Ranch Dressing

The March Lunch and Learn lecture conducted by the Dekalb History Center, was held yesterday afternoon and focused on the ranch house in Georgia. Richard Clouse (deputy state historic preservation officer for Georgia’s Historic Preservation Division) presented an interesting talk on the development of the ranch house here in the state. Additionally, Melissa Forgey, (Executive Director for the DeKalb History Center) presented results from the Ranch House Initiative which is a program to help document the explosion of ranch homes in the county just after WWII. Both talks were very interesting and really set the historic context for the ranch house style.

Forgey focused on four neighborhoods in Dekalb County. Northwoods, Belvedere Park, Sargent Hills, and Briarpark Court. Interestingly enough, many of the homes in Briarpark Court were designed by Andre Stimer, who also developed the master plan for Jekyll Island. This fact probably accounts for the numerous mid century ranches and modern ranch homes found on the island.

Northcrest was mentioned briefly during the talk and allowed for some clarification to me of the chronology of the neighborhood. Walter Tally was finishing up Northwoods in 1959. Tally then joined up with Hardrath and Edwards to start Northcrest. Clouse and Forgey pointed out many of the similarities between the two neighborhoods such as centralized park facility, area set aside for a school, and a nearby shopping center.

After the lecture, our small Northcrest group had the opportunity to talk with both of the speakers. We were first able to set up a Northcrest folder with the Dekalb History Center. We supplied them with a copy of the Atomic Ranch magazine focused on Nrothcrest, a copy of the 1964 plat map, and literature about the Northcrest Swim and Tennis Club. If anyone from Northcrest has any original documents or other ephemera that you would like to donate, please let us know and we can make sure that is handed off to the correct person for proper curation.

Northcrest also came up when speaking with Richard. The company I work for routinely works with his office on a number of different projects. He was telling me that he was recently driving through Northcrest and thought to himself how unique of a neighborhood we live in. Also, he recounted a story that involved Northcrest. When he was giving a similar lecture on the ranch house a couple years ago, he mentioned Northwoods and Walter Tally and someone jumped up in the middle of his talk and yelled out “Tally! That’s how he is connected to Northcrest”.

All Richard could remember was that he had long hair and was very vocal about Walter Tally. In the future and you attend one of these talks; please remember these are professional lectures. They obviously concern a topic many of us are very passionate about, so please use common courtesy and allow respect for the experts. We should want to make sure Northcrest continues to garner a positive appearance with the state and historians.