Welcome to Forest Hills, Tennessee

Forest Hills is its own incorporated city in southwest Davidson County. A lot of people assume it belongs to Green Hills or Brentwood because it sits between the two, but Forest Hills has run its own government since 1957 and kept that independence when Nashville and Davidson County merged into Metro in 1963. The city covers about nine square miles of steep, wooded hills between Hillsboro Pike and Granny White Pike, with Radnor Lake on its east side and the Warner Parks on its west. Zoning has been almost entirely residential from the start, so there are no shopping centers, no office parks, and no apartment complexes inside the city limits. You get big lots, mature trees, and quiet roads, and you are still just minutes from downtown Nashville.

Why Choose Forest Hills?

• Its own city, its own rules. Forest Hills is one of five satellite cities inside Davidson County, with its own Board of Commissioners and its own zoning code. It kept its charter through the 1963 Metro consolidation and has never been absorbed into Nashville. Source: City of Forest Hills.
• Residential only, by design. The city's zoning is close to 100 percent residential. Commercial and industrial uses have been prohibited since incorporation, and the city has refused high-density cluster housing since residents pushed for tighter planning rules in the 1980s.
• Room to breathe. About 5,000 residents spread across roughly 9.3 square miles, which works out to around 540 people per square mile. Many homes sit on an acre or more under a heavy tree canopy. Source: City of Forest Hills Fast Facts.
• Two of Nashville's best parks on your borders. Forest Hills sits between two major parks on its east and west sides. Radnor Lake State Natural Area, 1,200 acres of forest, trails, and lake, borders the east. The Warner Parks, with their nature center and hiking trails, border the west. Source: City of Forest Hills Parks.
• Trails built right into daily life. The John C. Lovell Bikeway gives residents a direct route on foot or bike, about a mile and a half from Percy Priest Elementary straight to Radnor Lake, following the Otter Creek corridor the city secured through resident easements back in the 1990s. Bison Meadow is a wildflower park on Hillsboro Pike, and a third park is planned around the protected Aaittafama' village site.
• A resident-led push to connect the two big parks. A group of Forest Hills neighbors started the Forest Hills Pathway Project in 2020, an independent nonprofit (not a city program) working to extend that same Otter Creek corridor into one continuous walking path linking Radnor Lake all the way to the Warner Parks.
• More than four miles of historic stone walls. Dry-stack stone walls and entrance columns line the roads throughout the city, some dating to the early 1800s. Forest Hills is known for them, and the city decorates them every summer from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
• Richland Country Club is in the city limits. The private, member-owned club was established in 1901.
• A brand-new elementary school. The new Percy Priest Elementary building opened to students in August 2025 after a July ribbon cutting.
• No city property tax. The City of Forest Hills levies no property tax of its own. Its budget comes mostly from a share of state-collected taxes.

The Story Behind Forest Hills

People have lived on this ground for as long as 12,000 years. In the 1400s a Native American village stood near the corner of Hillsboro Pike and Old Hickory Boulevard, part of a network of farms and towns along the Harpeth River. Metro Nashville bought the seven-acre site in 2014 with help from the City of Forest Hills, and today it is protected as Aaittafama’ Archaeological Park, one of the last undisturbed villages of its kind in Davidson County. The park's name comes from the Chickasaw language and means a place for meeting together. Source: Metro Nashville Parks.

Nashville was founded in 1780, and the land grants followed soon after. William Nash took 640 acres along what is now Granny White Pike. James Robertson, one of Nashville's founders, held the ground west of Hillsboro Road. And a Revolutionary War veteran named McCrory passed his grant to his son Thomas, who assembled some 3,700 acres across Davidson and Williamson Counties and in 1798 built a two-story log house on what is now Old Hickory Boulevard. That house still stands. It is the oldest building in Forest Hills and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982. Source: Tennessee Historical Commission.

Granny White Pike has a story of its own. It is named for Lucinda White, a widow who came to Tennessee around 1803 and ran an inn on the old road south of Nashville. Travelers on the Natchez Trace knew her place for its food and its beds. The turnpike itself was chartered in 1850 and finished in 1855.

The Compton family settled on Hillsboro Pike around 1815 and by 1860 held about 1,300 acres along Hillsboro Pike and Tyne Boulevard. Their land ended up in the middle of the Battle of Nashville. On December 15, 1864, Confederate troops held a small fort called Redoubt No. 5 on Compton property at the northwest corner of Hillsboro Pike and Harding Place, and Union forces took it quickly. The next day Union cavalry swept through the Compton estate and blocked Granny White Pike, cutting off the Confederate retreat after their line collapsed at Shy's Hill. Many Confederate soldiers surrendered right here because of it. Source: Battle of Nashville Trust and Historical Marker Database.

The stone walls you see along Hillsboro Pike today were mostly the work of the Adams family, African American farmers and stone masons who passed the craft down from one generation to the next. Their family cemetery still exists in the city, and it holds the grave of Harvey Kimball, a Civil War veteran of the U.S. Colored Infantry who married into the family.

Once automobiles made the drive from town easy, wealthy Nashvillians began building country estates out here in the late 1920s and 1930s. Two of those estates are now on the National Register: Longleat, finished in 1932, and The Hibbettage, a 1939 house built as a scaled replica of Andrew Jackson's Hermitage. By 1956 the people living out here wanted control over their own zoning and did not want to be annexed into Nashville. Their first attempt, a vote to incorporate as the City of Harpeth Hills, failed by three votes in November 1956. The organizers redrew the boundaries, changed the name to Forest Hills, and won approval seven weeks later. The city incorporated in 1957, and when Nashville and Davidson County merged into one Metro government in 1963, Forest Hills was one of the cities that kept its own charter.

Learn More About This Area's History

Feel free to visit and support the organizations preserving Forest Hills' parks and history:

• City of Forest Hills — the city's own site, source for most of the facts above.
• Metro Historical Commission — Nashville and Davidson County's official historic preservation office.
• Tennessee Historical Commission — the state agency behind the National Register listings referenced above.
• Battle of Nashville Trust — preserves the Battle of Nashville ground referenced above, including Redoubt No. 5.
• Friends of Radnor Lake — supports Radnor Lake State Natural Area through land acquisition, environmental education, and park support.
• Forest Hills Pathway Project — the independent, resident-founded nonprofit working to connect Radnor Lake and the Warner Parks with a continuous pathway.