Atlanta's Endangered Properties: Craigie House

Atlanta's Endangered Properties: Craigie House
July 20, 2011
Rhetta Akamatsu
Examiner.com

The Craigie House, located at 1204 Piedmont Ave NE in Atlanta, was built in 1911 as the headquarters of the Daughters of the Revolution. The Daughters of the Revolution were founded in 1890, when the Sons of the Revolution voted to exclude women from the organization. Eighteen women, including President Benjamin Harrison's wife, formed the DAR and solicited "Regents" to form chapters in every state. The first chapter was formed in Chicago in March 1891, and the second was Atlanta's, formed in April of that year. The DAR was an early step for women to assert their rights to recognition along with men, and to take pride in their heritage.

IN 1895, Atlanta held a huge exposition in Piedmont Park: The Cotton State and International Exposition. Other states contributed buildings to the Exposition, and one of them was Massachusetts. Their building was an exact replica of Craigie House in Cambridge, MA, which was George Washington's first headquarters during the Revolution and later the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

After the successful exposition closed, Massachusetts had to decide what to do with the building. They advertised it for sale, but there were no takers, so they decided to donate it to the Atlanta chapter of the DAR. The plan was to move it to a large, donated lot, but that plan fell through and it stayed at its original location. The DAR used it, but it had no heating and had other issues that kept them from being able to use it year-round.Early in 1903, fundraising started to build a new Chapter House. In 1909 the original Craigie House Chapter House was sold and torn down for its materials, along with all the other remaining Exposition buildings.

In 1911, the new Charter House was formally opened and named after the original, Craigie House. The DAR had trouble raising funds, and may have cut corners on the construction, which let to structural problems that have plagued the house throughout its existance. It was seriously neglected during the 1930's because of the Depression, when people were struggling to survive and could not be worried about maintaining it. Major repairs were made in 1950 and again in 1966.

owever, after the 1960's, membership in the DAR declined, older members died and new members did not replace them, and funds for upkeep on the house became scarce. In 1986, a huge magnolia tree fell on Craigie House, doing major damage. The house was almost demolished, but funds were raised in time to save it and repair it. It was damaged again in 1994 during Hurricane Opal, and two of the stained glass windows in the house had to be removed. In 1999, the north wall was in such poor condition that the house had to be vacated. The DAR did not have the money to make repairs, and so, they sold the house in 2001. That developer went bankrupt, and the house is now vacant, the windows boarded up, and graffiti on the red brick walls.

The house continues to deteriorate as it remains unoccupied and untended. The cost of preserving it would be considerable, but for such an important structure to be destroyed would be another great loss of Atlanta history. Therefore, the Atlanta Preservation Center has placed Craigie House on its list of most endangered properties this year. The Georgia Trust has also elected it as one of its 2011 Places in Peril.

Most of this information was taken from an article by Tommy H. Jones, part of a series of reports on historic architecture in Georgia and the Southeast, which can be found here.