Rufus M. Rose House

Last updated

Rufus M. Rose House
Rufus M. Rose House, Atlanta, GA (32532276547).jpg
Rufus M. Rose House on Peachtree Street
Atlanta Central.png
Red pog.svg
USA Georgia location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location537 Peachtree St., Atlanta, Georgia
Coordinates 33°46′09″N84°23′06″W / 33.76917°N 84.38500°W / 33.76917; -84.38500
Arealess than one acre
Built1901
ArchitectEmil Charles Seiz
Architectural styleLate Victorian/Queen Anne
NRHP reference No. 77000433 [1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPSeptember 20, 1977
Designated ALBOctober 23, 1989

The Rufus M. Rose House is a late Victorian, Queen Anne style house located in the SoNo district of Atlanta, Georgia. Occupying a narrow lot on Peachtree Street, one and a half blocks south of North Avenue, the house was built in 1901 for Dr. Rufus Mathewson Rose. The architect was Emil Charles Seiz (1873–1940), who designed many residential and commercial structures in the city, including the 1924 Massellton Apartments on Ponce de Leon Avenue.

Contents

Architecture

The house is an extremely rare example of a nineteenth-century town house built for one of Atlanta's wealthy citizens. Its red-brick exterior consists of bayed and multi-gabled facades interspersed with numerous window shapes and sizes, and numerous fireplaces. The original slate roof and front porch have been lost.

Additionally, the property has carved, marble steps that originally ascended directly from the sidewalk on Peachtree Street up to the front porch. The home's tiny yard is the "singular survivor from Peachtree's residential heyday." [2] [3] [4] [5]

History

The approximately 5,200-square-foot (480 m2) home was built for Dr. Rufus M. Rose in 1901 at a cost of $9,000.

Rose, a former druggist and Civil War doctor who moved to Atlanta in 1867, was the founder of the R. M. Rose Co. Distillery (Mountain Spring Distillery), located in the Atlanta suburb of Vinings, as well as the owner of a large real estate business known as the Rose Investment Company. The Rose family lived in this home until 1921.

Rufus M. Rose House in 1903. Notice the mounting block at the curb. Rufus M. Rose Historic Photo.jpg
Rufus M. Rose House in 1903. Notice the mounting block at the curb.

From 1923, when the property was sold out of the Rose family, until the mid-1940s, the home was used as a private residence, then as a rooming house, then as offices for the Fulton County Relief Administration, then, once again, as a private residence.

In 1945, James H. Elliot Sr. bought the house and used it as an antique store and museum, which he named J.H. Elliot's Antiques and the Atlanta Museum. Open to the public, the museum contained furniture belonging to Margaret Mitchell, personal items of Bobby Jones, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie's throne, a Japanese Zero war plane and many other notable items. After more than 50 years, the store and museum closed in 1998.

From 1999 to 2001, the house served as the headquarters for the Atlanta Preservation Center until it moved into L. P. Grant's antebellum mansion in Atlanta's Grant Park neighborhood.

While the house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1977) and is designated as a Landmark Building Exterior (1989) by the City of Atlanta, it is currently vacant and endangered due to neglect. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

The house was sold for a price of $309,750 on August 24, 2011, to an individual by the name of Gholam Bakhtiari at an auction held by the real estate firm Williams & Williams. [7]

Vacant since 2001, the house was sold in 2020 to Inman Park Properties before being sold again to UC Asset, an Atlanta-based real estate investment firm, in 2021. Renovations on the property began in September 2021, though developers have not yet announced future plans for the property. [8] [9]

Related Research Articles

A historic house generally meets several criteria before being listed by an official body as "historic." Generally the building is at least a certain age, depending on the rules for the individual list. A second factor is that the building be in recognizably the same form as when it became historic. Third is a requirement that either an event of historical importance happened at the site, or that a person of historical significance was associated with the site, or that the building itself is important for its architecture or interior. Many historic houses are also considered museums and retain permanent collections that help tell the story of their house and the era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Midtown Atlanta</span> Neighborhood in Fulton County, Georgia, United States

Midtown Atlanta, or Midtown, is a high-density commercial and residential neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. The exact geographical extent of the area is ill-defined due to differing definitions used by the city, residents, and local business groups. However, the commercial core of the area is anchored by a series of high-rise office buildings, condominiums, hotels, and high-end retail along Peachtree Street between North Avenue and 17th Street. Midtown, situated between Downtown to the south and Buckhead to the north, is the second-largest business district in Metro Atlanta. In 2011, Midtown had a resident population of 41,681 and a business population of 81,418.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Mitchell House and Museum</span> Historic house in Georgia, United States

The Margaret Mitchell House is a historic house museum located in Atlanta, Georgia. The structure was the home of author Margaret Mitchell in the early 20th century. It is located in Midtown, at 979 Crescent Avenue. Constructed by Cornelius J. Sheehan as a single-family residence in a then-fashionable section of residential Peachtree Street, the building's original address was 806 Peachtree Street. The house was known as the Crescent Apartments when Mitchell and her husband lived in Apt. 1 on the ground floor from 1925 to 1932. While living there, Mitchell wrote the bulk of her Pulitzer Prize-winning 1936 novel, Gone with the Wind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georgia Governor's Mansion</span> Building

The Governor's Mansion is the official home of the governor of the U.S. state of Georgia. The mansion is located at 391 West Paces Ferry Road NW, in the Tuxedo Park neighborhood of the affluent Buckhead district of Atlanta.

The Kimball House was the name of two historical hotels in Atlanta, Georgia. United States. Both were constructed on an entire city block at the south-southeast corner of Five Points, bounded by Whitehall Street, Decatur Street, Pryor Street, and Wall Street, a block now occupied by a multi-story parking garage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ansley Park</span> United States historic place

Ansley Park is an intown residential district in Atlanta, Georgia, located just east of Midtown and west of Piedmont Park. When developed in 1905-1908, it was the first Atlanta suburban neighborhood designed for automobiles, featuring wide, winding roads rather than the grid pattern typical of older streetcar suburbs. Streets were planned like parkways with extensive landscaping, while Winn Park and McClatchey Park are themselves long and narrow, extending deep into the neighborhood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhodes Hall</span> Historic house in Georgia, United States

Rhodes Memorial Hall, commonly known as Rhodes Hall, is a historic house located in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was built as the home of furniture magnate Amos Giles Rhodes, proprietor of Atlanta-based Rhodes Furniture. The Romanesque Revival house occupies a prominent location on Peachtree Street, the main street of Atlanta, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It is open to the public and has been the home of The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation since 1983.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dyckman House</span> Historic house in Manhattan, New York

The Dyckman House, now the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, is the oldest remaining farmhouse on Manhattan island, a vestige of New York City's rural past. The Dutch Colonial-style farmhouse was built by William Dyckman, c.1785, and was originally part of over 250 acres (100 ha) of farmland owned by the family. It is now located in a small park at the corner of Broadway and 204th Street in Inwood, Manhattan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SoNo, Atlanta</span>

SoNo is a sub-district of downtown Atlanta, Georgia, just south of Midtown. The area was defined and named by T. Brian Glass while working on a rezoning committee with Central Atlanta Progress in 2005 in order to better establish an identity for the area and give it a hipper image. SoNo refers to the area of Downtown bounded by North Avenue on the north, Central Park Place on the east and the Downtown Connector (Interstate-75/85) on the west and south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emil Bach House</span> Historic house in Illinois, United States

The Emil Bach House is a Prairie style house in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States that was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The house was built in 1915 for an admirer of Wright's work, Emil Bach, the co-owner of the Bach Brick Company. The house is representative of Wright's late Prairie style and is an expression of his creativity from a period just before his work shifted stylistic focus. The Bach House was declared a Chicago Landmark on September 28, 1977, and was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on January 23, 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herndon Home</span> United States historic place in Atlanta, Georgia, United States

The Herndon Home is a historic house museum and National Historic Landmark at 587 University Place NW, in Atlanta, Georgia. An elegant Classical Revival mansion with Beaux Arts influences, it was the home of Alonzo Franklin Herndon (1858-1927), a rags-to-riches success story who was born into slavery, but went on to become Atlanta's first black millionaire as founder and head of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company. The house was designed by his wife Adrienne, and was almost entirely built with African-American labor. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2000, and had previously been declared a "landmark building exterior" by the city of Atlanta in 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elson-Dudley House</span> Historic house in Mississippi, United States

The Elson-Dudley House is a historic home located at 1101 29th Avenue, Meridian, Mississippi. Built in 1894 by Julius and Dora Neubauer Elson, some of Meridian's earliest settlers, the home is a Victorian Eastlake movement home with Queen Anne influence. The home was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 18, 1979, under the Meridian Multiple Property Submission. It is also part of Merrehope Historic District, which was listed on the National Register on September 19, 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cedarmere-Clayton Estates</span> Historic houses in New York, United States

The Clayton-Cedarmere Estates are located in Roslyn Harbor, New York, United States, listed jointly on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. Clayton, the bulk of the property, is the large landscaped Bryce/Frick estate, now home to the Nassau County Museum of Art. Cedarmere, the smaller of the two, is William Cullen Bryant's estate, currently undergoing interior renovation, is located on the west side of Bryant Avenue; overlooking Hempstead Harbor, now a historic house museum. The grounds are open to the public. The two combined properties, with input from several notable architects, illustrate the development of estates on the North Shore of Long Island over a period of nearly a century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lemon Hill</span> Historic house in Pennsylvania, United States

Lemon Hill is a Federal-style mansion in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, built from 1799 to 1800 by Philadelphia merchant Henry Pratt. The house is named after the citrus fruits that Pratt cultivated on the property in the early 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rose Hill Manor</span> Historic house in Maryland, United States

Rose Hill Manor, now known as Rose Hill Manor Park & Children's Museum, is a historic home located at Frederick, Frederick County, Maryland. It is a 2+12-story brick house. A notable feature is the large two-story pedimented portico supported by fluted Doric columns on the first floor and Ionic columns on the balustraded second floor. It was the retirement home of Thomas Johnson (1732–1819), the first elected governor of the State of Maryland and Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. It was built in the mid-1790s by his daughter and son-in-law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York Landmarks Conservancy</span> American nonprofit organization

The New York Landmarks Conservancy is a non-profit organization "dedicated to preserving, revitalizing, and reusing" historic structures in New York state. It provides technical and financial skills to owners of historic properties. In the half century since its 1973 founding, the conservancy has provided more than $60 million in grants and loans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willis F. Denny</span> American architect

Willis F. Denny (1874-1905) was an architect active in Atlanta, Georgia around the turn of the twentieth century. He was the architect of Rhodes Hall (1903) and the Kriegshaber House, both listed on the National Register, as well as the demolished Piedmont Hotel (1903).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rufus M. Rose</span> American physician

Rufus Mathewson Rose, was an American businessman. After growing up and receiving a primary and secondary education in that state, he moved to New York City, where he practiced as a druggist, and then on to Long Island, where he worked in a sailors' hospital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hotel Indigo Atlanta Midtown</span> Building in Atlanta, Georgia

Hotel Indigo Atlanta Midtown is a historic building in midtown Atlanta, Georgia. Designed by Atlanta-based architectural firm Pringle and Smith in 1925, the brick building is located on Peachtree Street, across from the Fox Theatre. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2006, and, in 2022, is a member of Historic Hotels of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ten Peachtree Place</span> High rise office building in Atlanta, Georgia

Ten Peachtree Place is a high-rise class A office building in midtown Atlanta, Georgia. The building was designed by Michael Graves and completed in 1989. It currently serves as the headquarters for Southern Company Gas. The building is notable for its 30-foot-high arch and red granite exterior that contrasts with the building's dark windows.

References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. 1 2 City of Atlanta Online: http://www.atlantaga.gov/government/urbandesign_rufusrose.aspx/
  3. 1 2 Atlanta Historic Resources Workbook by the Atlanta Urban Design Commission, September 1981
  4. 1 2 AIA Guide to the Architecture of Atlanta: University of Georgia Press, 1993
  5. 1 2 Atlanta Preservation Center's SoNo/Midtown Commercial District Tour Guide: APC, 2009
  6. Atlanta Time Machine: http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/
  7. [ dead link ]
  8. Willis, Kiersten. "Historic 'Rose on Peachtree' set to finally begin restoration process". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
  9. "News Briefs: State prison investigation; Rufus Rose House restoration; BOE candidate forum". Atlanta Intown. September 14, 2021. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
Front foyer RufusRoseFoyer.jpg
Front foyer
Aerial view of Rufus M. Rose House. The house is almost in the center of the photo with blue tarps hanging off its roof - just down and to the left of the orange taxi. Emory University Hospital Midtown is to the right. Photo taken from Bank of America Plaza. Rufus Rose House Aerial.jpg
Aerial view of Rufus M. Rose House. The house is almost in the center of the photo with blue tarps hanging off its roof - just down and to the left of the orange taxi. Emory University Hospital Midtown is to the right. Photo taken from Bank of America Plaza.