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Southern Draw: Atlanta's Sweet-Talkin' Suburbs


Atlanta climbed onto the A-list of America's favorite tourist destinations during the 1996 Olympics. Seeking their share of the tourist trade, the communities that hug its fringes are polishing up their image, dusting off historic mansions and museums, and doing what they do best: drowning tourists in small-town southern hospitality.

 

I began my search for total immersion away from the hot tub of big city life in Marietta, the county seat of Cobb County in the northwest corner of metropolitan Atlanta. Marietta's turn-of-the-century downtown and five National Register Historic Districts attract history buffs and antique lovers, while nearby parks, mountains and rivers draw the backpack and whitewater set. I am all of these on occasion, but this time I chose to concentrate on history, particularly the Civil War history of the Atlanta Campaign. Since I was staying at the Marietta Conference Center & Resort, my daily exercise was easily taken care of on its championship 18-hole, par-71 golf course, tennis courts, health club, pool and spa. I could save more strenuous pursuits like a rafting trip down the Chattahoochee River and a hike in the Kennesaw Mountains for my next visit.

Confederate Mayor Daniel O. Cox relives the past in the Marietta Museum of History. Copyright: Kathryn Means, 1999During my arc around Atlanta, I will not tell anyone I was born in Yankee territory and once helped an uncle edit two volumes of his great-grandfather's letters written while he was in the Ohio Volunteer Infantry. My lack of a southern drawl might give me away, but I'll pretend I learned to talk from watching the movie Gone With the Wind.

While I was enjoying a picnic lunch near the gazebo in Marietta Square's flower strewn Glover Park on a glorious summer day, I marveled at how the city had rebuilt itself after being torched to the ground during General William Tecumseh Sherman's march through Georgia in 1864. Marietta Square is lined with turn-of-the-century buildings housing restaurants, antique and specialty shops. Thanks to the Yankees, only the Marietta Museum of History pre-dates the Civil War.

As I imagined the melancholy horror of the city in flames, my reverie was interrupted by a young couple who asked in melodiously accented English where they could find the local tourist bureau. I learned they were refugees from Kosovo who had come to Atlanta under the sponsorship of distant relatives. This was their first day alone since arriving in America and like me, they were spending it in this pleasantly inviting small town. That small encounter reminded me how quickly the globe is shrinking. Civil wars are not uncommon in human history. The war in Kosovo was only one of the most recent.

Marietta Welcome Center is only a short distance from the gazebo. I escort my new friends to the old train depot where the Center is located, put them in the hands of smiling women dressed in old-fashioned pinafores, and say my goodbye. My time in Marietta is running short, and I cannot leave without a visit to Brumby Hall and Gardens, especially since the property is situated on the grounds of the resort where I am staying.

Brumby Hall was built in 1851 by Colonel Amoldus VanderHorst Brumby, the superintendent at the Georgia Military Institute. It is the only building still standing on the site of the old campus. The gardens, filled with the pure fragrance of old-fashioned roses, lavender and other seasonal blooms, are a perfect venue for outdoor weddings and while I was there a band came in to set up for a reception.

Fortunately, Sherman and his troops spared Marietta's residential areas. Each year during the first weekend in December, the city unwraps its heritage to host the Marietta Pilgrimage Christmas Home Tour. Six private homes from the antebellum and Victorian eras and other historic buildings around the city are festooned for the season and open to the public. This year the tour will include a rare glimpse of two antebellum estates very rich in history, Tranqiulla and Oakton.

I could spend a lifetime in Marietta and can picture myself working a docent shift on the Christmas Home Tour, but for now I'm heading farther north to the historic town of Kennesaw. My first stop is at the Kennesaw Civil War Museum, home of The General, a locomotive hijacked during the Civil War in an incident made famous in Walt Disney's movie The Great Locomotive Chase. The train caper is ludicrous and laughable, but the battles that occurred on the heavily wooded slopes of the Kennesaw Mountains were sad affairs. A park ranger in the new visitors' center and small museum guides me through the history.

From Kennesaw, I cut through downtown Atlanta to Clayton County and Jonesboro. This is the home of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind and the beginning of the Peach Blossom Trail.

Women are attracted to Jonesboro by the romance; men come because the city played a strategic role in the Atlanta Campaign. Only those who come in search of Tara, Scarlett O'Hara's mansion, will be disappointed. The mansion never existed. It was built on a Hollywood back lot for David O. Selznick's movie version of GWTW.

Jonesboro is full of reminders of the Old South where proud, prickly people struggled unsuccessfully to preserve their way of life. Among them were Margaret Mitchell's maternal grandparents, the Fitzgeralds, whose stories of the war and its aftermath fired the young girl's imagination and gave birth to the best-selling novel of all time. Philip Fitzgerald was an Irish immigrant who became the wealthiest planter in Clayton County before the War. The Fitzgerald home was far more modest than the white-columned mansion depicted by Selznick.If Tara had existed, it might look something like Stately Oaks Plantation. I am greeted at the gate by costumed Melly Meadows whose raven-haired resemblance to Vivien Leigh in her role of Scarlett O'Hara is startling. Melly is a ladylike flirt who raises her skirts just enough to give the men on the tour a peek at the lace on her bloomers. The illusion that she is Scarlett O'Hara come back to life is shattered when she quips, "Don't tell anybody I showed you my underwear 'cause I don't want to be invited to Washington, D.C." Scarlett O'Hara as a Peter Bonner, dressed in the costume of a Southern planter, entertains and enlightens during his White House intern? It might have prevented the Civil War.

After turning back the clock at Stately Oaks, I join Jonesboro historian and storyteller Peter Bonner for one of his Historical and Hysterical Tours and am very glad I did. He mixes dry facts with enough humor that I'm still quoting some of his one-liners to my friends, but I won't spoil the tour by preempting them here.

The Road to Tara museum and gift shop in the old Jonesboro Train Depot is loaded with memorabilia from the book and movie. Owner and curator Patsy Wiggins has been collecting dolls, costumes, programs, scripts, posters, plates and other artifacts connected with the GWTW book and movie for 30 years. The Jonesboro Welcome Center is also located in the depot.

Stephanie Hindeman, now in her twenties, has been greeting guests at Ashley Oaks Mansion in Jonesboro since she was a child. Her grandparents, George and Betty Bailey, saved the planter's mansion from the wrecking ball. Built shortly after the Civil War from a million handmade bricks, Ashley Oaks is now restored to its former elegance and is available for weddings and special events. By pre-arrangement, I enjoyed a Southern version of English "high tea" when I stopped by.

If blockade runner and opportunist Rhett Butler were alive today, he would be a real estate developer in booming Alpharetta where the Old South meets the New South in the lush foothills of the Appalachian Mountains 14 miles north of Atlanta. Alpharetta has upscale everything: houses, shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, golf courses -- you name it.

Breakfast at Cooper Sandy Farm, a private equestrian estate, was not the barbed-wire special you might expect. The blue-ribbon spread was laid out near the stables in the formal tradition of an English hunt breakfast, the snowy white tablecloth adorned with buckets of fresh flowers.

A hunt breakfast near Alpharetta is a glorious fusion of formality and informality. Copyright: Kathryn Means, 1999

After a satisfying breath of country air, I moved along to White Columns Golf Club and before the day was over managed to explore the antique shops in the tiny village of Crabapple. A late lunch at Mr. John B's Restaurant in Crabapple made me a fan of chef and co-owner Ben Sheldon. His potato crusted trout cakes and blueberry cobbler were light and moist, float-off-your-plate palate pleasers. I know from experience in my own kitchen that these two dishes can be stodgy if too much filler is used to bind the ingredients. I didn't want to put the chef on the spot by asking for his recipes, but I was tempted.

No trip around suburban Atlanta would be complete without at least a one-day trip to Stone Mountain Park, the world's largest exposed mass of granite, sometimes referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World. Gigantic figures of Confederate heroes Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson are the world's largest piece of sculpture, according to the brochure I picked up. The 3,200-acre park with its lakes, trails and woodlands is worth a family vacation when you have several days to spend. Stone Mountain Park and nearby Stone Mountain Village are located in DeKalb County in the eastern half of metropolitan Atlanta.

When you go:

All the counties and cities ringing Atlanta have welcome centers staffed with knowledgeable locals waiting to greet you, answer your questions and load you up with maps and brochures.

Marietta/Cobb County: Marietta Welcome Center & Visitors Bureau, 1-800-835-0445 or 770-429-1115; www.mariettasquare.com. Cobb County Conventions & Visitors Bureau, 1-800-451-3480 or 678-303-COBB; www.cobbcvb.com.

The Marietta Pilgrimage Christmas Home Tour: Ticket information: 770-429-1115 or 770-426-4982.

Jonesboro/Clayton County: Jonesboro Depot Welcome Center is operated by the Clayton County Convention & Visitors Bureau, 1-800-662-STAY or 770-478-4800.

Alpharetta/Gwinnett County: Alpharetta Convention & Visitors Bureau, 3060 Royal Boulevard South, Suite 145, Alpharetta, GA 30022. Tel: 678-297-2811, Fax: 678-297-9197.

Stone Mountain Park/Stone Mountain Village/DeKalb County: Stone Mountain Park, P.O. Box 778, Stone Mountain, GA 30086. Tel: 1-800-317-2006 or 770-498-5690; www.stonemountainpark.com. DeKalb Convention & Visitors Bureau, 750 Commerce Drive, Suite 200, Decatur, GA 30030. Tel: 404-378-2525, Fax: 404-378-0941.

Emory University's historic Houston Mill House is a hospitality house, bed and breakfast inn and restaurant. Copyright: Kathryn Means, 1999Atlanta and its suburbs are loaded with hotels and bed and breakfast accommodations in every price range. A few suggestions include: Marietta Conference Center & Resort, 500 Powder Springs St., Marietta, GA 30064. Tel: 770-427-2500, Fax: 770-429-9577. Hampton Inn & Suites, 16785 Morris Road, Alpharetta, GA 30004. Tel: 678-393-0990, Fax: 678-393-0778. Houston Mill House, 849 Houston Mill Road, NE, Atlanta, GA 30329. Tel: 404-727-7878; Fax: 404-727-4032.

If Tara had existed, it might look something like Stately Oaks Plantation. I am greeted at the gate by costumed Melly Meadows whose raven-haired resemblance to Vivien Leigh in her role of Scarlett O'Hara is startling. Melly is a ladylike flirt who raises her skirts just enough to give the men on the tour a peek at the lace on her bloomers. The illusion that she is Scarlett O'Hara come back to life is shattered when she quips, "Don't tell anybody I showed you my underwear 'cause I don't want to be invited to Washington, D.C." Scarlett O'Hara as a Peter Bonner, dressed in the costume of a Southern planter, entertains and enlightens during his White House intern? It might have prevented the Civil War.

After turning back the clock at Stately Oaks, I join Jonesboro historian and storyteller Peter Bonner for one of his Historical and Hysterical Tours and am very glad I did. He mixes dry facts with enough humor that I'm still quoting some of his one-liners to my friends, but I won't spoil the tour by preempting them here.

The Road to Tara museum and gift shop in the old Jonesboro Train Depot is loaded with memorabilia from the book and movie. Owner and curator Patsy Wiggins has been collecting dolls, costumes, programs, scripts, posters, plates and other artifacts connected with the GWTW book and movie for 30 years. The Jonesboro Welcome Center is also located in the depot.

Stephanie Hindeman, now in her twenties, has been greeting guests at Ashley Oaks Mansion in Jonesboro since she was a child. Her grandparents, George and Betty Bailey, saved the planter's mansion from the wrecking ball. Built shortly after the Civil War from a million handmade bricks, Ashley Oaks is now restored to its former elegance and is available for weddings and special events. By pre-arrangement, I enjoyed a Southern version of English "high tea" when I stopped by.

If blockade runner and opportunist Rhett Butler were alive today, he would be a real estate developer in booming Alpharetta where the Old South meets the New South in the lush foothills of the Appalachian Mountains 14 miles north of Atlanta. Alpharetta has upscale everything: houses, shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, golf courses -- you name it.

Breakfast at Cooper Sandy Farm, a private equestrian estate, was not the barbed-wire special you might expect. The blue-ribbon spread was laid out near the stables in the formal tradition of an English hunt breakfast, the snowy white tablecloth adorned with buckets of fresh flowers.

A hunt breakfast near Alpharetta is a glorious fusion of formality and informality. Copyright: Kathryn Means, 1999

After a satisfying breath of country air, I moved along to White Columns Golf Club and before the day was over managed to explore the antique shops in the tiny village of Crabapple. A late lunch at Mr. John B's Restaurant in Crabapple made me a fan of chef and co-owner Ben Sheldon. His potato crusted trout cakes and blueberry cobbler were light and moist, float-off-your-plate palate pleasers. I know from experience in my own kitchen that these two dishes can be stodgy if too much filler is used to bind the ingredients. I didn't want to put the chef on the spot by asking for his recipes, but I was tempted.

No trip around suburban Atlanta would be complete without at least a one-day trip to Stone Mountain Park, the world's largest exposed mass of granite, sometimes referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World. Gigantic figures of Confederate heroes Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson are the world's largest piece of sculpture, according to the brochure I picked up. The 3,200-acre park with its lakes, trails and woodlands is worth a family vacation when you have several days to spend. Stone Mountain Park and nearby Stone Mountain Village are located in DeKalb County in the eastern half of metropolitan Atlanta.

When you go:

All the counties and cities ringing Atlanta have welcome centers staffed with knowledgeable locals waiting to greet you, answer your questions and load you up with maps and brochures.

Marietta/Cobb County: Marietta Welcome Center & Visitors Bureau, 1-800-835-0445 or 770-429-1115; www.mariettasquare.com. Cobb County Conventions & Visitors Bureau, 1-800-451-3480 or 678-303-COBB; www.cobbcvb.com.

The Marietta Pilgrimage Christmas Home Tour: Ticket information: 770-429-1115 or 770-426-4982.

Jonesboro/Clayton County: Jonesboro Depot Welcome Center is operated by the Clayton County Convention & Visitors Bureau, 1-800-662-STAY or 770-478-4800.

Alpharetta/Gwinnett County: Alpharetta Convention & Visitors Bureau, 3060 Royal Boulevard South, Suite 145, Alpharetta, GA 30022. Tel: 678-297-2811, Fax: 678-297-9197.

Stone Mountain Park/Stone Mountain Village/DeKalb County: Stone Mountain Park, P.O. Box 778, Stone Mountain, GA 30086. Tel: 1-800-317-2006 or 770-498-5690; www.stonemountainpark.com. DeKalb Convention & Visitors Bureau, 750 Commerce Drive, Suite 200, Decatur, GA 30030. Tel: 404-378-2525, Fax: 404-378-0941.

Emory University's historic Houston Mill House is a hospitality house, bed and breakfast inn and restaurant. Copyright: Kathryn Means, 1999Atlanta and its suburbs are loaded with hotels and bed and breakfast accommodations in every price range. A few suggestions include: Marietta Conference Center & Resort, 500 Powder Springs St., Marietta, GA 30064. Tel: 770-427-2500, Fax: 770-429-9577. Hampton Inn & Suites, 16785 Morris Road, Alpharetta, GA 30004. Tel: 678-393-0990, Fax: 678-393-0778. Houston Mill House, 849 Houston Mill Road, NE, Atlanta, GA 30329. Tel: 404-727-7878; Fax: 404-727-4032.