When was the last time you drove through the section of Winder called Olde Town?
It’s the neighborhood north of Midland Avenue to Wright Street and west of Broad Street over to Third Avenue. Rows of hardwoods arch into a graceful canopy over the streets where generations of residents have strolled after supper, walked their babies in carriages, taught their children to ride two-wheelers, and watched their teenagers in tuxedos and evening dresses drive away to the Junior-Senior prom.
Houses in this National Register of Historic Places residential district date from a stately 1902 Neoclassical holding court in its white grandeur to several mid-twentieth century Queen Anne and New South cottages with plenty of brick and wood clad Arts & Crafts designs sprinkled throughout. Adding interest with stained glass cottage windows, intricate millwork, and delicate wrought iron accents, these houses defy anything built in the last thirty years to measure to the level of craftsmanship that defined as well-built even the most modest of these houses.
Their owners ranged from prominent businessmen and their families to some of Winder’s finest, but less well-known residents. The people who built these houses were neighbors in the truest sense of the word.
Newcomers were welcomed with a plate of cookies or a casserole for the first supper in their new house. Life events were marked by neighbors stopping their laundry day or bridge party to sit with a family dealing with the grief of death, the joy of birth, or the worry of illness.
Back in those days, concern over whether someone wanted their privacy went out the window as caring friends believed their place was with their neighbor helping to clean the house or make coffee for visitors or keep up with gifts of food and floral offerings for a family in the throes of grief. Folks didn’t worry about whether they’d get sued or talked about for being nosy; their neighbor needed support, so that’s what they sought to provide regardless of societal consequences. Back in those days, nobody had ever heard of being sued for trying to help a neighbor in distress.
Perhaps you’ve ridden down Midland Avenue and noticed the beautiful Queen Anne standing sentry at the intersection with Center Street. Empty for several years, this elegant house was built in 1902 by Mr. Paul Brookshire for his family. Painted white in its earlier years, the house featured its current wraparound porch, but the second floor was an open air widow’s walk with carved balustrade adding a finishing touch where now there is a tin porch roof beginning to show the signs of needing a resident to care for its needs.
Complete with its ballroom and exquisite carved mantelpieces, the interior of Mr. Brookshire’s house is a testament to his station in Winder’s society. A businessman, Paul Brookshire was a member of the Winder First Methodist Church and proudly walked barely 100 yards to the Gothic Revival building on the corner of W. Candler and Center Streets for mid-week prayer services, meetings of the Official Board or Board of Stewards on which he served, and for worship services twice each Sunday.
A couple of blocks away at 81 Church Street stands the brick house built for the Charles M. Ferguson family. A son-in-law of town founder Wiley Harrison Bush, Ferguson was not only a granite mason, but a local funeral director, as well. The house is a 1912 Arts & Crafts style with interesting architectural features and workmanship one simply cannot find in a new building. Its front porch welcomes visitors while Mama & Papa could keep an eye out through the oriel window on the other side of the house. You can almost hear Mr. Ferguson’s daughter Miss Beulah Robinson teaching piano lessons, or rehearsing with soloists, duets, and trios for the next big event at school, in the community or at church.
I remember many an afternoon and evening spent in rehearsals at Miss Beulah’s with her 22-year-old tiger striped cat Tinker Bell.
If you’ve been looking and longing, Saturday April 30 and Sunday May 1, you’ll have your chance to tour ten of Olde Winder’s lovely homes. Barrow Preservation Society, Inc. is sponsoring its first Spring Tour of Homes beginning with Miss Beulah’s Church Street house and ending with the Luther M. Blasingame House — now Constance Manor — almost on the corner of Church Street’s intersection with Athens Street, once called Hog Mountain Road.
A two-day event pass is available for a cost of $15. Your paid membership to Barrow Preservation Society will give you a free pass to events being sponsored by Barrow Preservation this year. Your pass allows you entrance to this and any other event sponsored by the local preservation organization. Tour of Homes passes are available at Ann’s Flower Shop on East Athens Street at Woodlawn and at Strickland, Chesnutt, & Lindsay. Won’t you join us to see how lovely Winder is and take a step back in time to days when pride in workmanship yielded some of our most beautiful homes easily adapted for today’s family lifestyles. With local decorators and retailers helping to furnish the houses that are presently occupied. We’ll see.
Helen Person is a Winder resident and columnist for the Barrow Journal. You can reach her at helenperson@winstream.net.
