J.M. Beath Residence (1890) – Atlanta

The Queen Anne-style J.M. Beath Residence in Atlanta’s Inman Park neighborhood, better known as the Beath-Dickey House, is the only known extant work by A.McC. Nixon, an architect who began his practice in Texas circa 1881 ^{1 2} and first appeared in Atlanta in 1888.³

In late 1890, Nixon partnered with J.M.P. Lindsey as Nixon & Lindsey.⁴ The firm dissolved in 1894,⁵ shortly before a court trial in which the pair were acquitted on charges of larceny after trust stemming from their supervision of a home’s construction in 1891.^{6 7 8 9} The client had accused the pair of pocketing money intended for the contractors, but the matter was successfully proven to be a simple accounting error.¹⁰

After the trial, Nixon’s work in Atlanta dwindled, and in July 1896, his personal possessions and business contents were sold at public auction to pay off debt.¹¹ Apparently in poor health, he moved to England in July 1896, where he died that October.¹²

Nixon wasn’t an especially good designer, and the Beath House’s clumsy, top-heavy design is typical of his oeuvre. In 1891, he also designed the similarly styled D.H. Dougherty Residence (later J.R. Hopkins Residence, demolished),¹⁶ which has been erroneously attributed to both G.L. Norrman and W.L. Stoddart.¹⁷ Atlanta really doesn’t know its own history.

References

1. “San Sada.” The Galveston Daily News, May 15, 1881, p. 1. ↩︎
2. “Twenty-Five Cent Column”. The Austin Daily Statesman, June 2, 1881, p. 3. ↩︎
3. “From Our Notebooks.” The Atlanta Constitution, October 1, 1888, p. 4. ↩︎
4. “Wanted.” The Atlanta Journal, November 15, 1890, p. 7. ↩︎
5. “A Dissolution of Copartnership.” The Atlanta Constitution, April 4, 1894, p. 3. ↩︎
6. “Architects On Trial.” The Atlanta Journal, June 21, 1894, p. 1. ↩︎
7. “The Architect Not Guilty.” The Atlanta Journal, June 22, 1894, p. 3. ↩︎
8. “Mr. Nixon Not Guilty.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 23, 1894, p. 5. ↩︎
9. “The Case Dismissed.” The Atlanta Journal, June 23, 1894, p. 9. ↩︎
10. ibid. ↩︎
11. “Public Sale of Personal Valuable Property”. The Atlanta Journal, June 15, 1896, p. 2. ↩︎
12. “Mr. A. McC Nixon Dead.” The Atlanta Journal, October 26, 1896, p. 5. ↩︎
13. Photo credit: Garrett, Franklin M. Yesterday’s Atlanta. Miami: E.A. Seamann Publishing, Inc. (1974). ↩︎
14. “Happy Days Are Recalled by Atlantians as Old Colonial Club Yields To Progress”. The Atlanta Journal, February 22, 1931, p. 4. ↩︎
15. “Miscellaneous for Sale” (advertisement). The Atlanta Constitution, February 18, 1931, p. 20. ↩︎
16. The Southern Architect, June 1895, Vol. 6, No. 8, p. 167. ↩︎
17. “Hopkins Corner Leased 10 Years By Goodrich Co.” The Atlanta Journal, January 7, 1931, p. 14. ↩︎
18. Photo credit: Art Work of Atlanta: Published in Nine Parts ↩︎
19. Photo credit: Marr, Christine V. and Sharon Foster Jones. Inman Park. Arcadia Publishing: Charleston, South Carolina, 2008, p. 45. ↩︎