Located on North Roan Street and sprawling across nine acres, Shelbridge Manor has been a part of ETSU history since the university purchased the property in 1973.
The manor was originally purchased by Roswell H. Spears in 1920. He bought the property for only $10,000 and immediately began construction on a three-floor, colonial-style home.
The original manor was made up of 15 rooms, including seven bedrooms and six bathrooms, and plenty of amenities such as a tennis court, a barn for ponies and livestock and a rose garden.
According to Ross Spear Jr., Roswell’s son, the third floor of the house was used as a roller-skating rink by the children living there. In 1928, Spears sold the estate to Henry and Shelby Bridges for $42,500.
They added a two-story ‘summer house’ to the back, as well as a swimming pool and a bathhouse before deciding on the name, Shelbridge Manor. They lived in the house for decades before Henry Bridges died in 1957, followed by his wife in 1972.
After Shelby Bridges died, her sons, Henry and Shelby Bridges, sold the house to ETSU along with nine acres of land for $100,000.
The sale of the estate was a gift purchase between the Bridges family and the university. After modernizing the manor, the first ETSU president, President D.P. Culp, moved in in 1973, exactly fifty years ago. All six presidents of the university have taken residence there since.
President Brian Noland and his family are current residents and have hosted numerous student banquets and egg hunts at the estate in the past.
Shelbridge Manor was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995, conveying that it is not just a part of ETSU’s history but of Johnson City’s as well. It will continue to be an integral part of our community for decades to come.
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