2632 Fox Hills Dr
Decatur, GA, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Steele-Cobb House

Statement of Significant:

The Steele-Cobb House is significant in architecture and local history. Architecturally, it is significant as a good example of the Plantation Plain- style house with a typical central hall and two-over-two room arrangement with end chimneys. This represents the earliest type of residential architecture in the county and is a rare surviving example for the metropolitan Atlanta area. The house is locally significant as the home of the Steele family, having been built by Michael A. Steele, who, in 1850, married Martha Lucinda Smith, daughter of Robert H. Smith, the builder of the Tullie Smith House. The Steeles were significant to the local community during the years they owned this house.
Michael A. Steele, a son of Isaac Steele, a DeKalb County pioneer, married Martha Lucinda Smith on January 8, 1850. Five years later, they bought the north half of Land Lot 62 and part of Land Lot 101 from Robert Crockett for $800, In 1842, Crockett had purchased all of Land Lot 62 and parts of Land Lots 49 and 101 from the estate of Jesse F. Cleveland, still another DeKalb County pioneer.
The Steeles had seven children while living in the house. Among them was their youngest son, Leslie J., born in 1868, who became mayor of Decatur, 1915-1920, and U.S. congressman, 1927-1929.
Martha Lucinda Steele died in 1882, and in 1888, her husband sold the house and property, including all of Land Lot 101, on which this house rests, to their daughter Mary and her husband, J.S.A. Tilly. The house thus remained in the family as it did again in 1916, when the Tillys sold it to their daughter Mattie McKee.
The Tillys were responsible for the eventual subdivision of the Steele Plantation into smaller home lots.
During antebellum days, Michael A. Steele, farmed his 360 acres raising corn, sweet potatoes, and wheat, but no cotton. It was similar in size and products to the then-nearby Robert H. Smith Home (now preserved at a new location as the Tullie Smith House), which consisted of 810 acres, where they raised twice as much corn but, again, no cotton.

The grounds retain a natural landscaping with large water oaks in the front yard providing a rural setting for the house, which is now engulfed by a subdivision. A few of the cedar trees that once abounded on the property remain on the road leading to the house from Medlock Road but are not on the nominated property.

There is one outbuilding that is presently a garage apartment and which was probably built in the 1920s or 1930s. Also, on the property and shown on the enclosed sketch/plat map is a wooden shed used for storage and a stone barbecue used for outdoor cooking.

The house has had some additions to the rear. The kitchen was added to the house and then modernized in 1937 at the same time the sunporch and bedroom were added, as mentioned above.

The property is surrounded by a subdivision and is only a block and a half from Lawrenceville Highway, a major thoroughfare. It has retained a portion of its original rural setting despite the changing land use of much of the original farmstead.