With the scheduled closing of Ward-Belmont's high school pending about 1950, a group of concerned citizens organized to ensure that a college-preparatory school for girls would continue in Nashville. This group purchased a 26-acre tract of land known as the P.M. Estes estate in southwest Nashville at the corner of Estes Road and Hobbs Road. One of the building committee members, Mary Elizabeth Cayce, suggested the name of the new school be "Harpeth Hall", because of the proximity to the Harpeth River and that the words sounded "euphonius"