While the Druid Hills neighborhood boasts an eclectic mix of home styles, the classic Tudor really stands out.

The solid feel of a Tudor half-timber, plaster and brick façade seems to represent early 1900s Atlanta in a way that no other style does. One can easily imagine neatly suited businessmen coming out their front doors and walking down the sidewalk to the trolley line at Ponce de Leon, or revving up their automobiles as they headed into downtown Atlanta for a hard day's work.

Johnny Crawford / AJC (ENLARGE)

The kitchen in Evan Lindsay and Nancy Cox's Druid Hills home.

Johnny Crawford / AJC (ENLARGE)

A sense of history and place drew the couple to their 1916 Tudor.

Johnny Crawford / AJC (ENLARGE)

The living room.

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Many of the city's influential families had homes in Druid Hills, including the Candlers of Coca-Cola fame and fortune. Frederick Law Olmstead Sr. laid out plans for the new suburb, which included broad curving streets and public parks. The best architects of the day, including Philip Trammel Shutze, Ernest Ivey and Lewis Crook Jr., designed homes in the neighborhood.

It was this sense of history and place that attracted Nancy Cox and Evan Lindsay to their classic 1916 Tudor home.

"We were living in Virginia-Highland and had always admired the Druid Hills neighborhood and its architecture," says Lindsay. "We wanted to live in a historic Atlanta neighborhood in a historic gem of a house. We looked at a number of houses and bought this one because it felt comfortable and right for us."

The design was classic English Tudor and the architect was Neel Reid.

The Cox/Lindsay home is the oldest of the six properties featured on this year's Druid Hills Home and Garden Tour. The tour celebrates the 100th anniversary of the 1908 purchase of 1,492 acres by the Druid Hills Corp. from prominent Atlanta businessman Joel Hurt, who had assembled the property.

A busy professional couple, Lindsay runs the Eastern region for the executive search firm, Hodge/Niederer/Cariani/Lindsay, and Cox directs the Influenza Division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The couple travels all over the world for work and for pleasure, and as they travel they've collected art and furnishings to complement their home.

They purchased it in 1989. "Almost from the beginning, we began to think about how to make the house work even better for us. We combined small closet spaces to make more practical ones. We added easier access to the attic. We upgraded the plumbing, electric and heating and air systems, doing what we could as the budget allowed. It's been an ongoing renovation," says Lindsay.

That ongoing renovation has touched almost every room of the house. A back deck and screened porch overlooking the extensive backyard were added. A new motor court provides covered parking space for four cars.

"The house had undergone previous renovations," says Lindsay, "but they had been done apparently on a tight budget. We were able to remove those alterations and restore the rooms to their original appearance." Restoring that appearance included such careful touches as copying old moldings in order to keep the flow seamless between old and new.

"We are the fifth owners of this house. The people who lived here loved this home and that's obvious," says Lindsay.

The most recent renovation project transformed the kitchen. "The rest of the remodeling was easy compared to the kitchen," says Cox.Now a wide bank of custom-made windows provides views of the park-like backyard. Their contractor had North Georgia white oak milled to the exact specifications of the original flooring.

An upstairs sleeping porch has been turned into an office. "It was the coldest room in the house," says Lindsay, but now it has storm windows that fit unobtrusively into the original pedimented window openings.

Another renovation that improved the livability of the house involved turning the former master bedroom into a family room. Adding French doors with mirrored panels provides a connection to what is now the master bedroom. Lindsay says, "We use the family room for reading, reflecting, watching TV and listening to good music. Our interior designer Carol Swetman designed the bookcases that not only accommodate our books and some of our art, but accommodate a 7.1 channel surround system with a high-definition TV. I am an audiophile and, really, we use the room more for listening to music than anything else. I have a file server in the basement with over 10,000 songs on it."

Lindsay says he's always been interested in technology, computers, electronics and the reproduction of extraordinary music. His home automation system allows him to control temperature, TVs, digital music, lighting and security, all from touch screens throughout the house, or from his laptop. Energy conservation features are also built in, allowing the family to monitor the hot water and the HVAC systems, for example, from the same system.

Swetman helped the couple plan the decoration of the home. "We started with the rugs," says Cox, "looking for carpets with my favorite colors of coral and red and turquoise. I think those are the foundation for a really warm and inviting home. I knew I wanted a round dining table after traveling in Asia, and Carol helped us find the right one."

Touring the house, one can't miss the collections of art and porcelains from around the world. A tabletop and wall display of Chinese cloisonné in the upstairs landing was begun on Cox's first trip to China in 1988.

"I was involved in setting up the lab at the Institute of Virology in Beijing and asked a student to take me to a store where I could find something to take home as a souvenir of my trip. I found this pair of vases and that became the start of my collection," says Cox.

All the pieces the couple has acquired fit easily into the traditional furnishings of their home. The house originally was built as a wedding gift for a daughter in the Adair family, descendants of Col. George W. Adair, who died in 1899, having had his hand in real estate transactions all over Atlanta and the Southeast.

"I think the Adair family would recognize this house," says Linds. "That was important to us. There's so much growth in Atlanta that many parts no longer give you any sense of their history or their original character. We wanted to be a part of preserving Atlanta's history for future generations and for future owners of this home."

HOW IT'S DONE

Five tips from interior designer Carol Swetman on restoring an historic home.

1. Consult an architect and/or interior designer experienced in restoring and working with historic structures.

2. Preserve and protect original architectural elements.

3. Generally speaking, do not alter original floor plan. Secondary spaces may need to be sensitively altered to accommodate enlarged closets, bathrooms and kitchens.

4. Use appropriate scale and proportion in furnishings.

5. Consider using some furnishings from the home's original period, but the house does not have to look like a museum.

IF YOU GO

• Druid Hills Home and Garden Tour:

• April 18, 19 and 20; Friday and Saturday: 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday: 1-5 p.m.

• Tickets: $20 in advance, $25 day of the tour

• For information: 404-524-8687, www.druidhills.org/tour