“HAVE HOUSE--- WILL TRAVEL”
by Bob Foreman © 2013
As run in Ponce Press
If the Buckhead Heritage Society gets its wish, the sole surviving single family residence on Peachtree Road will soon be saved from demolition. The catch is that the house must be moved off the property that it now occupies. Originally situated directly opposite Lindbergh Drive, the historic residence was first saved in 1998 through an agreement between the neighborhood association and developer Blaine Kelley, Jr. as a condition of allowing condominium towers to be constructed on the two acre property. The house was relocated thirty feet to the south and thirty-five feet closer to Peachtree. Known as the Randolph-Lucas residence, the Georgian revival house was designed by Thornton Marye and first appears in the City Directory in 1924 as 2014 Peachtree Road (later renumbered 2494) opposite the then unpaved Mayson Avenue which was rechristened “Lindbergh” after the aviator’s visit to Atlanta in 1927. Marye’s principal designs include Terminal Station, the Women’s Club theatre and numerous fine residences. His partner Olliver J. Vinour designed the Fox Theatre. The house was commissioned by attorney Hollins N. Randolph, a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson. At the time, Randolph was president of the Confederate Memorial Association which had hired sculptor Gutzon Borglum to design and execute a carving on Stone Mountain. Violent dissension between artist and Association resulted in the project being scuttled, and Borglum moved to Mount Rushmore. Sorrow followed the 1935 purchase of the house by Arthur Lucas who was killed in a hunting accident in November of that year. His widow Margaret occupied the residence until her death some fifty years later. Lucas, with his partner William Jenkins, operated principal motion picture houses in the southeast, including Atlanta’s Paramount, Capitol, Roxy, and Fox Theatres, the latter the flagship of the chain. Lucas & Jenkins owned the Fox Theatre outright, in equal partnership with Paramount Pictures. Hercules House Movers of Ellenwood, Georgia was engaged to relocate the house in 1998. The Atlanta Constitution posed the question, “how do you move a 550-ton Georgian revival mansion in Buckhead?” Hercules’ response? “Very carefully.” For more information, go to http://www.buckheadheritage.com. -30-