The Mabee Homeplace

The Mabee Homeplace. Town of Monteagle. A Storied Home with Connections to Al Capone, The first home on this property was the residence of Dr. Oliver D. Mabee, who died in 1896. After the 1925 death of Oliver's daughter-in-law Marie, and a subsequent and protracted estate dispute with her siblings, Mrs. Irene Mabee Dickinson of Chicago, the daughter of Oliver's son Charles, gained legal control of the property for a payment of $6,000., Shortly after, Mrs. Dickinson demolished the original Mabee home and started construction on the present two story, ten room, fieldstone Tudor Revival cottage she first called "Castlewood" and later "RyMabee." The cottage is an exemplary representation of the early twentieth century Tudor Revival or English Cottage Revival Style., Roads first crossed over this, the narrowest portion of the Cumberland Plateau, in the 1840s. The Mabee home is located on what was the earliest east-west post road, and later, the first turnpike between Nashville and Chattanooga., Interviews with persons living in Monteagle in the late 1920s indicate that Alphonse (a.k.a. "Scar Face" Al) Capone frequented the original 1875 Mabee home. Capone, it is said, came through Monteagle on a regular basis when he was traveling between Chicago and his Florida estate in Miami. There are reportedly pictures from the late 1920s showing Capone in his car, being towed up Highway 41 from Pelham after it had mechanical problems., In the 1950s, the home became a restaurant, operated by Clara and Tom Shoemate. During that time, RyMabee was renamed "Claramont." In the early 1960s, after Clara Shoemate opened an event facility overlooking Lost Cove in Sewanee, the building reverted to a private residence before re-opening in the late 1990s as "High Point", once again a restaurant in an elegant and historic setting. The home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997., Photo captions: , At top: An old postcard showing the house name as "RyMabee". Middle and bottom: Two views of the Tudor Revival cottage today.