Note on the Stone in Millennium Manor

When I was looking over the Millennium Manor pictures I noticed that some of the stone didn’t match. Some was gray and some was pink. Looking at the photo above you see light pink stone on the upper story, then a band of gray stone below that, then a band of pink stone above the windows, and gray stone again from the windows down to the ground. You can also see pink stone on the eyebrow above the stairwell on the left.

I had read that the marble was from Friendsville, which has the light pink stone typical of Blount County quarries. I imagined that the different colors of stone represented different patterns of discoloration due to rain and sunlight. I could almost envision an arbor above the lower story windows causing the difference in weathering.

I emailed the current owner, Dean Fontaine, and he disabused me of my theory. According to his research the difference in color reflects a difference in the origin of the stone rather than weathering:

When they were building the Rock Gardens subdivision they ran into a lot of the gray marble. It was close by, and needed disposed of, so it was handy. Later he had to drive to the nearest place to get more rock, and that was the Friendsville site.

So that clears up that mystery. The Rock Gardens community is on Lincoln Road in Alcoa.