The Architecture of the Brookhaven Historic District
Georgian Revival
When application was made in 1985 for the neighborhood to receive its historic designation, the area’s architecture was a significant consideration of the National Register of Historic Places. At that time, the prominent home styles in Brookhaven’s historic area were Colonial (as the name would suggest, including characteristics of the architecture popular at the founding of the United States), Georgian Revival (generally referring to a brick home with the front door in the middle, balanced symmetry, two stories, and stately columns), and Tudor Revival (architecture inspired by Medieval English Tudor buildings).
The historic district was mostly made up of three areas that were planned and developed between 1910 and the beginning of World War II. Brookhaven Estates, which encompasses the area closest to the Capital City Club, was first laid out in 1910. In 1928, an area called Country Club Estates was plotted. It included Winall Down Road and Calvert Lane, as well as parts of Stovall Boulevard, Vermont Road, and Narmore Drive. Carlton Operating Company, the area that bears the name of the real estate firm that developed it, encompassed land along Bellaire Drive and was platted in 1936. Building and design in the neighborhood virtually stopped at the beginning of World War II.
Several prominent architects of the time designed structures in the first three areas of Historic Brookhaven. Among these were:
- Hal Fitzgerald Hentz – born in Florida, Hal received an architecture degree from Columbia University and later studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He became a partner in the firm Norman, Hentz & Reid which was known for is Beaux-Arts and Colonial revival designs.
- Neil Reid – Neil was born in Alabama and eventually became recognized as the best residential architect in the city of Atlanta. Like his partner Hal Hentz, Neil also attended Columbia and studied briefly at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Their firm Norman, Hentz & Reid became Hentz, Reid & Adler when Norman died, and is known for designing many of the most famous homes and buildings of the time. In Historic Brookhaven, the firm designed 36 West Brookhaven Drive (the Hanger family’s Tudor Revival home, which has since been razed) and 983 Stovall Boulevard (a house in the Georgian style).
- Preston Stevens Sr. – Preston designed the Capital City clubhouse. He was a founding partner of Burge and Stevens, which is best known for designing Techwood Homes as the country’s first public housing project. The firm also designed model homes in Garden Hills in the 1920s.
Alexander Everett, W. Montgomery Anderson, and Henry D. Norris were among other notable architects who designed homes in Historic Brookhaven.