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Nick Bowman Features Editor | 770-718-3426 | life@gainesvilletimes.com
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gainesvilletimes.com
Friday, November 30, 2018
Left: Karen Baker, Morgan Davis and
Dominique Wagner decorate the grand
staircase at the Callanwolde Fine Arts
Center in Atlanta on Tuesday, Nov. 20.
Below: Part of Brenau’s display on the
grand staircase of the Callanwolde Fine
Arts Center.
Photos by AJ REYNOLDS I For The Times
Brenau students bring
Christmas to Callanwolde
University design program travels to Atlanta to deck the
halls of historic building once home to a famous owner
Top: Dominique Wagner works on a portion of the grand staircase at the Callanwolde Fine
Arts Center. Above: Finished photos of the staircase. Students from the Brenau University
Interior Design Department joined other schools from the area to help design and decorate
spaces for Christmas.
BY LAYNE SALIBA
lsaliba@gainesvilletimes.com
With December almost
here, it’s time to deck the
halls all the way to one of
the grandest staircases in
Atlanta.
That’s the task students
from Brenau University’s
interior design program
were set to as they trav
eled to the city this month
to help decorate the Cal
lanwolde Fine Arts Center.
The center is based in a his
toric home once owned by
Charles Howard Candler,
whose father, Asa Griggs
Candler, founded The
Coca-Cola Co.
Each year, Callanwolde
is lavishly decorated, and
Michael Kleeman’s stu
dents have been a part of
it for the past three years.
Now an associate profes
sor of interior design at
Brenau, Kleeman was able
to lead its students on their
first trip to the 12-acre
property.
“Previously, I had really
tried to inject Coca-Cola
hints here and there,”
Kleeman said. “This time,
we had the grand staircase,
which is sort of iconic ... So
we really wanted to honor
the architecture of the
space.”
Callanwolde is a Tudor
Revival-style home, com
pleted in 1920, so the design
throughout is elegant and
ornate. For Kleeman and
his students, it was impor
tant to draw attention to
the handrail on the stair
case and the design on the
ceiling.
The history of the home
and its architecture are
the main reasons Karen
Baker volunteered to take
the trip to Atlanta. She
said she loves history and
was happy to finally get
her hands on an actual
space and practice every
thing she has learned “sur
rounded by history” in the
iconic property.
“It was a little bit more
than I anticipated,” said
Baker, a senior in interior
design. “I knew the space
was big going into it. It
was a little daunting when
we saw this massive space
that we had what seemed
like all these small ele
ments that we had to bring
together.”
But the day and all of
its details were “invigorat
ing,” she added, and that’s
what drew her to interior
design in the first place.
While other kids were doo
dling, she grew up draw
ing floor plans for fun in
elementary school and into
middle school.
Baker’s passion began
with sketching her dream
home, and now has taken
her to Callanwolde.
“The whole aspect of a
project, from start to finish,
I really enjoy,” Baker said.
“With interior design, it
gives me the ability to work
with a project from incep
tion with designing to end,
even the decorating of it.”
Kleeman said the stu
dents wanted to be sure to
“make it a little youthful,”
too, so they added different
touches of more modern
items to go with the clas
sical touches of the home.
He said they had a Pinter-
est board where students
could post ideas and talk
about the things they liked
and didn’t like.
“We had a couple of
wreaths on the side that are
in a more modern fashion,
not your traditional ones,”
Kleeman said. “They’re the
ones that are trending right
now, kind of like a wire
with greenery on one part
of it.”
Dominique Wagner said
most of the decorations
they used were handmade.
Students spent an entire
class of decorating and
designing ornaments for
the tree they had to deco
rate. They also spent time
bending wire clothes hang
ers to go around the rail
ings on the staircase.
Even though they
wanted to add some mod
ern touches, Wagner said
they had to be careful with
what they decided to use.
“It’s so old and antique
and it’s not like a modern
house where you can just
put anything in there and
it’s going to look OK,” said
Wagner, a sophomore inte
rior design major. “You
can’t put modern things in
an old house entirely with it
looking OK.”
That was the biggest
challenge for them. But she
said her love for interior
design helped, and getting
to bring all the weeks of
planning to life, just like
she did when she helped
with her friend’s home —
something that inspired
her to become an interior
designer — was worth it.
“I was with my friends
for the holidays and I
helped decorate their liv
ing room and they brought
out the boxes and I realized
I was bossing everyone
around,” Wagner said. “It
was more about: I had the
vision and I knew what I
wanted it to look like.”
You can find the Callan
wolde Fine Arts Center at
980 Briarcliff Road NE in
Atlanta. The property is
open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Monday through Friday
and 9 a.m. to noon on Sat
urdays. It serves as an edu
cational center for the arts
and an event venue.
An ode to the long-gone American chestnut tree
It’s finally starting to feel like
winter.
Thanksgiving week was nice
with some wet, cool weather and
now the Christmas season isn’t
too far away. As we put away our
pilgrim hats, the Christmas holi
day traditions start a new season.
I have a friend that has an Asian
chestnut tree growing in his back
yard and that started me thinking
about the history of the American
chestnut.
You used to not have to look far
to find a chestnut, but now Nat
King Cole would have trouble find
ing chestnuts in the United States
to roast on an open fire.
Before the early 1900s, the
eastern half of the United States
was dominated by the American
chestnut (Castanea dentata).
About one-quarter of the hard
wood forests in Georgia were com-
CAMPBELL VAUGHN
ecvaughn@uga.edu
prised of the chestnut. This tree
is a rapid grower and can reach
huge sizes. Trees would regularly
reach 100 feet in height and 6 feet
in diameter. And the wood was
almost the perfect hardwood for
house, barns and fences because
of its’ straight wood grain, rot
resistance, strength and hand tool
workability.
There are structures built hun
dreds of years ago made of chest
nut that are still as sound as the
day they were constructed.
As if the chestnut wasn’t the
perfect wood for building, the
tree also produced an edible nut
that fed not only humans, but also
billions of birds and mammals.
There is an old tale that you could
walk through the woods in the
fall in North Georgia during the
1800s and would be ankle deep
in chestnut fruit. Hogs and cattle
were often fed out for market by
having them forage in the chest
nut dominated forests. The burr
covered nuts would ripen close to
the Thanksgiving and Christmas
seasons, and early 1900s newspa
pers would print pictures of train
cars filled with chestnuts heading
to big cities for holiday roasting.
And then came the greatest
ecological disaster to ever hit the
world’s forests. The accidental
introduction of the Asian pathogen
Cryphonectria parasitica or com
monly called the chestnut blight
in 1904.
In 40 years, this disease killed
99 percent of the American
chestnut population. 40 million
years of native species gone in 40
years. There are still a few hidden
American chestnut trees that live
in secluded areas that avoided
the blight but are very few and
far between. There are also some
chestnut suckers which means the
plants that were killed back to the
ground will resprout.
But with this suckering the tree
will only reach 25 feet tall and
5 inches in diameter only to die
when they reach sexual maturity
without fruiting and providing any
lumber.
The American chestnut is essen
tially no more.
There are numerous efforts to
revitalize the American chestnut,
but the chestnut blight is still
active in the affected areas. In a
Forest Service survey for New
York notes that there are still as
many as 60 million of these sucker
in New York State which could
provide for a good gene pool for
starting a large restoration effort.
What a sad thing to happen to
such an amazing species. Hope
fully those smart forest research
ers will find a way to get the
American chestnut back into our
forests so our kids and grandkids
can collect their own nuts to roast
on an open fire.
Campbell Vaughn is UGA Extension-
Agriculture and Natural Resource
Agent in Richmond County. He can
be reached at ecvaughn@uga.edu.
