O'More College of Design
O’More College of Design is a non profit small private college in Franklin, Tennessee, United States.
It was founded as O'More School of Interior Architecture and Design in 1970, located in the historic district of Franklin. It is a non-traditional, accredited college awarding the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Fashion Design, Fashion Merchandising, Graphic Design, Interactive Design, and Interior Design. It has an enrollment of about 200, with a male to female ratio of 1 to 9.
The college is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC). The Interior Design Department is CIDA accredited (formerly FIDER).
History
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The college was founded in 1970 by Eloise Pitts O'More. It is patterned after Le College Feminin in Paris, France, where Pitts studied in the late 1920s, and was aimed at women, who were traditionally not involved in the design fields. O'More began the college with nine students in her home. Pitts passed in 2002.
The Abbey Leix Mansion (ca. 1866), an Italianate-style home which serves as the College's administration building, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The mansion is named after the ancestral property in Ireland belonging to the O'More family, and was the first residential structure built in the area after the Civil War in 1867. The mansion's cellar is left over from a previous structure that burned during the war. During the second Battle of Franklin, the Carnton Plantation was used as a hospital while the cellar of the original structure was used as a morgue. The grounds surrounding the mansion were also used for temporary placement of the dead.