When was McKay's Mill in Franklin TN built?

McKay's Mill master plan was filed around the turn of the millennium and the first homes sold in 2000. Most of the original housing stock was built between 2000 and 2008, with brick-fronted traditional architecture being the dominant design language.

Does McKay's Mill require HOA approval before building a deck?

Yes. The McKay's Mill Architectural Review Committee reviews every exterior modification — new decks, replacement decks, screened porches, pergolas, covered structures, railing changes, and material swaps on existing decks — before the City of Franklin will issue a building permit. Typical review window is 2 to 3 weeks from a complete submission. Property management is handled by Community Management Associates (CMA).

Does the City of Franklin or Williamson County issue deck permits for McKay's Mill?

City of Franklin. McKay's Mill sits inside the incorporated city limits, so the City of Franklin Building & Neighborhood Services Department (120 9th Avenue South, 615-794-7012) issues the permit. City of Franklin operates under the 2024 IRC effective January 1, 2026. Williamson County only handles permitting for unincorporated parts of the county and operates under the 2021 IRC.

What's in the McKays Mill Village Center?

The Town Center anchors at Publix Super Market and includes a Mexican restaurant, pizza, Chinese food, medical offices, a hair salon, child care, and several professional service businesses. The center sits along Liberty Pike near the major neighborhood corner at Liberty Pike and Oxford Glen.

What materials does the McKay's Mill ARC typically approve for decks?

Capped composite or PVC decking in wood-tone finishes (English Walnut, Weathered Teak, Spiced Rum) pairs cleanly with McKay's Mill's brick-traditional architecture. Aluminum balusters in black or bronze are the most-approved railing path. Composite balusters work in the more traditional brick-fronted sections. Cable rail is approved less often here than in Westhaven — McKay's Mill's design language leans more traditional.

Is McKay's Mill a good neighborhood for deck rebuilds?

Yes — particularly for the original Phase 1 homes built between 2000 and 2003. Those decks are now 20 to 25 years old, often built with pressure-treated frames and ledgers that were code-compliant at the time but don't meet current IRC R507 standards. Deck Craft typically opens the ledger detail on the existing structure first as a thirty-minute discovery step before quoting a rebuild.

McKay's Mill, Franklin TN: A Deck Builder's Notes from Liberty Pike

What twenty-five years of working in Williamson County teaches you about a brick-traditional neighborhood that filled in east of Cool Springs while Westhaven was still a hay field.

When McKay's Mill broke ground in 2000, Cool Springs Galleria had already been open for nine years. The interstate exit was busy, the Galleria parking lot stayed full on Saturdays, and the farmland east of I-65 along Liberty Pike was sitting in the path of the next wave of growth. McKay's Mill was that wave's brick-traditional answer — a 500-plus-home master-planned community arranged around an Olympic pool, a clubhouse, walking trails, and a Town Center with a Publix at the center.

We've been building decks across Williamson County the entire time. The earliest homes in McKay's Mill went up before we'd installed a single composite board; cap-stocked PVC didn't exist yet. The decks built on those original homes are now twenty to twenty-five years old, which means we're rebuilding a lot of them, replacing pressure-treated frames that have done their service, and bringing the ledger details up to current code on the way through.

This page is a working guide to McKay's Mill — its layout, its Town Center, its Architectural Review Committee, the City of Franklin permitting process that applies inside its borders, and the small calls we've learned to make on builds in this specific neighborhood. If you live in McKay's Mill and you're thinking about a deck rebuild or addition, or you're moving in and trying to figure out how the architectural review works, this is for you.

McKay's Mill in Context

McKay's Mill sits in the northeastern part of Franklin, about two miles east of Interstate 65 and the Cool Springs Boulevard exit, astride Liberty Pike between the Cool Springs commercial district and Highway 96. Columbia State Community College's Williamson Campus is at 1228 Liberty Pike, a short drive west of the neighborhood entrance. Farm Bureau Insurance Williamson at 1400 Liberty Pike sits at the major neighborhood corner. The HOA office runs out of 1215 Habersham Way.

The community is large enough to have its own internal subdivisions — Park Run is one of the named sub-sections with its own HOA listing at 1201 Park Run Dr. Most of the housing stock is brick-fronted traditional single-family homes built between 2000 and 2008, with a layer of townhomes mixed in along the perimeter and Town Center edge. Property management is handled by Community Management Associates (CMA), with the McKay's Mill Homeowners Association the resident-facing body.

Home prices today run roughly $500,000 to $1.2 million depending on size, lot, and section, with the townhomes at the lower end and the larger single-family homes on the bigger lots at the upper. Compared to Westhaven, McKay's Mill is the more traditional sister — bigger lots in some sections, less density, fewer cobblestones, more brick.

The Town Center on Liberty Pike

McKays Mill Village Center is the commercial spine. The anchor is Publix Super Market — the kind of grocery store that runs on the rhythm of school pickup and Friday-night football, and that residents organize errands around without even thinking about it. Around the Publix you'll find a Mexican restaurant, a pizza place, a Chinese spot, medical offices, a hair salon, child care, and a handful of professional service businesses. It's not a destination Town Center the way Westhaven's Front Street is — it's a neighborhood Town Center, the kind that exists to serve the people who live within walking or golf-cart distance.

The annual Best Buddies 5K Walk/Run starts at 1400 Liberty Pike at the corner of Liberty Pike and Oxford Glen, with post-race refreshments provided by Publix. That tradition tells you something about the community's character — small-scale, family-oriented, locally rooted, more than willing to put on a community event for a cause.

The McKay's Mill Social Facebook group is where you'll see most of the day-to-day neighborhood conversation — recommendations, lost dogs, contractor referrals, garage sale notices. If you're new to the neighborhood and trying to understand who lives there, that's the front door.

The Architectural Review Committee

Every exterior modification to a McKay's Mill home — including new decks, replacement decks, screened porches, pergolas, covered structures, railing changes, and material swaps on existing decks — needs Architectural Review approval before the City of Franklin will issue a building permit. The HOA enforces the design standards that keep the neighborhood's brick-traditional character consistent.

The submission packet for an exterior modification typically includes:

A site plan showing the deck footprint, dimensions, setbacks from neighbors, and existing landscaping
Elevation drawings showing the deck's height above grade, the railing detail, and any stair locations
Material specifications listing the decking line, the railing system, the post wraps, and the fastener system
Color samples or product cut sheets — physical samples are stronger than printed swatches
Construction timeline and access plan for crew vehicles and material staging

Typical review window: McKay's Mill ARC turnaround in our experience runs about two to three weeks from a complete submission. Incomplete packets restart the clock.

The McKay's Mill ARC pays particular attention to:

Color and material continuity with the home's brick facade. The neighborhood's design language is wood-tone composite or PVC, paint-grade trim, traditional brick. White vinyl railing on a brick-traditional home rarely passes review. Aluminum balusters in black or bronze are the most-approved railing path for the older sections. Composite balusters in a trim-matched color work for the newer townhome sections.
Roofline tie-ins on covered porches. McKay's Mill homes have specific eave details and roof pitches. A covered porch addition that doesn't honor the existing roof line gets sent back almost every time.
Setbacks on the smaller-lot sections. Townhome lots and the higher-density single-family sections have less room. Side-yard setbacks matter; the City of Franklin standard applies, and the ARC enforces visual buffer conventions on top of that.
Visibility from Liberty Pike and the internal collector streets. Decks that face the perimeter roads get reviewed harder than decks tucked into interior cul-de-sacs.

City of Franklin Permits — Same Story as Westhaven

McKay's Mill sits inside the incorporated City of Franklin, which means City of Franklin Building & Neighborhood Services issues your permit, not Williamson County. This is the same jurisdiction that handles Westhaven and most of the central Franklin subdivisions.

City of Franklin Building & Neighborhood Services:

120 9th Avenue South, Franklin, TN 37064
(615) 794-7012
Electronic Plan Review System (PDF submissions)
Residential permits processed in 7 working days or less
Code edition: 2024 IRC effective January 1, 2026 — plus the 2009 IECC for residential and the 2023 NEC

The sequence for a McKay's Mill deck is straightforward: ARC approval through the McKay's Mill HOA (2-3 weeks), then City of Franklin permit submission (1 week or less to issue, once ARC approval is in hand), then inspections during construction — footing, framing, final.

Williamson County Building Codes Department (1320 W. Main Street, (615) 790-5718) handles only the unincorporated parts of the county and operates under the 2021 IRC. McKay's Mill is not in their jurisdiction.

Building to IRC R507 in McKay's Mill

The 2024 IRC's R507 governs every deck we build in McKay's Mill. The neighborhood's age — most of the housing stock is now 20 to 25 years old — means we see a higher rate of rebuilds than new builds, and rebuilds often turn up structural details that were code-compliant in 2002 but aren't anymore.

Footings. IRC R403.1.4 sets a 12-inch minimum below undisturbed grade. Most McKay's Mill lots have stable clay subgrade and consistent grading from the original development; we typically pour 24-inch sonotube footings on standard rebuilds. The neighborhood's flatter sections are forgiving on footing placement.
Ledger attachment. Half-inch lag screws or through-bolts, Simpson DTT2Z lateral load anchors at the corners of the ledger-to-house connection, and step flashing layered correctly. The most common failure on McKay's Mill rebuilds is a ledger nailed (not bolted) into the rim joist — common builder shortcut from the early 2000s. We replace those even when the rest of the structure passes inspection. On brick-veneer homes specifically, the through-bolt detail matters: the ledger attaches to the framing behind the brick, not to the brick itself, and the flashing has to keep water out of the wall cavity.
Hardware. Simpson Strong-Tie joist hangers, hurricane ties, and post bases. The 2024 IRC update tightened joist hanger specification standards; we use the higher-grade hangers across every build now.
Guards. 36-inch minimum height residential, four-inch sphere rule on balusters. Aluminum baluster systems clear the McKay's Mill ARC most readily; we install Westbury or Fortress aluminum systems in black or bronze most often here.

Materials That Work on Brick-Traditional Homes

Twenty-five years of seeing decks come back for rebuilds in Williamson County tells us what holds up. Our short list for McKay's Mill specifically:

TimberTech AZEK Vintage Collection. Capped PVC, lightest weight per square foot of any premium board, runs cool underfoot. The English Walnut and Weathered Teak finishes pair cleanly with McKay's Mill's traditional brick palette and the paint-grade trim that defines the neighborhood. 50-year limited lifetime fade and stain warranty.

Trex Transcend / Trex Signature. Wood-fiber-and-plastic composite. Spiced Rum and Vintage Lantern both work against brick traditional. Heavier than AZEK; we steer south-facing exposures toward AZEK on McKay's Mill's larger interior lots where the deck takes direct afternoon sun.

Deckorators Voyage. Mineral-based composite, lighter than wood-fiber composites. Best for the multi-level builds you see on the older brick-traditional sections with walkout basements.

Pressure-treated yellow pine with Cabot's solid stain. Still the right answer for budget-conscious McKay's Mill rebuilds where the homeowner wants traditional wood and accepts a 3-year refinish cycle. The original decks built across the neighborhood in the early 2000s were largely pressure-treated; some homeowners want to keep that look and feel.

For railing: aluminum baluster in black or bronze (Westbury or Fortress) is the most-approved configuration on McKay's Mill back-elevation decks. Composite balusters work in the more traditional brick-fronted sections. Cable rail is approved less often here than in Westhaven — McKay's Mill's design language leans more traditional, and the ARC tends to favor balusters over cables on visible elevations.

Working a McKay's Mill Site

A few things you only learn by working a McKay's Mill build:

Liberty Pike runs busy from morning rush through evening commute. Material delivery and trailer staging works best mid-morning or early afternoon — avoid the school pickup window unless you want to slow your own crew down.

The townhome sections have shared driveway access on some streets, which means coordination with the adjacent unit is part of the plan. We talk to the neighbor before scheduling concrete or framing days.

The original Phase 1 homes (2000-2003) have the most aging deck infrastructure. If you're in one of those homes and you're thinking about adding or replacing the deck, we open the ledger detail on the existing structure first as a thirty-minute discovery step. It's how we keep a small project from turning into a structural surprise.

The Town Center Publix is the lunch break — sandwiches from the deli, coffee from the in-store kiosk. Design meetings with a McKay's Mill client work well at the Publix cafe area or at any of the Liberty Pike coffee spots near Columbia State.

Aldermen have heard from McKay's Mill residents about traffic calming on Liberty Pike more than once. The neighborhood is dense, the through-traffic is real, and on busy weekends the residential streets just inside the entrance can feel like a cut-through. As a contractor, we route around peak hours where we can.

A Note on the Mill That Wasn't a Mill

The "Mill" in McKay's Mill is one of those names that gestures at Williamson County's past — the era when the land along Liberty Pike was part of the rural patchwork of family farms, and a mill of one kind or another might have stood somewhere within a mile of where the Publix is now. The specific McKay family connection isn't well documented in the public record, but the naming convention is consistent with how Southern subdivisions across Middle Tennessee were christened in the 1990s and 2000s — gesture at the land's history, set the brand against the brick-traditional architecture, and let the implied heritage do the work.

What's actually documented is what came after the farms: Cool Springs Galleria opening in 1991, the I-65 exit getting busier through the 1990s, the McKay's Mill master plan getting filed at the turn of the millennium, the first homes selling in 2000, and the neighborhood filling in over the next eight years as Williamson County's population grew faster than any other county in Tennessee. The decks built on those first homes are now in their second life. We're rebuilding them.

When you're ready to talk about yours, that's our work.

Deck Craft

A Tennessee Licensed General Contractor (TN GC #78722). Member of the Williamson County Chamber of Commerce. Building custom decks across Franklin and Williamson County since 1999. (615) 845-9300. 231 Public Square, Franklin, TN 37064.