Haslam Loan Paid Four Years Later

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Several years after it first came due, the wife of a well-connected Knoxville developer has paid off a $1 million loan from the father of Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam.
Records at the Nantucket Registry of Deeds in Massachusetts show the Haslam loan to Ann Furrow, wife of Samuel F.  Furrow of Knoxville, was just recorded as satisfied last month.
The elder Haslam loaned the $1 million to Ann Furrow in 2011 during the same time period Sam Furrow and a group of investors were trying to sell an office building to the Pellissippi State Community College at a substantial profit.
The Furrow group purchased the Strawberry Plains building for $5 million and ultimately sold it the community college for $10 million in 2012.
The notice of satisfaction of the one-year loan comes some four years after it was originally due in June of 2012. Records at the Nantucket deeds office show the only recorded activity on the loan in the interim was a June 4, 2013 agreement by the elder Haslam to subordinate his interest in the property to a bank loan.
As first reported by the Tennessean, the purchase of the office building came despite the need for extensive repairs estimated at as much as $16.6 million.
In response to questions posed at the time, the governor, through a spokeswoman, said he was unaware of his father's loan to Ann Furrow. The collateral on the loan was a Nantucket property at 112 Baxter Road owned by Ann Furrow. Samuel Furrow transferred his interest in the property to his wife prior to the Haslam loan.
Dave Smith, spokesman for Gov. Haslam, said Monday the governor was not aware that the loan had been paid off.
Samuel Furrow, when asked about the sale to Pellissippi, described it as "clean as a whistle."
The loan was not the only Haslam interest on the Massachusetts resort island. Cleveland Browns owner James A. Haslam 3rd, brother of the Tennessee governor, owns an oceanside property on the island which has been up for sale for over a year. The current asking price for the home at 37 Sankaty Head Road is $9.99 million, according to real estate listings.