When built for plantation owner Nathan Beall, this house was a large but simple Victorian. He later sold it Leonadius H. Jordan, owner of the Academy of Music [today’s Grand Opera House]. Jordan died in 1899 and in 1900 it was restored by Confederate Captain Samuel S. Dunlap, the most significant change being the addition of 18 Corinthian columns. During World War II, it was a boarding house and tea room operated by Mrs. Robert Lasseter. A photo of The Allman Brothers standing on the front porch of the house, looking a bit worse for wear, graces the cover of their eponymous debut album in 1969. In the 1970s and 1980s it was one of Macon’s most popular restaurants, known as Beall’s 1860. In 2001 it was restored by Gus Bell and donated to Mercer University in 2008. Today, it’s home to Mercer University’s Robert McDuffie Center for Strings.
Macon Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
When I was at Tift College (1976-1980), going to Beall’s 1860 was “a big deal”…beautiful old house with impressive food!! Leonidas Jordan’s widow, Ilah, remarried John D. Little…an Atlanta attorney. After her death, having no children, their estate was left to the University of Ga. to build “The Ilah Dunlap Little memorial library”…the main library on the campus.
I ate there during my college days at Wesleyan in ‘78. It was posh. At least to me at 17.
My wife Dawn Field was at Wesleyan then.