Canterbury Court Senior Living, which sits on Peachtree Road between Club Drive and Vermont Road, has been a Historic Brookhaven fixture since its opening in the early 1960s. When the facility first opened, the  original tower was recognized for its notable mid-century architecture and is still considered a fine example of the style. 

The first gardens were designed by Edward Daugherty, who has been lauded by many as the most important landscape architect of his time in both Atlanta and the southeastern United States. Among his most prominent projects are the grounds of the Governor’s Mansion in 1967, the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, the gardens at Georgia Tech, and those at the Emory University location of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

Daugherty was a member of All Saints Episcopal Church, which along with St. Luke’s Episcopal Church formed the non-profit entity that would become Canterbury Court. Episcopal churches in other parts of the country had been involved in retirement communities since the 1800s but this was Atlanta’s first non-profit continuing care retirement community. 

Frank Player from All Saints and Margaret Hancock from St. Luke’s came up with the idea for a home for older adults in Buckhead. They asked their respective rectors to sponsor it. Player and Hancock’s idea was for a community that provided joyful living while at the same time had a continuum of care for residents as they aged. Canterbury Court opened its doors in 1965. 

The original Club Tower structure had 62 independent living apartments. Libbey-Owens-Ford, the glass company that installed the original windows, used pictures of the tower in an advertising campaign. The ads described Canterbury Court as a nondenominational community for adults aged 62 and older, and had the headline “How to Stay Young.” The company noted residents could maintain a “youthful viewpoint” by keeping an “alert eye on the open world around them” through the tower’s big windows.

The current facility can house over 500 individuals. The Peachtree Tower was added in 1991 and the Vermont Tower in 2005. In its most recent expansion, which began in 2021, Canterbury Court added the healthcare Monarch Pavilion (over 100 assisted living, memory care, and private nursing apartments), a butterfly garden, the 10-story Garden Tower, a terrace, and several other renovations and expansions.