Demolition Heartbreaker in Virginia-Highland

I've blogged about it before ("Why waste a great garage on a stupid car?") It's been for sale on and off for a while. It's not everybody's favorite.

I loved the porch roof, the bodacious pink trim, awesome garage/workshop and unequaled location. It's much more than meets the eye.


Here is a closer look.




The owner said folks had offered to buy the porch roof and build him another.


Well, they are rehabbing the house, they tore off the porch, it's now in pieces at the bottom of the dumpster.

I asked the demo guys. They said, "I wish you'd told us, I'd have sold it to you for $20."

I want to cry.

How to Enter a Pink Castle

It strives to delight and lift our spirits, not to intimidate. May I show you in via my 30-second video?

There is no trouble finding the rose door. It's the clearest of the pinks and reds from the tile, faded walls, and gravel. Isn't the color of the door perfect? Can you imagine another color?


There is another door, the service door done as a window. See the steps in the corner?


The foyer bumps out. It's plain and human sized, more comfortable than I expected. Little hedges and lanterns guide us to a perfect landing. We might have to make a dash during a rain.


No athletic step climbing is required. It's perfectly sized for families. Ladies in heels might need some gravel practice: I notice some "interesting" lady strides as we crunch toward the door. The left window lights the ladies room, the right lights the men's.


Time to go into the surprisingly cozy foyer.


Mind if I quote "Pattern 130. ENTRANCE ROOM?"

When hosts and guests are saying goodbye, the lack of a clearly marked "goodbye" point can easily lead to endless "Well, we really must be going now,?' and then further conversations lingering on, over and over again."

It's been 6 days and I'm not over it, not over my visit to the Pink Castle. I wrote about the angel & urns and about the garage.

Entrance Pictures from "Buckhead in Bloom" April 11, 2010

Rachel and I did "Buckhead in Bloom 2010" hosted by and benefiting the Atlanta Preservation Center. I took almost 70 amateur pictures. I'm going to post a few at a time.


Here are entrances from the 6 homes on the tour. You can make all these bigger if you click them, and you should see them bigger.

The Philip Shutze house with stars and pineapple.


The playhouse with goose, fern, lamp, and sconce.


The Clement Ford house, well, one of the garden passageways with gravel, sticks stones and porcelain.


Azelea house featuring your dorky host for scale.


Unknown architect's house with fancy fan and sidelights.


Neel Reid house.


Thanks so much to Atlanta Architect and Atlanta Preservation Center trustee Rodolfo Castro for inviting me and other bloggers. From left to right: me, my daughter Rachel, Rodolfo, and his wife, Kim.


Thanks so much to the Atlanta Preservation Center for putting this on. Here are the ticket folks in their shady office.


Other Atlanta bloggers were there too. I saw Helen Young from Whitehaven blog. She'd seen Holly from Things that Inspire, and Blayne Beacham from This Photographer's Life (In Search of a Style), and James from Limestone & Boxwoods.

And thanks so much to my old work friend (he's not old, I'm am) Steven Bennett for saying hello.

More later and thanks,
Terry

Why waste a great garage on a stupid car?

Julia over at Hooked on Houses is hosting her "Hooked on Friday's" blog party. This is my 4th try.

If you are queasy, you'd better leave this page now. You probably don't want to live here. But you might come here to eat, or to drink, or to shop. While here you'll probably muse for a few minutes about what it's like to live here. Let me tell you, it's pretty darn good. This is de facto new urbanism.

Most folks start here young and childless, or they arrive from other "urban" environments.

I want to show you a fantastic little 1930's house in one of Atlanta's best neighborhoods. The listing pictures aren't so good. I pass this one often and enjoy it's straightforward plainness. The sand/white/pink paint scheme makes it pop. You can't use pink in just any neighborhood. And, Donna Pinter's mosaic is just down Barnett street.

This is a facade? Broken hex pavers? Shabby retaining wall? Weak landscape? No setback? This place is great!!

In this neighborhood, the perfect lawn that's is a rarity. This is perfectly fine. Easy to clean gutters too, a necessity with all the trees.

Yuck? Well, here is the craftsman entrance. I spoke with the owner. A builder offered him several thousand dollars for the porch. Said he'd also replace it with a simpler one. No Deal!

It's on the corner so there is no hiding.

Now we're getting somewhere: 3BR, 2 BA, 10 foot ceilings.

Huge garage. But in our neighborhood, who'd waste a garage on a silly car? You can have a workshop, or a studio, or maybe both and a potbelly stove, with a skyline view in the winter.

You'll need a "city" car, a 15 year-old beat up Volvo wagon, to park on the curb.

For this neighborhood, this is a sprawling estate. How about huge mature trees to give you some summertime shade?

What's the deal?: It's across the street from a park, and a short level walk to other parks (including Piedmont Park), schools, churches, bars, restaurants, drug store, hardware, movie theaters, ice cream, hair cuts, blues, people watching...

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Returning control back over to Hooked on Houses is hosting her "Hooked on Friday's" blog party.

Next week, if all goes well, I hope to show you one of the most dignified, humane buildings in Atlanta.

Phelan Apartments Atlanta: Fruit, scrolls, broken pediment...

This trademark Neel Reid entrance is the fruitiest in Atlanta. These are the Phelan Apartments. With the Palmer House next door. They make the intersection of Peachtree Place and Peachtree Street one of the best corners in Atlanta. Architecture tourists won't be distracted by the new midtown skyline. Peachtree cruiser - everybody should be a Peachtree cruiser - will catch the Phelan as they wiz by and wonder. Personally, I love the fruit.


The Phelan is from 1915. Several early apartmetns remain in midtown, many are gone.


It's a not so big building.






Here is another little post about the Palmer House.

Here is modern Midtown, for comparison:

3 impressive entries, 2 Neel Reid's and one Italianate

I'm stuck on entrances, where Architects can use all their tricks, where over scaled can mean perfectly scaled. Here are 3 in upscale Atlanta neighborhoods. Other than the door the common element is a touch of wrought iron.


This one is very serious:


This one is serious too. The entrance is like a small chapel. I'd head toward the pair of charming mini-porticoes.


This Italianate is in Buckhead, north of West Wesley. I can imagine a big family gathering here. The alternating large and small stones surrounding the door is called a "Gibbs surround."


This is the Henry B. Tompkins House by Neel Reid. I'd dress up before I knocked on this door.


A Neel Reid house in Ansley Park. I don't think it has a name. It's formal but approachable, I think. The through-the-eave dormers has become a Harrison Design Associates hallmark. Very modest square column and urn.