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Health & Fitness

The Craigie House

Featured here is a crumbling structure at 1204 Piedmont Avenue, Atlanta. Located right across the street from Piedmont Park, it is one of the original meeting centers for the Atlanta Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. This Georgia chapter was organized on April 15th, 1891, making it the oldest chapter in Georgia, as well as the second oldest chapter in the United States. [Read the original Craigie House story here, available from www.HistoryAtlanta.com.]

Early chapter meetings were held in private homes and at the state capitol until 1895. In that year the Massachusetts State Building, one of the many buildings constructed for the Cotton States and International Exposition hosted by the city of Atlanta in Piedmont Park, was donated to the chapter. The Massachusetts State Building's nickname was the Craigie House.

The original Massachusetts State Building was built in 1895 for the Exposition, designed to resemble the Craigie House of Cambridge, Massachusetts, a home built in 1759 that served as George Washington’s first headquarters during the American Revolution.

The Craigie House built for the Exposition was supposed to be moved from Piedmont Park to this location, but this never materialized. In the 1890′s there were meetings, discussions and fundraising efforts to have the building moved to a piece of land donated by George Washington Collier and Benjamin Walker, but moving the building was deemed not worth the trouble. Walker’s name might sound familiar, since he sold a large tract of farmland in 1887 to the Gentlemen’s Driving Club, land which would later be developed into Piedmont Park.

As stated above, the Piedmont Park structure was sub-par, built too quickly with shoddy materials. The cost was extraordinary to move it. By 1903 the Chapter’s efforts moved from transporting the donated structure to constructing a brand new building on the land donated by Collier and Walker, which included the present site on Piedmont Avenue. Eventually the Massachusetts Building (the Craigie House in Piedmont Park) was sold for salvage; parts of the building were used to construct the new Craigie House you see featured here. Obviously the name was just passed down from the old structure to the new structure.

A dispute over the land between descendents of the two men and private companies (it's a convoluted and screwed up story) delayed construction of the building. Eventually Collier’s land was re-donated to the Chapter by the Southern Real Estate Improvement Company (who developed Ansley Park) and the Chapter proceeded to swap this land with Walker’s descendants for the present site at 1204 Piedmont Avenue.

The Craigie House pictured here was designed by architect Thomas Morgan. Building permits were issued in October of 1910 and a formal opening occurred for this new Craigie House on June 14th, 1911. But the home was not fully completed. Over the next twenty years improvements were repeatedly made to the roof, heaters were added and many parts of the interior were renovated and updated.

While not in use by the chapter it was a rental. In fact, this Craigie House was rented in the 1920's as a dance studio to Arthur Murray, the famous dance instructor who started the incredibly successful dance studio chain.

By the 1960′s circumstances had taken their toll on both the Craigie House building and the membership of the D.A.R.; funding and care nosedived. Eventually the building pictured here deteriorated to this dilapidated state, aided by neglect and various incidents, such as the Magnolia tree that tumbled onto the roof in 1986, along with Hurricane Opal in 1994. This historic building was recently purchased. Let’s hope the buyer will preserve Atlanta history, using this Craigie House for something new and not demolish it for a parking lot or apartment building. [Read the original Craigie House story here, available from www.HistoryAtlanta.com.]

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