24 Room Mansion on the Charles Howard Candler Estate

Callanwolde House, Atlanta Georgia

Date added: August 19, 2024

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Georgia
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Mansion

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Callanwolde was the home of Coca-Cola family member Charles H. Candler. It is named for Callen Castle in Ireland that was given to a Candler ancestor by the British crown in the 17^th century. Built in the early 20^th century and designed by Henry Hornbostel, Callanwolde is a successful amalgamation of 19th-century Gothic Revivalism and 20th-century ideas of form and function. Used as the Candler home until 1959, it has since served in the educational program of the First Christian Church of Atlanta, as an artists' studio and presently anticipated as a cultural and recreational center.

It is said that Charles H. Candler, commissioned this house because he was convinced by the Emory University campus planner and architect, Henry Hornbostel, that a house in a grand and gracious manner was necessary to accompany his new position as chief benefactor of a university and president of a great American corporation. No record has been found as to how Emory University and Candler first got to know Hornbostel's work but Hornbostel was the architect for Callanwolde and of Emory University's campus plan as well as the designer for several Emory buildings including the law and theology schools built 1915-19. Hornbostel (1867-1961) was born in Brooklyn, New York, went to Columbia University, studied in Europe, and was a member of the New York firm of Palmer and Hornbostel. He won the competition for Pittsburg's Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1903-4, and also became its first professor of architecture in 1905. Hornbostel was on the Institute's staff at the time he designed for Emory University. Hornbostel is well known for his gifted draftsmanship, his design of several bridges, among them Hells Gate Bridge in New York, and especially for his adeptness at interpreting the manner of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in a bold and original way.

Hornbostel's client, Charles Howard Candler (1878-1957), was the president and director of the family-born Coca-Cola Company. From 1929 until his death in 1957 he served as board chairman of Emory University) the university that he and his family helped to move from Emory College at Oxford, Georgia.

The Candler family lived in Callanwolde until 1959 at which time Mrs. Candler decided to deed annual portions of the estate to Emory University. In the mid-1960s Emory University decided Callanwolde could not be advantageously developed and sold the University's equity to the First Christian Church of Atlanta. After several years the Church ascertained this property exceeded Church requirements and offered the estate for sale.

To preserve the property for public use as a cultural recreation center, a group of concerned citizens formed the Callanwolde Foundation which has raised funds from private and business sectors in the area. To assure perpetuity, the Foundation arranged with the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners for the operation and maintenance of the Center.

Building Description

Callanwolde is the main house on the Charles Howard Candler estate, designed by Henry Hornbostel of New York and Pittsburg. It was built during the years 1917 - 21; it is a severe and modern approach to the late Gothic Revival style. (Hornbostel has been called a "proto-brutalist.")

This 24-room house is situated on a 12-acre wooded and landscaped tract. The front facade of the two-and-one-half-story building has medieval half-timber rhythmical design across the upper stories, crenellated bays, and Tudor arches as well as the strapwork ornament; yet all of these elements of Tudor Gothic design have been subjected to a simplicity or severity of design that is a particularly 20th-century approach to the use of traditional design motifs.

Its construction is of poured concrete and steel and a rubble base of tile covered by stucco. Its plan speaks of openness, as most of the rooms have access to the great hall on each floor. On the first floor are some ten rooms including a library, parlor, formal dining room, family dining room, billiard room, living room (23' X 46') and two porches and patios almost totally surrounding the home. To the left in the great hall is a staircase with a bronze balustrade curving both to the left and to the right from the landing to the second floor. Above the stairwell is a system of elaborated rib vaults.

On the second floor are seven bedrooms, six baths, and two sun decks. These also have direct access to a second-floor great hall (59' X 30'). Located in the basement is a one-lane bowling alley. The major bathrooms, as large as a present-day bedroom, are a show of opulence with mirrors, fixtures and great use of marble. The home has an Aeolian music system especially designed and built into the structure. Consisting of seven divisions, the instrument is contained in four separately constructed chambers strategically located. Controlled from the console located in the first-floor great hall, all chambers can be utilized simultaneously or separately, permitting selective projection of sound to all major rooms in the mansion. While basically an electric-powered wind pipe organ, simulation of five or six different instruments can be presented from the keyboard of the console.

The interior is finished in a variety of styles. The basement, servant area, is void of decorative elements with its smooth surfaces and massive fireplaces. However, there are rooms with hardwood floors of maple and walnut designs with walnut pegs and great wooden rafters also of walnut.

The formal dining room is a creative example of the use of Renaissance ornament with its square columns and pilasters, light decorative cornices, paneled wainscotting and plaster ceiling medallion.

The two rear wings, which consist of kitchen, family dining room and living room on the lower floor, help form a three-sided arcaded courtyard. This view, with the calculated and stark use of the Tudor arches and smooth stucco surfaces suggest again the "proto-brutalist" character of design.

Adjacent to the patios are several boxwood lined formal gardens; one of these is a rock garden said to be made of the breastwork remnants of a Civil War engagement. The house and formal gardens are set within a park of natural growth.