Dick Myrick enjoyed what friends labeled a “spectacular” career in the commercial real estate game.
He orchestrated signature developments in Gwinnett and north Fulton counties in a career that spanned decades. The Corners office park in Peachtree Corners and Gwinnett County’s first high-rise building had tenants flocking to him and had his professional associates admiring his knack for putting together challenging deals. His community service ran the gamut from the Atlanta and Gwinnett chambers of commerce to a local theater and a nonprofit serving the neurodiverse.
But, arguably, his most remembered impact came not from putting up offices but from keeping a historic north Fulton property from being torn down.
Roswell’s Bulloch Hall — where the parents of future President Teddy Roosevelt were wed in 1853 and where Union General William T. Sherman quartered troops during the Civil War — had fallen on hard times. The once-elegant 1840 Greek Revival home was long vacant, deteriorating and listed, along with 17 surrounding acres, as a teardown in 1971.
Enter Myrick.
“He initially looked at this as a land play, as this something a client might want to buy,” says his son, Dick Myrick Jr., a developer and land broker himself.
“Then he started reading about it … and thought it was a shame to tear it down.”
Myrick Sr. told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1987, “I’m no history buff, but I got carried away. Under all the grime, I loved the old columns, the chimneys, the mantelpieces, the elegant moldings, the wine cellar in the basement.”
“Buy it as an investment? Heck, no. The only way to go is to restore it”
Credit: Courtesy
Credit: Courtesy
He did just that, then operated it as a living history museum for several years before facing financial challenges. He sold it to the city of Roswell in 1978. The city still owns Bulloch Hall as a local history museum.
At about the same time Myrick bought Bulloch Hall, he was buying and restoring a strip of buildings on the Roswell town square and had another brush with history.
He stopped by one day to watch workmen attending to an old bank vault in one building. Curious about what might lie on top of it, he climbed up and uncovered an extraordinary find — oilcloth bags stuffed with Confederate currency and bonds.
Myrick hung onto the money for more than 30 years, eventually donating the trove to the Atlanta History Center so that it could swap the currency with an antiquities dealer in a deal for a series of General Sherman’s orders issued at the outset of the 1864 Atlanta campaign of the Civil War.
Richard “Dick” Myrick, an accomplished business owner and civic benefactor died Jan. 10. He was 91 years old. He was in hospice care and suffered from multiple medical issues.
Myrick Jr. said both projects illustrated that “he was very community minded. He didn’t want credit for anything. He was low profile.”
The Georgia Institute of Technology civil engineering graduate became a land broker, then a land investor and finally a developer. That’s where his natural ability to connect and his legendary persuasive skills came into sharp focus.
“He was always very quiet. But he was one of those people who when they did speak, I listened,” says Ken Bernhardt, a emeritus Georgia State University professor who served on the Alliance Theater board with Myrick.
Myrick handled a difficult challenge for the Alliance, heading a successful campaign to help erase the arts group’s $1.8 million dollar debt.
Former Alliance artistic director Susan Booth says he won over donors because “He was Dick Myrick. He was an impossible man to say no to.”
Those skills, combined with kindness, compassion and ethical behavior, served him well as he rode the wave of development in Gwinnett.
Jay Mannelly, a former employee, said Myrick was aboveboard and skilled at heading off potential sticking points for deals.
“He’d say, ‘These documents don’t look quite right. Let’s talk about about how we’d resolve it if the issue does come up.’” Sometimes his boss would suggest that he and his opposite number get away for a game of tennis to foster a closer relationship.
His penchant for fair play and “looking out for the other guy” extended beyond the conference room.
Coming back from an Atlanta Hawks game on a frigid winter night, Myrick Jr. recalls his dad spotting a homeless man lying alongside a road. Myrick Sr. stopped to check on him and stayed until a police officer arrived and promised to help the man to a nearby shelter.
Mannelly said, “I think a lot of people will say that ‘I hope that when I pass, I’ll be able to rest knowing I gave back to my fellow man like Dick did.’”
A memorial service for Myrick is set for 1 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25 at Northwest Presbyterian Church, 4300 Northside Dr. Atlanta.
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