1907 Gothic Victorian house is located in Inman Park. The house features 3 living levels and has outdoor space on every level. The current owners purchased the home in 2006 and did an extensive restoration and renovation in 2007 including adding additional living space to the house.
There are 6 decorative fireplaces and most are original to the home. The floors throughout the home are pine floors.
The main living level features: the foyer, parlor with the bay window, dining room, kitchen, den, and powder room. The central hallway leads to the large rear porch. Note the back door that has been modified. The top portion can be opened and the bottom remaining closed.
The stained glass window located in the staircase from the first floor to the second floor was created during the 2007 renovation.
The second floor features the master suite with his & her bathrooms complete with a walk in closet & a large rear deck. There are two additional bedrooms on this floor – one is currently used as a library and has a charming built in window seat. His bathroom would service the secondary bedrooms on this floor or the 3rd floor bathroom.
The third floor features two bedrooms – each with private balconies and one with a bonus room. There is a shared full bathroom on this level.
The back yard is large (larger than noted on tax records) and features alley access for off street parking. The property is accessed with auto gate access.
The current owner is author and historian, Sharon F. Jones, author of Inman Park (Images of America).
Location:
Inman Park is a vibrant neighborhood with the best Street Festival in Atlanta. This home is located across the street from the Freedom Park pathway connecting you to the Atlanta Beltline.
Details of the 2007 Renovation:
All systems – plumbing, electric, and HVAC were installed in 2007.
The front fence and gate are made of iron and produced by a company that uses historic designs. The current owners designed the gate with the butterflies to represent Inman Park.
None of the light fixtures are original. All lights were purchased as antique/vintage and rewired, with the exception of closet lights and recessed lighting on the 3rdfloor.
During the 2007 renovations, old electric and gas lines were found leading to where ceiling light fixtures had been located, meaning — in 1907, the lights worked with either or both. The fixtures in the parlor and dining room are antique and have both up lights (gas) and down lights (electric). The gas part runs on electricity now.
The newel post was purchased in an antique store.
The original staircase started near the window by the fireplace and went straight up at a steep angle. Modern codes do not allow steep angled stairs, so a turned staircase with a landing was built.
Almost all the original woodwork and doors in the house were in the house in 2006, covered with decades of paint. The original finish was varnish. All the moldings, doors, windows, baseboards, etc., were removed and sent to a place in Decatur that used acid to remove the old paint.
There are 2 leaded glass windows in the entrance hall. One of them is original; the other is a copy as it was missing. Susan McCracken, a local glass artist in Cabbagetown, did the work on all the art windows in the house. Susan copied the original leaded glass window and also repaired the leaded glass window above the front door.
The front door is not original. A former occupant from the 1930s, Mr. Bachellor, confirmed the front door was ¾ glass like the current modern one.
The original door hardware was copper plated. They were restored and are located on the pocket doors in the parlor and on some doors scattered throughout the house.
All of the original doors have 6 panels.
All of the fireplace mantels are original, except for the 2 without tile – library and dining room.
The original house stops at the horizontal wood strips in the floors. Everything past the strips is part of the 2007 rear addition.
The window on the dutch door on the first floor leading to the backyard was put in the house in the 1970s or 80s, but it is not original to the house.
The stained glass window in the kitchen was made by Susan McCracken.
There are gothic symbols in the house as the house was designed as a Carpenter Gothic Revival. (Ex., trefoils on front porch near columns, light fixtures in downstairs hall and both stairwells and 3rd floor bedrooms, fireplace mantle in library, kitchen window.)
The front porch columns were copied from one column found on the back porch in 2006 that was probably one of the original front columns. That column was not stable enough to be used, but duplicates were made and put on the front porch.
All floors are pine, most are original. Some original ones were moved around for aesthetic reasons. The floors in the long bedroom on the 3rd floor came from the parlor of the Floyds house at 116 Elizabeth Street.
The faux window, which can be seen on the south side of the house outside the family room, was necessary because the original windows were not allowed to be changed from the exterior for preservation reasons.
The master bath used to be part of a bedroom, and the master closet was part of that bedroom.
The master bathtub is original, although the bottom of it is stamped 1922. This indicates the bathroom was not installed until that time. The original bathroom was where the kitchen pantry is now, but a bigger room. The kitchen pantry door was the bathroom door.
In 2006 when the current owner bought the house, there was a large Macaw parrot living in a cage in the 2nd floor front bedroom. The 3rd floor (attic) was a loft where the owner at that time slept. The bird flew freely about the 3rd floor. There were 9 cats living on the first floor with a tenant.
The stained glass window in the staircase was made by Susan McCracken and added in 2007.
There is a similar house in Grant Park, near the intersection of Grant and Sydney Streets.
All of the original window weights were buried in the backyard, which were found by luck. They were excavated, cleaned and installed in the windows.
Many of the bricks in the foundation and front walkway were buried in the backyard.
The kitchen countertops were made from one large heart pine beam, which the contractor had found and took when he was doing work on the Shakespearean Theatre on Peachtree Street.
The top window in the gable is original.
All faucet fixtures, except for the ones in the 3rd floor bath, are polished nickel, which would have been used in 1907.
Brief history:
The house was built at the same time as the twin house next door, using the same building permit in 1907, on a split lot. Sister houses were common at the time, although not in Atlanta. At that time, the house was located in a neighborhood called “Copenhill,” which was a planned community much like Inman Park and built contemporaneously with Inman Park. Copenhill no longer exists and is now part of the Inman Park Historic District.
The builder was W.P. Kelly, who was a popular and prolific builder in Atlanta. Until 1912, the house was rented to various occupants; at that time, the Keheleys began renting and did so until 1927. In the 1930s, the house was owned by the Bachellor family, which consisted of a couple and their one son. The son, now in his 80s, visited the house and told the current owners stories of his boyhood in the house. The Bachellors changed the house to a duplex during the Depression, renting out the upstairs to supplement their income.
The house was continuously occupied by various occupants after the Bachellors, with no owners or renters occupying the property for any significant period. In 1977, Richard Ballard bought the house – still a duplex – and lived in it until he sold it to the current owners in 2006. The current owners restored the house, returning it to a single family dwelling, building out the attic, and extending the footprint with a rear addition. All work was done using the Secretary of the Interiors Standards for Rehabilitation, a national guideline for preserving the character and historical significance of properties on the National Register of Historic Places. The renovation was completed in April, 2007 – exactly 100 years after the house was originally built.
