Avondale Estates

Atlanta is the business, spiritual, and cultural capitol of the South.  It's a city of stories and history and, at the same time, a symbol of the New South and dreams of the future.  And, maybe more than anything else, it is a city of distinct neighborhoods and diverse communities.  In exploring the neighborhoods and communities of the metro region, I keep being struck by how often I find myself in places that don't remotely resemble what I thought Atlanta would look like before I first visited.  Avondale Estates is most definitely one of those places.

About seven miles east of Downtown Atlanta, just beyond Decatur, at the turn of the last century, was a small village and a few large farms collectively known as Ingleside.  In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Ingleside was known for its idyllic country residences and farmlands, all so far from the bustle of the growing city. 

In 1924, almost all of the land in Ingleside was purchased by a wealthy Atlanta businessman by the name of George Francis Willis.  After a trip with his wife to picturesque Stratford-upon-Avon England, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, Mr. Willis found himself inspired to recreate a quaint English Tudor-style village in the heart of America's South - so he purchased the land and hired an engineer and an architect to help him carry out his vision.  He called his vision for the South's first planned community, Avondale Estates.  

Work started soon after the land was acquired.  Within two years, the streets were laid out and paved, a Tudor-style commercial center and nearly fifty residences were built, along with a community park and pool.  Just two years after that, a lake was created and seventy-five more homes, mostly English Tudor influenced, were completed.  Construction all but stopped through the Depression era.  In the years after World War II, Avondale Estates grew into one of Atlanta's most beautiful and affluent suburbs, and it remains so today.  In 1986, the Avondale Estates Historic District was offically listed in the National Register of Historic Places, due to its wonderfully unique architecture and history as the only planned model community in America's South.  

Today, Avondale Estates is home to about 2,700 people., and  the town is known for  community participation and organization.  It's not a particularly diverse community, ethnically speaking, and almost 90% of the residents are European-American.  It has, however, attracted a signficant number of gay and lesbian couples due to its growing repuation as a liberal community, as well as its proximity to gay-friendly Decatur.  Less than 3% of the population falls under the poverty line.  

Throughout this project, I keep returning to ideas of texture and reflection and color and shape as structural expressions of a community, and I found that all of these themes became prominent in my explorations of Avondale Estates.  The stark Tudor triangles, sensible English textures, and thoughtful autumn colors reflect an uncommon elegance.  While similarly somewhat affluent communities often feel pretentious and remote, Avondale Estates exudes warmth and a welcoming charm - and that is possibly what allows this English village to survive in the American Deep South.