Another old building bites the dust.
The Craigie House, a 105-year-old Greek Revival structure in Ansley Park, once home to the Atlanta chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, has been leveled.
What is left on Piedmont Road is a pile of rubble and a sign indicating something else will be built on the site.
“It’s sad. Piles of rubble tend to be sad,” said Mark C. McDonald, president and CEO of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation.
Built in 1911, the columned edifice was dealt a serious wound in the 1980s when a tree fell on it. The DAR moved out and the building remained vacant, prey to graffiti taggers and squatters. Then in 2014 an ice storm collapsed all but the handsome facade.
The building was on the National Register of Historic Places, and was across the street from the venerable Pidemont Driving Club. But it seemed that saving it was becoming unlikely.
There was discussion by one developer of preserving the facade with new construction behind it, but that wasn’t in the cards, said McDonald, because of the narrowness of the lot and the width of the facade. “You couldn’t get a car past it.”
In parking-starved Ansley Park, lack of a driveway is a serious liability.
Demolition crews bulldozed the facade this week. Parts of the foundation were still visible Friday and McDonald was hopeful that at least one souvenir still remains.
“There was a time capsule in the cornerstone,” said McDonald. “I’m curious what the ladies of 1911 thought was worthy of historic preservation.”
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