Why was the ‘last mansion’ on Peachtree in Atlanta chopped into pieces?

With its faded brick exterior, columned portico and four stately chimneys, the Georgian mansion at 78 Peachtree Circle doesn’t look at all out of place among its expensive neighbors in Ansley Park.

Nor does its tranquil setting betray its violent past.

This structure, the Randolph-Lucas-Jones house, was once cut in half, lifted off of its Buckhead birthplace in the middle of the night and trucked 3.1 miles down the street.

Getting there was not smooth sailing for Roger Smith and his partner Christopher Jones. Smith stood recently in the house’s living room, underneath 14-foot ceilings, gazing at a painting over the fireplace depicting a stormy sea and an emerging sun.

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

“We knew we were going through a storm,” he said, “but we didn’t know it was going to be quite as severe as it was.”

The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation hosts its Spring Ramble this week, and there are a number of notable houses on the tour, including the Governor’s Mansion and several in the College Park Historic District.

But few of those structures have a story line comparable to the tale behind Randolph-Lucas-Jones house. Top donors to the Georgia Trust will be entertained at this storied mansion on Saturday, April 22, and will hear about its journey.

The house was constructed in 1924 by Hollins Nicholas Randolph, a prominent attorney and the great-great grandson of Thomas Jefferson. Copied from the Virginia mansion where Randolph grew up, it embodied the classic Georgian four-on-four design.

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

The graceful residence stood at the west end of Lindbergh Drive, where it terminates into Peachtree Road. It was designed by Thornton Marye, whose firm also designed the Fox Theatre and the Atlanta Terminal Station.

Like many successful Atlantans, Randolph built his house north of the city, and commuted to work, perhaps by a newfangled automobile. Residential houses from the 1920s once crowded Peachtree; almost all are gone.

The Randolphs lived in the house only 10 years, then moved to Washington, D.C., in 1934 and the house was sold to Arthur and Margaret Lucas. Arthur and his company owned dozens of theaters around Georgia, including the Lucas Theatre in Savannah; he also either managed or owned the Fox Theatre. Margaret Lucas lived at the Peachtree Road address until her death in 1987.

Credit: Jason Getz, jgetz@ajc.com

It became a familiar sight in Atlanta, and was heralded by novelist Anne Rivers Siddons in her novel “Peachtree Road.”

In 1997 a developer built a 10-story condominium development, 2500 Peachtree Road, immediately behind the house. The developer actually picked up Randolph’s house and moved it 40 feet to maximize the lot.

The Randolph-Lucas house was without heat or air conditioning for several years, and began to deteriorate. Eventually the 2500 Peachtree Condominium Association applied to have it demolished to make way for an open-air pavilion. They had tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer, and were offering it to anyone who could move it.

“We came in at the 11th hour,” said Smith. “I think Christopher made up his mind the day we went through it.”

The condo folks told Smith that the house was rotting. “It’s a threat to residents and pedestrians,” said their lawyer at the time.

That turned out to be untrue. Said Smith, “The first thing a contractor is going to say when you come in and try to save an old house is, ‘oh it’s structural; you can’t do anything with it.’”

With the help of the city of Atlanta and the Buckhead Heritage Society, Smith and Jones agreed to acquire the house in October of 2012. After a year of planning came weeks of preparations. The chimneys were removed and the second floor was cut off just above the baseboards. The roof was severed from the walls, folded like an envelope and “butterflied” down into the second floor, which was loaded onto a transporter.

At midnight on Nov. 8, 2013, the 69-ton first floor and the 71-ton second floor were rolled onto Peachtree Road and began heading south at 2 miles an hour.

Workers stood atop both transporters to lift traffic lights over the top edges of each section, which were each just shy of 19 feet tall. At the High Museum, at 7 a.m. Saturday morning, the two transporters turned left through a construction site that was being prepared for the One Museum Place development. They approached an empty lot on Peachtree Circle from the back side.

By arrangement with John Wieland, developer of One Museum Place, Smith and Jones were allowed to use his construction site as a staging area, while the sections were reassembled.

Despite warnings from the previous owners, the house weathered the trip well. Smith said the 100-year-old heart pine that holds his house together has become harder and harder. “This house is essentially made of petrified wood.”

Some parts were unsalvageable. The dormers on the roof had to be discarded and the slates on the roof crumbled. But the plaster walls made the trip with no problem, as did the medallions, the baseboards, the moldings and the frame itself.

“These old houses are built very well,” said Mark McDonald, president and CEO of the Georgia Trust. “Termites don’t like southern yellow pine.”

Moving the house cost slightly less than $400,000 said Smith, 59, who owns part of a family timber business. The undertaking involved approval from utilities, telecommunications companies and both state and federal agencies. (Federal approval was required to cross the bridge over I-85.) In all, they dealt with 21 entities.

There were still six years of work to do, but Christopher Jones didn’t last that long. He died of cranial lymphoma in March of 2019. “It was a cruel twist of fate that he never got to live in the house,” said Smith, who added his late partner’s name to the house in tribute.

Recently, on a pretty spring afternoon, light poured into the oversized windows and filled the airy interior, bouncing off the yellow pine floors. At 8,000 square feet, the house boasts enormous rooms, and is perfectly suited for parties.

Smith, who finally moved into the house in the fall of 2019, offered a tour of the living and dining rooms, the sweeping staircase from the foyer, a smaller study and a kitchen with a second set of stairs leading all the way to the still unfinished third floor.

He had set out photographs showing the remarkable hejira of 2494 Peachtree Road, which was now 78 Peachtree Circle, as he prepared to host a house concert by the Atlanta Chamber Players and, later, the gathering for the Georgia Trust.

“You can’t replicate this house,” said Smith. “There will always be a curiosity factor, a fascination factor, with this house in Atlanta.”

EVENT PREVIEW

The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation’s Spring Ramble continues this week, with an insider tour of the Georgia Governor’s Mansion on Thursday, April 20; Friday, April 21, the Ramble visits several homes in Buckhead, including Villa Lamar, an Italian Renaissance Revival house designed by George O. Totten; Saturday, April 22, a visit to Peachtree Christian Church and the reception at the Randolph-Lucas-Jones house; Sunday, April 23, registrants explore homes in the College Park Historic District; to register and for information, go to GeorgiaTrust.org.