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fm% feature
A Walk Through the Past
BUENA VISTA KICKS OFF SERIES OF HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOOD TOURS
By Martha Michael news@flagpole.com
T he Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation kicked
off its new annual series of guided walking tours
through some of the city’s most historic districts
Sept. 11. ACHF past president and neighborhood resident
Kristen Morales (also a Flagpole contributor) led the tour
group through the Buena Vista historic district, an area
once home to the working class during Athens’ early-20th
Century manufacturing boom.
Located to the north of Prince Avenue and west of
Boulevard, the Buena Vista area was originally outside
of the Athens city limits, providing an escape from city
property taxes to its residents—blue-collar streetcar
operators and mill workers, employees of the Southern
Manufacturing Company and students of the State Normal
School (an old teaching college, now the location of UGA’s
Health Sciences Campus). Today, of course, the neighbor
hood is an urban one, but many of the homes remain
virtually unchanged since their turn-of-the-20th Century
construction, and offer a glimpse into what “county” life
was like a century ago.
Many of the attendees were lifelong Athens residents, or
have spent at least the majority of their years in the city. So
what was so interesting about a few old houses that could
get locals out of their comfortable AC on a muggy Sunday
afternoon?
the demolition of unprotected, century-old homes, which
turned into properties sold for over five times the value of
the original lot (think $88,000 turned $500,000). But it
was the fate of a rare, green-painted double shotgun house
that originally made her think, “Oh, there’s something to
this neighborhood,” she says.
Since the Athens-Clarke County Commission designated
Buena Vista a historic district after a four-year battle,
neighborhood homes now must undergo an approval
process by the Historic Preservation Commission for any
desired changes to the exterior structure (not includ
ing paint color). Morales, for example, is applying for a
“Certificate of Appropriateness” on her own home, with
plans to install a dormer on the back of the house and a
skylight on the side. “I’m pretty psyched to be putting this
[policy] into action,” she says. “It’s funny because we are
the ones asking for changes,” after leading the fight against
developers and a handful of property owners to preserve
Buena Vista homes.
The district itself is a small, non-contiguous patchwork
of historic structures settled next to new construction.
That disorder is due to the area’s rural origins: Large lots
used for farming provided more space in between houses.
As time passed, newer homes were built in between older
ones that would now be considered historic. Yet many of
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1591 S. LUMPKIN ST IN FIVE POINTS
Kristen Morales leads an Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation tour of Buena Vista.
“Growing up in Boston, the history is everywhere,” says
Rosemarie Goodrum. “I wanted to have the same experi
ence here.” With her husband, Goodrum bought a house
in the Bloomfield historic district north of Five Points and
realized in order to protect its history, “I needed to get
involved.” She is now a trustee of the ACHF and was an avid
asker of questions throughout the tour.
As Morales led us through the small yet eccentric Buena
Vista area—past the old county stockade (jail) that’s now
used as storage for police records; a purple house where
Peter Buck of R.E.M. once gave guitar lessons; the site of
an early-1900s soda company, Deep Rock Ginger Ale Co.;
as well as the Town & Gown Players’ first location, later a
cannery—you could find a virtually untold story of Athens.
“It’s hard for the people who have lived in these neigh
borhoods for decades to see them as ‘historic’,” says
Morales, who herself has only lived in Athens for around
10 years. In her time as a Buena Vista resident, she’s seen
those older sites (the stockade, for example) and homes are
still not included within the district, and are susceptible to
being torn down at any time.
New development isn’t necessarily bad, though, and it
doesn’t necessarily have to look old, Morales says. “In fact,
I prefer the size and scale of a [new] house to be of the time
period,” instead of trying to match original details, she
says, while pointing to a newly built house that she says
would have better fit the look of the neighborhood if it had
been just a little smaller.
When renovating older houses, the details matter.
“Popping out old windows is like taking out the eyeballs of
the house,” Morales says. “It’s subtle, but it has an effect.”
To learn more about the upcoming Athens Heritage
Walks, visit achfonline.org. The next tour will be Sunday,
Oct. 9 at 3:30 p.m. through Pulaski Heights. Tickets for the
walks are $12 for ACHF members and $15 for non-mem
bers and can be purchased through the site. ©
10 FLAGPOLE.COM • SEPTEMBER 21,2016
HENRY TAYLOR