Saving Grant Mansion is a win for the city and Grant Park

Rendering of Restored Grant Mansion

Karen Huebner, executive director of the Atlanta Urban Design Commission, has always maintained that every historic building needs a guardian angel. 

“It is fantastic that the Atlanta Preservation Center is the guardian angel for the Grant Mansion,” said Ms. Huebner. “Saving this important site is a win for preservation and the City as well as our largest historic district.”

Phil Cuthbertson, president of the Grant Park Conservancy, adds that this purchase will help the city recognize the importance of its past and symbolize the turn around of Grant Park. 

“Most people want to know the history of the city, and this house can be used to explain how Atlanta grew through the accomplishments of L.P. Grant, who helped bring the railroad to Atlanta and make it a transportation hub,” said Cuthbertson. “For the Grant Park neighborhood, it is one more indication that it has a bright future.”

Coons agrees that the preservation of the Grant Mansion will help the City build its historic tourism appeal through the wide interest in history. “Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction and New South, Margaret Mitchell and Bobby Jones – the Grant Mansion does it all,” he said.

After Grant's death in 1893, the first Grant Mansion continued in the possession of his family. Grant's grandson Bryan M. Grant and his wife shared their home with Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Jones whose son Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones, the greatest amateur golfer in the world and winner of the Grand Slam in 1930, was born there on March 17, 1902. 

In 1941 Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, loaned Boyd Taylor money to purchase the Grant Mansion for $3,000 with plans to turn it into an Atlanta museum in order to preserve it. In 1947 she sued Taylor, who was supposed to be the caretaker of the house, for letting it deteriorate further, but lost the suit. 

"After a period of neglect and controversial treatment, it is our hope to give this unique resource what is necessary for its return as a major representative of Atlanta's historic past and as a home for the Atlanta Preservation's future," said Coons. 

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