Personal Journeys: The House of Candler

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Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler built modern-day Atlanta. Now, some heirs face foreclosures and possible ruin.

Bill Candler, great-great-grandson of Coca-Cola magnate Asa Griggs Candler, sits under a portrait of Asa Griggs Candler II at Candler Development Company in Sandy Springs.

The Candlers clan has lived by a motto, codified in Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler's will and well-known to his five children long before he died almost a century ago. Here is the Candler family in 1895: (counterclockwise, from bottom left) William, Asa, Walter, daughter Lucy, mother Lucy, Charles Howard, and Asa Jr.

Today, the Candler Building (center, shortest building), is flanked by the Equitable (left) and Georgia-Pacific (right) buildings in downtown Atlanta.

The family even has a neighborhood named after it. here, houses along Iverson Street in Candler Park neighborhood.

It's ornate Peachtree Street entrance signals the family's prominence.

Finished in 1906, the Candler Building was once the city's tallest skyscraper.

However, earlier this year Candler faced a bank creditor in a testy deposition. He did not have any money.

The nine-hole, Candler Park golf course in the middle of Candler Park, was once owned by Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler, and today the course stands as an unpretentious reminder of the sport's humble roots: It's a public course that anyone can play.

"Candlers of one generation or another have survived the boom-bust cycles of a century of Atlanta's development. "We can survive. We're working on a reemergence," Bill said.

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Bill Candler, great-great-grandson of Coca-Cola magnate Asa Griggs Candler, sits under a portrait of Asa Griggs Candler II at Candler Development Company in Sandy Springs.

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