Georgia Natural Wonder #252 - Carlos Museum - DeKalb County (Part 2)

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #252 - Michael C. Carlos Museum

Our 4th post on DeKalb County focuses on the Natural History of Mankind. What a place we have here in Atlanta, for a weekend or anytime visit. Most of my continuing DeKalb County Wonders are near Emory University. From Wikipedia, New Georgia Encyclopedia, and the Museum Website, The Michael C. Carlos Museum is a treasure trove of art and artifacts from the ancient and modern worlds, and stands as the centerpiece on the historic quadrangle of Emory University's main campus. 



Of course our TRD Scrolling Nugget has to be my wife's favorite Carlos ...



The Carlos Museum has the largest ancient art collections in the Southeast and is emerging as the South’s premier museum of ancient art. Set in the heart of Emory’s Atlanta campus, the Museum is a dynamic, interdisciplinary center for the study of art and culture, with collections from Africa; ancient Egypt, Nubia, and the Near East; ancient Greece and Rome; the Indigenous Americas; and South Asia; as well as American and European Works on Paper. The collections are housed in a Michael Graves designed building which is open to the public.


Graves and 1st Museum.

About the Carlos Museum

Through our permanent collections, engaging special exhibitions, and innovative programs for audiences of all ages, the Carlos Museum connects the past with the present and the campus with the community. The museum is committed to emphasizing diverse voices, perspectives, and disciplines.



Curators and faculty develop original exhibitions, engage in interdisciplinary research and teaching, and host touring exhibitions that complement our collections and support the teaching mission of the university. The museum’s conservators collaborate with staff, faculty, and students to conduct research and manage preventive care on the museum's varied collections. 

 

Museum educators reach across the museum, campus, and city to develop opportunities to engage the intellect and the imagination of university students and faculty, preK-12 students and teachers, and the larger Atlanta community.

Mission

The Michael C. Carlos Museum celebrates world cultures and the peoples for whom they belong. As a department of Emory University, we advocate object-based teaching and research. 



As a public museum, we are a place of learning, dialogue, engagement and creativity for all.

Vision

Our vision is to create a more inclusive and equitable society, transforming the way people view cultural heritage and amplifying the voices of others.



History

One of the oldest museums in Georgia, the museum's collections date back to 1876, when a general museum known as Emory College Museum was established on Emory University's original campus in Oxford, Georgia. At this stage in its development, the museum’s collection were an assortment of objects and artifacts collected by Methodist missionaries and Emory faculty working in Asia. They were displayed for the enjoyment of the public. 



This included seashells, biological specimens, and other assorted artifacts,  At various times in the museum’s history, for instance, visitors could inspect the fingernail of a Chinese mandarin (a public official), a salt crystal from the Dead Sea, and Georgia’s oldest surviving Maytag washing machine.

 

After the university was relocated to Atlanta, a small group of professors officially founded the Emory University Museum in 1919, with a mission to preserve and display the collections of ethnographical, biological, geological, archaeological, and historical materials. Attempts were made to transition the eclectic assortment from Oxford into a research-quality collection. Through the mid-20th century, the collection grew in the areas of natural science and archaeology.  Through 1985, the collections were housed and displayed in various buildings around the campus, including the Theology Building, the Candler Library, and the old law school building.



The museum began a period of significant transition in the 1980s, as Emory faculty worked to refine the collection and find a permanent home for the museum with the assistance of university administration. Since 1983 local philanthropist Michael C. Carlos and his wife, Thalia, have contributed generously to building the collection of Greek and Roman art. In 1985, with the support of Carlos, the museum moved into the old law school building, whose renovation was designed by Michael Graves. Carlos donated over $20 million to create a permanent home for the museum.



The collection of the Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology as it was then known had been reorganized and refocused to align with the research and teaching objectives of university faculty in areas such as Latin American, African, and classical art and Middle Eastern Studies. The museum was officially accredited by the American Alliance of Museums as a museum of antiquities and fine arts.


A Pre-Columbian incense burner with a crocodile lid (500 - 1350 CE), from the Carlos Museum's extensive collection of Central American artifacts.

Fewer than 10 years later, the growth of the museum’s collections necessitated a new space. In 1993, an expanded museum and a new conservation laboratory, also supported by Michael C. Carlos and designed by Michael Graves, transformed the museum into one of Atlanta's top arts institutions. Upon the new building's opening, the museum became known as the Michael C. Carlos Museum, named after its most generous patron.


First Museum and Second Museum.

During the 1996 Summer Olympics, the museum presented two major exhibitions: one on the Emory campus highlighting the work of Thornton Dial and the other in City Hall East (now Ponce City Market) titled "Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South". Originally pitched to the High Museum of Art, the latter exhibit featured folk art and self-taught art from African-American artists across the American South, curated by local art collector William S. Arnett, and opened to "glowing reviews".


Dial - Arnett

Carlos died in December 2002 at the age of 75.


Carlos and wife. Tomb Arlington Memorial Park Sandy Springs.

In 2019, the museum celebrated 100 years of inspiring generations of Emory faculty and students as well as visitors from Atlanta and beyond who have sought to enrich their lives through the study of and experiences with art.



In June 2022, it was announced that Henry Kim would be the new associate vice provost and director of the Museum beginning August 22, 2022.

Collection and activities

The museum's collections comprise more than 25,000 works, and the facility attracts 120,000 visitors annually. In addition to permanent and temporary exhibitions, the museum is a source of educational programming, providing lectures, symposia, workshops, performances, and festivals. The Carlos Museum also operates a teaching laboratory and conservation center, and publishes scholarly catalogues. In addition, 20,000 of Georgia’s children explore the museum each year on school tours, and thousands more benefit from the museum’s efforts to bring art, history, and archaeology to the classroom through its outreach program Art Odyssey. The Carlos Museum also runs Odyssey Online, a Web site for school-age children that explores the various cultures reflected in the museum's collections.



The museum's permanent Egyptian holdings were bolstered with the landmark acquisition of 145 works from Canada's Niagara Falls Museum in 1999, a purchase made possible through contributions from Georgia’s citizens ranging from $10 to $1 million. The elaborately decorated ancient coffins and mummies of both humans and animals form the centerpiece of the permanent exhibition of ancient Egyptian art.

 
Niagra Falls Museum and its Egyptian collection now at Carlos Museum.

Also in 1999, Carlos bequeathed a $10 million gift specifically for the purchase of ancient Greek and Roman pieces. As a result, the museum now owns and exhibits the finest existing portrait of the Roman emperor Tiberius and one of the country's best examples of Hellenistic sculpture, a depiction of Terpsichore, the Greek muse of dance.


Tiberius and Terpsichore.

A total of 450 works of art are now on display in galleries devoted to Greek and Roman art.



As part of that 1999 Niagara Falls Museum purchase, the Carlos Museum obtained an unidentified male mummy that some thought could be a New Kingdom pharaoh. The mummy had been stolen from the Royal Cache in Deir el-Bahari by the Abu-Rassul family of grave robbers and sold by Turkish vice-consular agent Mustapha Aga Ayat at Luxor to Dr. James Douglas who brought it to North America around 1860. Through research and collaboration with Emory University medical experts, museum scholars were able to identify the mummy as pharaoh Ramesses I.



The grandfather of Yule Brynner in the Ten Commandments, Pharaoh Rameses I of Egypt orders the death of all newborn Hebrew males. Yochabel saves her infant son (Moses) by setting him adrift in a basket on the Nile. 



The museum returned the mummy to Egypt in 2003 as a gift of goodwill and international cultural cooperation. His remains are permanently on display in a plexiglass case at the Luxor Museum.



On June 6, 2006 the museum purchased a headless statue of Venus, for $968,000 at a Sotheby's auction in New York. A private collector in Houston, Texas, agreed to sell to whoever purchased the body, the head as well, which was last documented attached to the body in 1836. The head was sold for an additional $50,000.



Fixed head (above) and added some fingers so she wouldn't be flipping us off.

In November, 2023, The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Italy and Emory University announced that they reached an agreement for cultural cooperation which includes the restitution to the Ministry of five objects in the collection of the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory, with three of the objects remaining on loan to Emory.


Five Italian objects.

On Jan. 22, 2024, Emory University and the Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic signed a long-term agreement of cultural cooperation, which includes more educational opportunities for students and the return to the Greek ministry of three objects in the collection of the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory. 


Three Greek objects.

In 2023, the Michael C. Carlos Museum also returned an Assyrian ivory furniture applique to the government of Iraq following research which revealed that it belongs to the Iraq Museum.

 
Iraq object taken in 2003 Iraq War?

At least 562 artworks in the museum collection are alleged to have had sellers linked by authorities to the illicit antiquities trade.
See it Local, while you can.

DeKalb County (Part 2)

We started our tangent on DeKalb County with our last post about Fernbank. We move now to the 56 National Register of Historic Places.

National Register of Historic Places listings in DeKalb County, Georgia

Robert A. Alston House

Meadow Nook is an antebellum house in Atlanta, Georgia. It is located at 2420 Alston Drive in the East Lake neighborhood, in DeKalb County. It is one of only three antebellum homes still standing in their original locations within the city limits.



Meadow Nook was the country home of Lt. Col. Robert Augustus Alston (1832–1879) and Mrs. Alston, the former Mary Charlotte Magill (d. 1884) of Georgetown County, South Carolina. Robert Alston was a journalist and legislator who was murdered at the Georgia State Capitol in 1879, as a result of his ongoing exposés of the abusive convict labor leasing system. As a legislator Alston became involved with controversy over the practice of leasing convict laborers to private businesses.



Alstons opposition to the practice caused Edward Cox, who had originally held one of the leases, to threaten' him with a gun and to the last duel fought in the then State Capitol, at Forsyth and Marietta Streets. Alston was shot on March 11, 1879 and died in a building across the street, where 50 Marietta Street now stands.



The exterior of the one-and-a-half story, weatherboarded house is enlivened by such Greek Revival details as Doric columns, trabeated doors in the front and back, and a wrap-around porch. The first floor has French doors in the front rooms that open onto the porch. The half story rises over the wrap-around porch with dormers in the front and back.



Inside, the house is laid out in a four-room, central-hall plan with two rooms upstairs in the half-story. The central hall is dominated by a spiral staircase. The living room features a gray Italian marble fireplace with lancet panels incised across the lintel and on each post. Throughout the house, the doors and windows feature Greek Revival-style moldings.



The dining room features the same fireplace and molding as the living room. The library has a black, Austrian marble, Greek Revival-style mantel. The master bedroom also features Greek Revival-style moldings that are found in the other rooms on this floor and a wood Greek Revival-style mantle. Each of the two second floor bedrooms has a central fireplace facing the doors to the hall and the same molding used in the downstairs rooms. The house is constructed using mortice-and-tenon joints with wooden pegs. Changes include the replacement of the detached kitchen with one formed from the back porch, and the addition of a bathroom in the dormer over the front door on the second floor. The original Doric columns were removed because of decay and replaced by a wrought-iron porch railing in the 1970s. The current owners have replaced these columns with replicas of the original columns,

Avondale Estates Historic District



The Avondale Estates Historic District comprises the historic core, or about one-third, of the City of Avondale Estates, a planned suburban town with an "English Village" theme developed beginning in 1924. 



It is located seven miles east of down-town Atlanta and approximately a mile and a half east of Decatur, the DeKalb County seat. 



The district includes the towns commercial center, the historic portion of the town's residential area, several historic landscape features, a historic transportation corridor, two historic parks, and an entry gate, all tied together by the historically developed portion of the city's plan.

Blair-Rutland Building



The Blair-Rutland Building is significant at the state level in the area of architecture as an outstanding example of the Art Deco style in Georgia. 



During the period between the wars, the Art Deco style emerged as the first widely popular style to break with the revivalist tradition in architecture. Art Deco was largely a style of decoration that was applied to jewelry, clothes, and furniture as well as architecture. 



The poly-chromatic style featured low relief geometric designs in straight lines, zigzags, chevrons, and stylized foliated forms, often with gilt, mirrors, and Carrera glass.

Bond Family House



The locally significant Bond Family House was constructed c.1872 as the home of one of DeKalb County's leading citizens, Eason Jackson Bond (1834-1893). It remained in his prominent family for several generations until 1985. The house is significant under Criterion C in architecture as a good example of a Plantation Plain house type, and because it retains much of its original form and materials. The house displays significant intact features from its date of construction, including chimneys, walls, windows, doors, floors, mantels, staircase, balustrade, moldings, and hardware. 



Family descendants believe that the wood used in the house was milled at the Bond family lumber mill.

 

The house is also significant under Criterion A in social history for its associations with the Bond family. Eason Bond was the son of an early DeKalb County pioneer who moved to the area c.1834. Eason served as Chairman of the DeKalb County Commission, was a Justice of the Peace, and was very involved with Rock Chapel Methodist Church.

Briarcliff (mansion)

Briarcliff was the mansion and estate of Asa Griggs "Buddy" Candler Jr. (1880–1953), and is now the Briarcliff Campus of Emory University. The estate was built in 1922 on 42 acres on Williams Mill Road, now Briarcliff Road in Druid Hills near Atlanta. Williams Mill Road would be renamed Briarcliff Road in the 1920s after the estate that Asa Jr. would build there. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.



Asa Jr. was the eccentric son of Asa Griggs Candler, co-founder of Coca-Cola. Candler Jr. helped build his father's business into an empire. He later became a real-estate developer, opening the Briarcliff Hotel at the corner of Ponce de Leon Avenue and N. Highland Ave. in Atlanta's Virginia Highland neighborhood.

 
Sr. & Jr. Candler's and Briarcliff Farm.


Briarcliff Hotel.

Beginnings as Briarcliff Farm

In 1910, Asa Jr. moved from the fashionable Inman Park neighborhood where his father also had a mansion, to a "ramshackle" farmhouse on Briarcliff Farm, 42 acres. The farm was just north of Callanwolde, his brother Charles' estate. Asa Jr. managed a huge agricultural operation which provided meat and produce to local retailers. Cows, sheep, pigs and chickens were raised on the farm. During World War I, Briarcliff Farm supplied milk to Fort Gordon.



The farm was lauded for its use of electric lights and fans, even individual drinking fountains for the cows, its cleanliness, air and light, resulting in sanitary conditions that led to higher yields and quality.

Construction

Briarcliff was built between 1920 and 1922, and featured a Georgian Revival exterior. 



Architect Dan Bodin assisted C.E. Frazier in overseeing the completion. In 1925, Candler had the mansion enlarged, including the music room.



Features of the estate

Features of the mansion included:

    1,700 square feet music room, now DeOvies Hall, with its three-story-tall vaulted Tudor interior, limestone fireplace and painted walls.
    Entrance hall.
    Panelled library.
    Living room.
    Kitchen large enough for commercial restaurant equipment.
    Breakfast room.
    Dining room.
    Second dining room that seats 75 people, panelled with carved ceilings and mouldings and fireplace of carved white European marble, and sterling silver chandeliers and candelabra
    Solarium with high ceilings a fish pond, and two oil murals painted by a friend of Asa at either end of the room. Only one of these remain.
    Additional solarium on the far side of the porte cochere built for the wedding of his daughter where the ceremony took place.
    Seven bedrooms including two masters each with a carved marble fireplace. 
    The second master was used as a sitting room after the addition of the music room in 1925 due to the presence of the balcony which overlooked the music room.
    Another pond in the back courtyard.
    The ballroom, a huge room on the third floor, painted in gold-leaf with access by stairs, and bathroom with three showers, three sinks and three toilets.
    Basement including a large walk-in safe.
    Red tile roof (which has been replaced with asphalt for the home's protection) and copper gutters.

 

The estate included:

    Main house
    Servants' quarters
    Tennis courts
    Stables
    Greenhouses
    Laundry
    Zoo buildings
    Golf course
    Community pool

Aeolian organ

His father and older brother owned Aeolian organs, and to outdo them, in 1925 Candler had a $94,000, 88-rank, 187-stop, cathedral-sized Aeolian installed in the music room. It was the largest privately owned organ in Georgia at the time, and the 8th largest that Aeolian had ever built for a private residence. 


Organ in cabinet and Music Room.

It was inaugurated in November 1925 in a recital by family friend Palmer Christian, which was broadcast over radio station WSB. In 1952 the organ was given to Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. It was renovated in 2008 and is now known as the Goodwyn-Candler-Panoz organ.

Menagerie of exotic animals

Candler collected exotic birds and animals in a menagerie held at his estate with cages designed by architect Bodin. The collection included a Bengal tiger, four lions, a black leopard, a gorilla, baboons, and six elephants: Coca, Cola, Pause, Refreshes, Refreshing and Delicious. In 1935, Candler, in financial trouble, put up his pipe organ for sale. A neighbor sued and won a $10,000 settlement because "a baboon jumped over the wall of the zoo and devoured $60 in currency out of her purse". He gave away his entire menagerie of animals to the Grant Park Zoo, now Zoo Atlanta.

Terrace and Pool.

The mansion also included two swimming pools, one open to the public for 25 cents per person. The pool had a neon-lighted fountain that was lit at night. The pool area was landscaped with flowers and shrubs. There was a stand to buy Coca-Cola and snacks.

Sale of estate and later uses

The Candlers sold their estate to the General Services Administration in 1948. The planned veterans' hospital never emerged, and the estate was used to house the Georgian Clinic (later the DeKalb County Addiction Center), which opened in 1953 as the first alcohol treatment facility in Georgia. The clinic kept the pool open for its patients until the late 1950s, then closed it for lack of funds.



From 1965 to 1997, the estate housed the Georgia Mental Health Institute in a multi-story tower surrounded by multiple cottages connected by tunnels.



There are reports of hauntings at the estate.



The complex is now the Briarcliff Campus of Emory University, but the mansion remains empty and in disrepair.



The mansion is a location for the TV show Doom Patrol according to a making-of extra on the season one Blu-ray.
 
Briarcliff-Normandy Apartments



Briarcliff-Normandy Apartments are located in the Druid Hills neighborhood (not included in the Druid Hills Historic District) in metropolitan Atlanta, DeKalb County. The apartments are a mid-20th century complex of nine two- and three-story International-style brick buildings. Constructed between 1947 and 1949, the character-defining features of the rectangular buildings include flat roofs, steel-frame casement windows, and ceramic tile and glass block geometric door surrounds. Concrete foundations support clay tiles that are concealed by a brick veneer set in five-course American Bond, and a course of stretcher brick set vertically runs along each building above the top story windows.



Decorative elements are minimal and functional. They are found in the varying brick color and in the color and use of ceramic tile around, and in the glass block insets above, the entrances. The entry doors are announced by ceramic tiles in turquoise or red for the two-story units, and in the three-story buildings, cream-colored tiles, with a central square of red or turquoise are used. Functional metal door pulls echoing the linearity of the buildings are used on all entrances.



The International Style, as it was named by Phillip Johnson and Henry Russell-Hitchcock, was developed by architects in Europe in the first half of the 20th century who believed that people's needs were the same everywhere and that their needs could be served by a single architecture. 



The basis of the International Style was its universality—its lack of spatial and temporal references.

Brookhaven Historic District

The Brookhaven Historic District in Atlanta, Georgia is a 300 acres historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. The listing included 202 contributing buildings and two contributing structures.



Brookhaven Historic District is a 20th-century residential neighborhood laid out and developed beginning in 1910. It consists of three separately platted subdivisions whose very similar street patterns, housing, and landscape features merge together to create one homogeneous area. The neighborhood has a curvilinear street pattern laid out on rolling terrain. At the core of the community is a historic golf course landscaped with a lake, wooded areas, and open land. The entire district is picturesquely landscaped with pine and shade trees, shrubs, and ground covers.



The district is exceptionally significant as Atlanta's, Georgia's; and perhaps the entire southeast's first golf club community. Although there are earlier golf courses and country clubs in the state, Brookhaven Estates appears to be the very first example of a suburban development designed around a golf course and with a golf course as its
central focus. It is located east of Peachtree-Dunwoody Road and north and east of Peachtree Road. It spans across the border of DeKalb County and Fulton County.


Marker

Callanwolde Fine Arts Center

Callanwolde Fine Arts Center is a non-profit community arts center that offers classes and workshops for all ages in visual, literary and performing arts. Special performances, gallery exhibits, outreach programs and fundraising galas are presented throughout the year. Callanwolde is also involved in community outreach, specializing in senior wellness, special needs, veterans, and low income families.



The mansion known as "Callanwolde" was built by Charles Howard Candler, President of The Coca-Cola Company (1916, 1920–1923), chairman of the Board of Trustees of Emory University (nearly 30 years), and eldest son of Asa Griggs Candler who founded The Coca-Cola Company. 


Howard Candler and Azaleas of Callanwolde.

Callanwolde is a Gothic-Tudor style mansion situated on a landscaped 12.5-acre estate and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Support

Support is provided to Callanwolde Fine Arts Center through a grant appropriated by the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners, in part by DeKalb County Parks, Recreation & Cultural Affairs, and in part by the Georgia Council for the Arts through appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. 



Georgia Council for the Arts is a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Candler family

Callanwolde was the home of the family of Charles Howard Candler, known as Howard, (1878-1957) from 1920 until 1959.



Howard Candler was the oldest son of Asa Griggs Candler (1851-1929), the Atlanta pharmacist who, in 1891 purchased the rights to the formula for Coca-Cola, which had been developed by another Atlanta pharmacist, John S. Pemberton, in 1886 as a tonic for most common ailments.


Pemberton, Main Hall Callanwolde.

Howard Candler attended public elementary schools in Atlanta and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Emory College (a Methodist Episcopal institution that was at that time located in Oxford, Georgia). While in Oxford in 1895, Howard Candler received a keg of Coca-Cola syrup from his father that he shared with his classmates — the first Coca-Cola ever seen there.



After graduating from Emory in 1898, Howard Candler attended Atlanta College of Physicians and Surgeons for two years and the University of Bellvue Hospital Medical College for one year. Much later in life, in 1942, he received the Doctor of Laws degree from Emory University, which was by then located in Atlanta.



In 1903, Howard Candler married Flora Harper Glenn. The couple had three children, Charles Howard Jr. (born 1904), Catherine Harper (Mrs. William Warren) (born 1906), and Mary Louisa (Mrs. Alfred Eldridge) (born 1912).

The Candlers, Coca-Cola and Emory University

Emory University has been, and still is today, frequently called “Coca-Cola U” because of the long and generous history of patronage by both the Candler family and The Coca-Cola Company that they founded. In 1914, the decision was made to move Emory College from Oxford, Georgia. Howard's uncle, Bishop Warren Akin Candler, was President of Emory College and the Chairman of the Methodist Episcopal Education Commission. Atlanta's Chamber of Commerce pledged $500,000 if the new Emory University would locate in the city, and in 1915 Asa Griggs Candler donated a $1 million endowment to the institution.


Bishop Candler and back barn room Callanwolde.

In 1915, Henry Hornbostel was engaged to design the new Emory campus in the Druid Hills neighborhood of Atlanta. The following year, Howard Candler, who had been a vice president of Coca-Cola since 1906, became the company's president, a position he held until his retirement from the company in 1923 (following its acquisition by the Woodruffs). His new position as head of the company meant that Howard Candler would now be the principal benefactor of Emory University. Work on his new home, Callanwolde, was begun the following year near the Emory campus and designed by Hornbostel.


Henry Hornbostel and original Emory Design.

In 1929, Howard Candler became chairman of the board of trustees of Emory University, a position he held until his death in 1957. He continued the family's history of generous financial support of the institution as well. In 1947, for example, he gave the university assets valued in excess of $15 million.



And, two years following Howard Candler's death, his widow donated the Callanwolde estate, along with many of the original furnishings, to Emory University. Emory subsequently sold the property to the First Christian Church, which retained ownership until the citizens of DeKalb County rallied to acquire Callanwolde in 1971.

Candler ancestry and the Callanwolde name

Candler family lore holds that William Candler of Newcastle upon Tyne served as an officer in Cromwell's Army during the Irish Rebellion of the mid-17th century. Candler served in Sir Hardress Waller’s Regiment and after the end of the campaign was elevated to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel for “meritorious conduct in the field” by a grateful Cromwell and Parliament and granted lands in the Barony of Callan, County Kilkenny. He brought his wife, Anne Villiers, widow of Capt. John Villiers, and family over to Ireland and made their Irish home at Callan Castle. The name “Callanwolde” is based on this family connection to the Irish town of Callan and the Old English word for “woods” (“wolde”).



Recent genealogical research suggests that parts of this legend are, in fact, true, although as happens with all things, some details have been lost, changed, and exaggerated over the years.



The estate is located in the Druid Hills neighborhood of Atlanta, which was planned by the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park in New York City and the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. Of the estate's original 27 acres, approximately 12 remain intact. The grounds, which consist of sculptured lawns, formal gardens, nature trails and a rock garden, have been partially restored by the DeKalb County Federation of Garden Clubs and The Callanwolde Foundation, and are maintained by DeKalb County.


Olmstead and Callanwolde Gardens.

Designed by Henry Hornbostel, who also designed Emory University, Callanwolde's plan is one of openness. Most rooms adjoin the great halls located on each floor, and the entire 27,000 square foot mansion is centered on a large, courtyard that has recently been enclosed. The attention to fine detail is evident in the excellent craftsmanship of the walnut panelling, stained glass, bronze balustrades, the artistry of the delicate ceiling and fireplace reliefs, and the pierced tracery concealing the Aeolian organ chambers.



Callanwolde remained the Candlers’ home for 39 years. In 1959, two years after Mr. Candler's death, and nine years prior to her own death, Mrs. Candler donated the estate (including many of the original furnishings) to Emory University.



The house (minus the furnishings) was later acquired by the First Christian Church, which subsequently sold two parcels of the property totalling approximately four acres on one side and approximately 12 acres on the other. The mansion was temporarily leased to an artist who planned to establish an art gallery there. During this period, the condition of the mansion deteriorated. Considerable damage was done to the organ pipes; careless use of fire resulted in damage to the flooring in one bedroom; and lighting fixtures, door and window latches, and other hardware were stolen. Eventually, the church placed the remaining 12 acres, which included the mansion, the carriage house, a gardener's cottage, two greenhouses, and various out-buildings, up for sale.


Art Gallery now.

To save Callanwolde from possible destruction, a fund-raising drive was led, first by an ad hoc committee of the Druid Hills Civic Association, and later by The Callanwolde Foundation that formed from it. The property was purchased for $360,000 in 1972, with a matching funds grant from the open spaces program of the Federal Housing and Urban Development Department. DeKalb County contributed $40,000, accepted ownership of the property and agreed to maintain it. Callanwolde was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center was opened under the supervision of the DeKalb County Recreation, Parks, and Cultural Affairs Department. In 1983, however, the non-profit Callanwolde Foundation accepted responsibility for the operation of the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, although DeKalb County continues to maintain the house and grounds.

Recent history

During the Summer Olympics held in Atlanta in 1996, the house was transformed into “Casa Italia,” the official hospitality headquarters of the Italian Olympic Committee. Guests attending lavish parties hosted by the Italian delegation included Prince Albert of Monaco, Luciano Pavarotti, Andrew Young, Alberto Tomba, and a host of famous Italian fashion designers, chefs, Olympic athletes, artists and entertainers.


Aeolian organ party.

Callanwolde has also served as a filming location for several Hollywood films, including “Sharkey’s Machine,” starring Burt Reynolds, and “Bear,” a feature film about the life of legendary football coach Bear Bryant. In 2003, Callanwolde served as the backdrop for several scenes used in the feature film “Stroke of Genius, the Bobby Jones Story,” starring Jim Caviezel.

  

Support to Callanwolde Fine Arts Center is provided through a grant appropriated by the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners, in part by DeKalb County Parks, Recreation & Cultural Affairs, and in part by the Georgia Council for the Arts through appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. Georgia Council for the Arts is a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.


Callanwolde is also mentioned in Pat Conroy's novel, "The Prince of Tides."

Architectural history

The mansion was built between 1917 and 1921 and is considered a severe and modern approach to the late Gothic Revival style of architecture.



The front facade of the two and one-half story building has medieval half-timbered rhythmical design across the upper stories, crenelated bays and Tudor arches, as well as strap-work ornament, yet all of these elements of Tudor-Gothic design have been subjected to a simplicity or severity of design that is a uniquely 20th century approach to the use of these traditional design motifs.



The construction is of poured concrete and steel and a rubble base of tile covered by stucco, and the house is built on a two-foot concrete foundation.

 

All wooden floors are anchored to timbers laid in concrete over masonry units supported by reinforced concrete beams. This quality of construction explains the fact that no settlement is discernible in the building. Downstairs floors are of walnut with walnut pegs, with the exception of the living room which has white oak flooring. Upstairs floors are of white oak. The house also features large rafters and paneling of walnut.



The house has a central heating system featuring recessed units behind decorative metal screens. It was originally steam-heated, but was converted from coal to gas heat in the 1930s. A vacuum system was built into the house, but it is no longer operable. There was also a buzzer system with a control panel in the kitchen, however it no longer exists. The pipes of the Aeolian organ are accommodated in the infrastructure of the house in four separate chambers.

Callanwolde’s architect: Henry Hornbostel (1867-1961)

Callanwolde was designed by architect Henry Hornbostel of Pittsburgh. Hornbostel, born in Brooklyn, New York, was classically trained at Columbia University in New York City and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He began work in Pittsburgh in 1904 after winning the Carnegie Technical Schools Competition for the design of the campus that is now Carnegie Mellon University. He founded the Department of Architecture at Carnegie Tech, and, in addition to a private practice in Pittsburgh, he taught at Columbia University and was at various times a partner in the New York firms of Howell, Stokes & Hornbostel; Wood, Palmer & Hornbostel; Palmer & Hornbostel; and Palmer, Hornbostel & Jones. Although the bulk of his practice centered in and around Pittsburgh, Hornbostel executed projects throughout the country, including the campus plans of Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, Emory University in Atlanta, and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; several bridges in New York City; and government buildings in Albany, NY and Oakland, CA.



One of the many enduring structures Henry Hornbostel designed was the Williamsburg Bridge (1903) in New York City. Connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn, and designed by Hornbostel and Leffert L. Buck, the 1,600 foot bridge took over seven years to complete. When the bridge opened in 1903, it was the first all-steel, large-scale suspension bridge built in the country –and the longest of its kind in the world. It remained the world's longest suspension bridge until the 1920s.

Hornbostel apparently met Howard Candler through a project for The Coca-Cola Company. In 1915, he designed the master plan for Emory University when it was relocated to Atlanta from Oxford, Georgia.



Hornbostel's work, while drawing heavily on historic precedents of Gothic, Tudor, and Renaissance styles, foreshadows the beginnings of a modernist sensibility in its stripped-down use of forms and relative absence of ornamentation. In this, it represents a transitional period between the academic classicism and gothic revival of the 19th century and the modernist movement of the 20th century.



The Henry Hornbostel Collection is housed in the Architecture Archives of Carnegie Mellon University's Libraries.



Drawings, Plans and other information about the original design of the Emory University Campus are maintained by the University Library's Special Collections.

Cameron Court District



Cameron Court is a small single-family residential subdivision dating from the mid to late 1920's. It is located in the midst of a vast early twentieth century suburban area, some three miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. Cameron Court lies just beyond the western edge of Druid Hills, a nationally significant suburban development originally planned by Frederick Law Olmsted. Cameron Court consists of a single short cul-de-sac street running eastward from Briarcliff Road.



The houses are relatively small one and one-and-a-half story detached single-family dwellings. They were built in the mid to late 1920's. Predominant architectural styles are Craftsman/Bungalow, Spansh Mission, Tudor, and Colonial. Exterior walls are veneered in either brick or stucco, with wood detailing.



Recessed porches, bracketed pediments, half timbering, and exposed rafter ends or boxed cornices are characteristic architectural details. The houses are uniformly sized, share a common setback line, and stand relatively close together, creating an almost row-house-like effect along the street.

Candler Park Historic District

Candler Park is a 55-acre city park located at 585 Candler Park Drive NE, in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Candler Park began as the independent community of Edgewood which grew up along the Georgia Railroad tracks in the 1870s, was incorporated in 1899, and was annexed by the City of Atlanta in 1909.



It is named after Coca-Cola magnate Asa Griggs Candler, who donated this land to the city in 1922.



The park features a nine-hole golf course, a swimming pool, a football/soccer field, a basketball court, tennis courts, and a playground.



Saw Government Mule at Candler Park Music Festival back in 2018.



Candler Park is also the name of the neighborhood surrounding the park. It is on the east side of the city, bordering Little Five Points, Lake Claire, Inman Park, Druid Hills, and Edgewood.


McLendon Ave NE in Candler Park.



Two architectural styles, late-Victorian and Bungalow/Craftsman, are predominant in the district. Scattered throughout the western part of the district and dating from about 1895 to 1910 are a number of modest late-Victorian cottages with little detailing and a few large late-Victorian houses with .considerable detailing including patterned shingle work, porches detailed with turned columns and ball and spindle trim, heavily corbelled chimneys, and stained glass windows.



The Candler Park Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 8, 1983, with a boundary increase on March 17, 2005. It includes portions of Lake Claire.



Candler Park Historic District is historically and architecturally significant as a late nineteenth-early twentieth century residential neighborhood that evolved from an independent town into an "in-town" streetcar suburb.



MARTA rapid transit rail service is still available at the Edgewood/Candler Park station. 

Cheek-Spruill House



The Cheek-Spruill House is a two-story, wood-frame, gabled-ell house. It has a three-gable roof and two chimneys, one interior and one exterior. There is a screened porch on the rear. On the front facade is a porch on both floors, with the columns on the second floor porch being original. The projecting front-gabled ell is chamfered at both levels.



The house sits prominently at the intersection of two main roads in what was historically downtown or the center of Dunwoody. Due to rapid commercialization in this once-rural area, this is the only historic structure remaining at this intersection. The house has been rehabilitated for reuse as a meeting hall, historical organization facility, and a tea room.



The 1/2 acre now owned by the Dunwoody Preservation Trust, Inc. has several large historic trees including one large pecan tree.



A historic feature of this lot is the deep cut in the front yard of the house which indicates where the old railroad bed once was located.



The Cheek-Spruill House and outbuildings are one of the last remaining farmsteads in the Dunwoody area. During the 1990s the area lost many of the historic homes to commercial, apartment, and residential development.

College Avenue Bridge



We covered this in (GNW #7) on Stone Mountain. The Stone Mountain covered bridge, dating from 1892, which originally spanned the Oconee River in Athens, Georgia.



Image of Bridge when it crossed Oconee was an extension of College Avenue, hence the historic name is College Avenue Bridge.



Only 8 of 56 National Register of Historic Places in DeKalb County but I got several more Wonders in mind. DeKalb County will carry us into Football Season. Today's Georgia Natural Wonder Gal theme is Egyptian Women for the Carlos Museum.

   

  
Lordy, or praise Allah.