The Public Comfort Building in Oakland Cemetery is the only surviving work in Atlanta known to have been designed by C. Walter Smith (1865-1910), an architect who worked for at least seven years as a draughtsman and assistant for G.L. Norrman before embarking on a fairly unremarkable solo career.
Built on a small hill in the western portion of the 48-acre cemetery, this two-story structure includes a full basement and totals 2,800 square feet.1 The exterior is faced in stucco-covered brick2 and rusticated granite trim, and marble flooring3 is used on the front porch and in the basement.
Modeled after “the old Norman and English castellated churches,“4 the building’s design can be broadly defined as Romanesque, and its focal point is a 50-foot-high crenelated bell tower,5 heavily inspired by similar designs from G.L. Norrman.
Today, Oakland Cemetery refers to the entire structure as the “Bell Tower.”
An illustration from 1899 (pictured above) reveals the building’s original design: a one-story porch topped by battlements originally flanked the south facade, and a porte-cochère to accommodate wagons was attached to the east side.
Curiously, the final design was reversed, with the porte-cochère moved to the west side of the structure, likely one of “a few slight changes” announced before construction began.7
Roman arches on the porch and bell tower, and Gothic-style arched windows on the second floor completed the appearance of a small, storybook castle—again, Smith borrowed significantly from Norrman for the aesthetic.
In its original conception, the building was one of Smith’s better designs. Despite years of training under “the South’s most prominent architect”8—his words—Smith’s skill never came close to Norman’s high level of artistry, although his work here was at least intriguing.
Unfortunately, the initial vision was compromised by the later addition of second-floor porches over the front porch and porte-cochère, topped with flat roofs and punctuated by incongruent half-round openings.
I suspect the porches were added circa 1908, when the cemetery spent $5,000 on a range of improvements9 following its first annual report to the city, which requested $1,000 for “needed changes and repairs in the main building.”10
The alterations are detrimental: the upper porches add unnecessary visual mass to the structure and pull focus away from the bell tower, robbing the entire composition of the uplifting, monumental effect Smith originally intended.
“Public comfort” was a polite 19th-century euphemism for restrooms, which were originally housed on the ground floor of the structure.
When the building was completed in October 1899, The Atlanta Journal delicately noted: “Here one now finds a convenience and comfort that was lacking for many years.”11 I guess early visitors just had to hold it—or maybe piss on a grave.
The building initially had six rooms, including a ladies’ parlor and an “apartment for gentlemen.” All six rooms had tiled mantels,12 which was apparently noteworthy. Two of the mantels remain intact.
The structure also included an office for the cemetery’s sexton,13 and Oakland Cemetery’s website claims the building contained a chapel, with the second floor used as the sexton’s residence. So many uses for such a small structure.
Despite its fanciful design, the building was, at heart, purely utilitarian, “suitable for the purposes for which it is intended,”14 as the Journal put it.
People need to pee, of course, but the building’s other raison d’être was concealed in the basement.15 The structure was built on the site of a converted two-story farmhouse16 known as the “dead house”17 —you can see where this is going.
As the Journal explained:
“There is a vault with eight catacombs and sixteen racks. This is as strong and substantial as could be made. For the retention of bodies for any length of time the catacombs will answer every purpose, as they are built to be air-tight for years to come. The racks, as a matter of course, are intended as a temporary place of keeping and are conveniently arranged. When the iron gate to the vault is locked entrance is practically impossible.”18
Since Oakland is a public cemetery operated by the city of Atlanta, the building was funded through a city council appropriation.19 The Atlanta Building Company secured the contract with the lowest bid, and the project’s total cost was $4,600,20 with $650 spent on the stone.21
Construction on the building was initially slated to begin on April 27, 1899,22 but was apparently delayed until June and completed in four months.23
Although early plans called for one or two additional public comfort buildings in the cemetery,24 those never materialized, and this structure remained the only significant public building on site, altered many times by piecemeal repairs and additions.
When the Historic Oakland Foundation was formed in 1976 to preserve and maintain the cemetery’s historic integrity, the building became office space for the organization, with the ground floor converted into a small visitors center,25 a function that it served for decades.
In 2022, as Oakland Cemetery prepared to build a much larger visitors’ center outside its main entrance, the former Public Comfort Building received a gut renovation designed by Smith Dalia Architects, Atlanta’s finest firm for the adaptive reuse of historic structures.
The project included tearing out the hodgepodge of rooms on each floor for larger, open spaces, removing god-awful windows added to the second-floor porches, and making necessary accessibility alterations, which altered a portion of the front porch.26 27
The building reopened later that year28 as an event space: the fallback choice when owners don’t know what to do with a historic structure.
Following its renovation, the building now appears a little too clean and gleaming—I actually preferred it when it was worn and shabby—but it still has an undeniable anachronistic charm that’s uncommon in Atlanta.
And as one of just six known extant works by Walter Smith, it’s also a matter of curiosity, if nothing else.
Don’t let Atlanta historians fool you: A. Ten Eyck Brown (1878-1940) likely had little to do with the design of this monumental structure, which ranks among the city’s most exquisite buildings.
Opened in December 19332 as the United States Post Office, the project appears to have been primarily designed by Brown’s associate architects, Alfredo Barili, Jr., and J. Wharton Humphreys, who established their own firm a few years later.3
Compare the later works credited to Brown with those of his early years, and it’s clear that his own skills were inadequate for the more sophisticated designs that emerged from his firm in the 1920s onwards—this project is no exception.
Designed in the Classical Moderne style, the building sits atop a base of Stone Mountain granite and is sleekly clad in Georgia marble.4
The structure’s otherwise smooth facades on the east and west are punctuated by a trio of slightly recessed bays that recall Brown’s earlier design for the Fulton County Courthouse, but the effect is much more successful here.
Indeed, the courthouse design is a joyless mess: the building’s facade is cluttered with windows of varying sizes, and the deeply recessed center bay, supported by six multi-story columns, resembles a giant jail grating.
In this design, the variation in the bays is much subtler, and the windows are given space to breathe, providing enough contrast and visual balance for a pleasing, cohesive composition.
This building also shines in its incorporation of fine textural detail, trimmed with pilasters, friezes, and stringcourses in stark geometric patterns, many of which are of pre-Columbian inspiration. Emphasizing the structure’s bold ziggurat form, the design evokes the image of some ancient American temple dropped into a modern metropolis.
The project was completed for the princely sum of $3 million,5 and the volume of materials used in its construction is staggering: the structure is composed of 12,222 marble pieces totaling 4,798,404 pounds, with the largest block weighing 8,400 pounds.6
Atlanta, of course, never pays for quality architecture, and this bulwark of a building exists only because it was bankrolled by the United States government.
At the time, federal building projects were supervised by the U.S. Treasury, and Brown was a natural choice to pick as the lead architect, since he began his career in the office of the supervising architect of the Treasury.7 8
Brown was approaching the end of his life and career in the 1930s and was well-respected in Atlanta and the Southeast. Known as “Tony” to his friends,9 he became one of the city’s wealthiest architects in the early 20th century, with his firm designing dozens of large-scale public buildings across multiple states, though his fortunes appear to have been greatly reduced during the Depression.
Preston Stevens of Stevens & Wilkinson described him as “debonair and attractive,” and recalled a claim by another architect, Francis P. Smith, who said that ‘”Tony” could almost hypnotize his clients by sitting across the table from them and sketching designs upside down.’10
I can’t criticize Brown too much for claiming primary credit on this project, as most architects of the era did the same. The myth of the lone designer had long become untenable, and by the turn of the 20th century, every Atlanta architect managed a team of design assistants.
As building projects grew increasingly large, costly, and complex to manage, most prominent architects effectively became figureheads, promoting their businesses and securing commissions while delegating the actual design work to their employees.
It’s well documented that numerous projects credited to Atlanta architects of the time, like W.T. Downing, Morgan & Dillon, W.A. Edwards, and Hentz, Reid & Adler—to name a few—were designed by assistants, many of whom went on to establish their own firms.
Brown at least had the decency to share credit with the actual designers of his projects—often listing them as associate architects or supervising architects—a practice he began in 1922, when he was appointed the supervising architect for more than twenty public school buildings in Atlanta,11 12 nearly all of which were designed by other architects.13 14
Contrast his approach with, say, G. Lloyd Preacher, who claimed credit for every work produced by his firm, even though it was abundantly clear which projects weren’t his own. The most striking example is Atlanta’s fine neo-Gothic city hall, credited to Preacher but designed by one of his employees, George H. Bond,15 who was infinitely more talented.
Questions of credit aside, the former United States Post Office (later renamed the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Building) is one of the few structures in the city with any actual design caliber, and its quality of craftsmanship and attention to detail are unknown to modern architecture, in Atlanta or elsewhere.
Nothing makes a night better than pink.
This sign in Cherokee, North Carolina, debuted at the Pink Motel’s opening in 1957. And if you’re wondering about the origin of the name, a newspaper report from the time helpfully explained:
“If you are a motel operator, supplying your own linen, name-tagged and all, you will often get back from the laundry the linen of some other operator. So, if you have pink bed sheets and towels, how’s anyone but a colorblind person going to get your linens mixed-up with that of white-linen folks?
“So, that’s how the name “Pink Motel” started. It was only logical to carry the pink idea still further until it was “done up pink.” The outside of the Pink Motel is painted pink. The walls, furniture, vertical venetian blinds, the bathroom tile, the furnishings…even the soap…are all pink.”1
This stark but stately county courthouse in Gainesville, Georgia, owes its existence to the United States federal government.
Built at the height of the Great Depression, the structure is primarily in the Classical Moderne style, with some Beaux-Arts ornamentation, and was designed by Daniel & Beutell of Atlanta.
Construction began three months after an April 1936 tornado that destroyed much of the city’s business district, including the former courthouse.
The building was a quintessential New Deal project: funded by the Public Works Administration and built by workers from the similarly named Works Progress Administration.
When the courthouse was completed in March 1938, it was dedicated in a gala ceremony attended by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Not shabby.
The only thing that makes this home’s exterior truly interesting is its unique butterfly shape, designed to conform to its site overlooking Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle.
Otherwise, it’s fairly standard for Stanford White‘s later work, with an overwrought mishmash of Renaissance-inspired details that appears fitful and fussy, akin to the cluttered walls of an old art gallery.
However, the marble and limestone construction is quite exquisite on close observation.
White claimed the design had a “light and rather joyous character.”2
I’m not sure about “joyous,” but I can go along with “light,” as the abundance of windows in the structure gives it an airy feel, particularly when the sun hits all five sides of the facade.
The home was built at the same time as White’s partner, Charles F. McKim, was designing the nearby East Wing of the White House, which…is no longer with us.
The Patterson Mansion is currently occupied by short-term rental units, and I hope to stay in one at some point in the future— preferably when D.C. is no longer occupied by madmen.
God knows when that may be.
Atlanta is typically willy-nilly when it comes to the persistent destruction of its own history, but occasionally, some brave preservationists can snatch a few scraps from the rubble for posterity.
Such was the case in 1977, when the city’s Carnegie Library, built in 1902, was demolished for the Central Library.
However, a local architect, A. Burnham Cooper, convinced the city to save the building’s marble facade, carefully dismantling and numbering the pieces before they were dumped at the Old Atlanta Prison Farm.2
In the lead-up to the 1996 Olympics, when Atlanta was desperately trying to sell itself as a city with a legitimate cultural legacy—failing quite spectacularly, I might add—the idea was hatched to dust off the old library columns to form a centerpiece for Downtown’s new Hardy Ivy Park.6
Tapped for the project was Henri Jova, one of Atlanta’s better 20th-century architects, who designed this fine Postmodern structure from the eight bays of the historic building’s Beaux-Arts facade.
The project wasn’t completed in time for the Olympics,7 but instead debuted the following spring,8 and today it stands as one of the few distinctive public monuments in the city.
