze statue nearby keeps watch, so be sure to read Butler’s story!

Butler was the cherished companion of Steve and Judy Turner, the power couple who helped spark downtown’s preservation revival in the early 1990s. Just a decade earlier, the H. G. Lipscomb Building sat vacant, with demolition and surface parking looming—echoing Joni Mitchell’s warning in her 1970 hit, “Big Yellow Taxi.” If the title doesn’t ring a bell, see if you recognize the chorus:

Don’t it always seem to go That you don't know what you got ‘til it’s gone? They paved paradise to put up a parking lot

Luckily, the Turners chose a different path. To understand why that choice mattered, we need to go back to 1892. This building opened as a five-story wholesale warehouse owned by Horace Greeley Lipscomb.Horace was married to Henrie Zellner, and his half-brother David was married to Henrie’s sister. If the name Lipscomb sounds familiar, well it should. David was a preacher who co-founded Nashville Bible College, today’s Lipscomb University.

For nearly a century, Lipscomb wholesalers supplied goods that arrived by river and rail. As commerce shifted to the suburbs in the early 1980s, the business relocated, leaving this building vacant for years. That brings us back to the Turners, whose decision proved Nashville’s historic corridor was worth saving.

In 1992, the Turners purchased the building and completed renovations two years later. They opened businesses at street level while living above, joining a small but growing group of downtown residents at a time when much of the district still stood empty. Their vision helped reshape Second Avenue.

As you walk through Butler’s Run, notice the removal of sixteen feet of the building’s width, creating a narrow courtyard linking Second Avenue directly to Riverfront Park on First Avenue. It truly was where the Turners’ dog, Butler, did his running.

Steve and Judy Turner have since passed, but their legacy endures. Widely respected as developers, community leaders, and preservation advocates, they helped shape downtown’s revival. In 2017, the Turner Family Foundation provided the lead gift for Nashville Sites, which you are using today. Butler’s Run proves Nashville’s paradise didn’t have to be paved—and that places like this can still be preserved, lived in, shared, and passed on.

Now look directly across the street for your next stop, the corner of Commerce Street and Second Avenue, formerly home to the Watch Your Hat and Coat Saloon.