I visited Belle Meade in May 2007.

The grounds are beautiful. We were there on a nice day, and the mansion and the rest of the grounds looked great!

We went in the middle of the day on a Wednesday, and it was not crowded at all. There were four of us, and we ended up being the only four people in our tour. That was pretty great, but probably quite unusual.

Our tour guide (I'm so sorry I cannot remember his name... he was a college student with short brown hair) was fantastic - he knew all about the mansion and was very nice! We had a great tour!

The gift shop was very full of pretty things! It was nice, and the bathrooms were nice too, just incase anyone wants to know that...

I would definitely recommend Belle Meade! It was pretty and interesting!

We were so excited to visit Belle Meade. My friend is a huge horse lover, and knows a lot about the history of the horses there. We got on the last tour, and checked out the gift shop, then made our way to the actual grounds.

The grounds are small, and are surrounded by houses and businesses - since the land was sold off years ago to recover from the families debt. We had about 30 minutes before our tour.

We have both experience visitin ghomes like this - self guided and guided tours, etc.

We were very disappointed. The buildings were in disarray. Slave quarters had very little information regarding slavery at the plantation, and there was no history on display regarding the horse stables, etc. We went to enter buildings and came to find modern day tools and trash - from workers who were renovating the spaces. We were quite bummed out.

Unlike places like Hermitage, there were very little signage explaining the history of the locations, and the displays were poorly thrown together.

We waited at the stairs with others, at the home, for the tour to begin. Right on time a young man in period clothing greeted us. He was blunt, rude and bossy. He wanted to not waste time, and told us that half of the things inside the house were missing or disarrayed since "this upcoming week we are doing renovations and cleaning."

He also informed us that most of the items inside the house were not original. He rushed us through and explained a very confusing story - leaving us confused and non-understanding. We left the tour scratching our heads like crazy about the history. He also told very little history about the horse-history. He gave some quick explanations and a tiny history, and the only way we got information out of him was by asking questions, and even his anwsers were disappointing.

We were so bummed out about Belle Meade. There is no way I am revisiting this, unless I am promised some amazing tour. The guide was immature, bored and totally uninterested - he kept staring off into space and reciting whatever tripe he poorly organized in his head about the history.

We were hoping to enjoy the romance of the time - but him explaining that barely anything was original, that they were repainting and things were stacked on top of each other - it looked like someone moving. I frankly did not pay $10 to see a Vicotrian moving scene.

Quite disappointing!!

The guides are incredibly knowledgeable about the plantation. There is a lot of info and a lot of rooms to go through. It is one of the few home tours I've been on where you actually go into a lot of the rooms. 50-60% of the items are original to the home and the family. Definitely have lunch at Martha's on the plantation while you are there. It's a great place for a nice visit on a beautiful sunny day. Parking right on site, no problem.

Our guide was very knowledgable and friendly. It was disappointing not to be able to take pictures in the house, but there were plenty of grounds in which to take pictures. There are several out buildings with information for those interested in a self guided tour. There is plenty of parking and it was not too crowded even on the busy weekend of 'Fanfair' in Nashville. Dollar off coupons are available in the guides at the tourist information center.