3099 Andrews Dr NW
Atlanta, GA, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Swan House

Statement of Significance:

Swan House is significant as an excellent example of the Second Renaissance Revival style and is representative of the tastes, both architectural and decorative, of the affluent in the closing years of the 1920's. Designed by Atlanta architect Philip Trammell Schutze in 1928 and decorated by Ruby Ross Wood of New York, Swan House stands today as the home of the Atlanta Historical Society, the third most well-endowed institution of its kind in the United States.

Built by Edward H. Inman, "one of Atlanta's best citizens and a member of a noted local family," Swan House served as the home of the Inman family for nearly forty years. Upon the death of Mrs. Inman in 1965, the house and estate, valued at some $8,000,000, went to the Atlanta Historical Society. Located on prestigious Andrews Drive, N.W., Swan House was not the house that the Inman's had originally intended to build on what was soon to be their new twenty-five-acre estate. A red brick Georgian style house was initially proposed for the site by famed Atlanta architect Neel Reid then of Hentz, Reid and Adler. Larger than was desired by the Thaman’s at the time, the plans by Reid were laid aside for some time and following "Mr. Reid's long illness, from which he died on Feb. 14, 1926 at the age of 41.... Mr. Schutze, Mr. Reid's 1927 successor in the firm, designed" the present Swan House. Why Mrs. Inman chose the name of Swan House is not precisely known. However, not unlike the "mad" King Ludwig II of Bavaria in his Neuschwanstein Castle of 1876, Mrs. Inman used the swan motif throughout her house. A swan can be seen silhouetted in the fanlight above the main entrance door and in the Dining, Room can also be found a pair of "rare and handsome" swan tables made by the well-known London designer and carver Thomas Johnson.

Swan House is extremely well-appointed in a manner consistent with the tastes and refinements of the era in which it was built. Friends have quoted Mrs. Inman as saying that three legacies she received all went into this house and its furnishings. Representative of the care and selection that went into both the architectural detailing and the decoration of the house are such items as the bronze staircase railing, the six-panel Coromandel screens in the entrance hall, the formal gardens on both the north and south, the library with its mantel from the school of Grinling Gibbons, and the watermelon pink Chinese wall paper in the "Swan" dining room. The Atlanta Journal and institution Magazine reported in 1967 that "If Atlanta residential architecture had a golden age, it probably was in the 1920's and this magnificent house could well have been the high point of that gracious gilded era." They went on to say that "if every house had its own personality, Swan House derives its character today from two very striking sources. The first is the sheer exhilaration of Mr. Schutze's architectural design. The second is the thoughtful taste and attention Mrs. Inman devoted to her home..." Regardless of how and why it came about, Swan House is an Atlanta landmark and as a home for the "Atlanta Historical Society, is a Memorial to an Atlanta era that has now become history itself."

National Register of Historic Places - Tullie Smith House

Statement of Significance:

Atlanta and Fulton County are the most populous urban centers in Georgia. Little tangible "history" survives. Tullie Smith House and its kitchen building are an almost unique exception. Atlanta's expressways and executive parks mushroomed around this house until it was isolated on a hillock and the last member of the family died. The estate demanded the sale of the valuable house site. Heirs agreed to donate the buildings and an Atlanta banker pro- vided the money to save and move them. The Atlanta Historical Society pro- vided a new house site on its own grounds. Here they will be restored exactly as they were when built, c. 1835-45, when Atlanta began. Their pioneer simplicity will contrast with the suburban sophistication of Swan House, the 1920's mansion headquarters of the Atlanta Historical Society. The Atlanta Junior League and the Georgia Historical Commission are cooperating with the Historical Society in this effort to provide a locally unique three-dimensional history lesson.

In Georgia with the exception of the state administered historic site "Traveler's Rest," no "plantation plain style" house-as discussed on the facing page-has been restored and opened for educational purposes. These fragile wooden documents of an important part of Georgia's state and local history are fast disappearing. Had Tullie Smith House not been moved to the Atlanta Historical Society's "backyard," it too would have disappeared. Because such houses are not of the high-style Federal and Greek Revival periods, they are often overlooked and because the pioneer citizens who built them were often "plain style" people, little is usually known about their history; indeed, they are usually not thought to be historical documents. The builder of our example was Robert H. Smith who came from Rutherford, North Carolina, about 1833 and settled in DeKalb County, Georgia, on what later became North Druid Hills Road. Smith's great-granddaughter, Tullie, the last member of the family to occupy the property, gives the house its name. When it and the kitchen building are restored, a visitor may experience the sparsely settled frontier which this area was about 1835, several years before Terminus was created by a railroad surveyor's benchmark and about a decade before Marthasville became Atlanta in 1845.