Percy Warner Park

Percy Warner Park is the bigger half of the Warner Parks: 3,100-plus acres of trails at the end of Belle Meade Boulevard. Around 1 million people a year come through, Taylor Swift included.

The park began as an 868-acre gift from Luke Lea and his wife Percie Warner Lea. When her father Percy, the park board chairman, died in 1927, Lea pushed to name it for him.

The limestone Allée steps at the head of Belle Meade Boulevard were designed by Bryant Fleming and finished in 1936. WPA crews added stone walls, gateways, and picnic shelters through the early 1940s.

By 1930 the park had grown to 2,600 acres, helped by a $20,000 gift from Percy's brother Edwin and eminent domain takings of family farms dating to the late 1700s.

The steeplechase course was laid out by William DuPont Jr., built with WPA labor from 1938. The Iroquois Steeplechase first ran in May 1941, named for the first American-bred horse to win the Epsom Derby.

Swift tweeted from the top of the steps in October 2012, the month Red came out. In September 2018 she posted a video hiking here with Ed Sheeran.