This home was built by Will Lanier, son of Elijah Frank Lanier and president of the Bank of West Point. His wife, Charlie Belle Collins Lanier, was a first cousin of Philip Trammell Shutze, one of Georgia’s most notable 20th century architects. The Lanier family were among the earliest investors in the local textile industry and had interests in banks and other businesses.
When constructed by brothers Lanier and Ward Crockett Lanier in 1884, this commercial block was the tallest building in town, at three stories. A bank and several other businesses occupied the first floor. The general offices of the West Point Manufacturing Company were located on the second floor until the 1950s. The third floor served as the city’s 600-seat opera house; it was destroyed by a tornado on 28 March 1920 and was never rebuilt.
West Point Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Presently being renovated, the old Bank of West Point building is typical of small town banks in the first decade of the 20th century.
West Point Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Architect Otis Clay Poundstone was in partnership with the Atlanta firm of T. F. Lockwood at the time he designed LaGrange City Hall. The Alabama native designed numerous public buildings in Georgia, including several in Cedartown.
LaGrange Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The oldest non-residential structure in LaGrange, this Greek Revival church was built by Benjamin H. Cameron for the local Presbyterian congregation in 1844. It served as a Confederate hospital from 1863-1865. The Reverend Dr. James Woodrow, uncle of Woodrow Wilson, was tried here by the Presbyterian Synod for teaching evolution in 1885. It later featured a steeple built by George and John King, sons of the great bridge builder, Horace King, but it was removed when the congregation relocated in 1919. The structure has subsequently served as a public library, funeral home, athletic club, and as home to another congregation.
The prolific Georgia architect P. Thornton Marye designed this Tudor Revival for Mary and Julia Nix. The Nix sisters were among the benefactors who helped save LaGrange College from financial ruin in the years following World War I. It has served as the School of Nursing and presently, the Alumni House.
Broad Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This Neoclassical Revival house was built by local contractor E. D. Roberts for Mr. & Mrs. E. Glover Hood. Mrs. Hood was the granddaughter of Phillip Hunter Greene, who built The Oaks, next door. Dr. & Mrs. Robert Copeland purchased in 1969 and Mrs. Copeland was very active in preservation efforts throughout the community.
Vernon Road Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Phillip Hunter Greene took three years to select the timbers for this house, which an 1883 LaGrange Reporter article declared “…the best built framed house in LaGrange…”. Greene was a successful inventor of improvements in sawmills, plows, and fencing. Grover Cleaveland purchased the home for his sister Etta Dodd in 1914. It was the boyhood home of Lamar Dodd, perhaps Georgia’s most accomplished artist of the 20th century.
Vernon Road Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This imposing landmark of the Mediterranean Revival style was built for Robert and Florence Hutchinson in 1940*. It is notable in that it was built by one of Georgia’s first woman architects, Ellamae Ellis League (1899-1991) of Macon. Ms. League was the first Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in Georgia and one of only eight in the nation at the time of her death. She designed high schools, hospitals, gymnasiums, and other public facilities, as well as numerous residential commissions. She oversaw the renovation and restoration of the Grand Opera House in Macon. Her daughter and a grandson also became architects.
Of Ms. League, Bamby Ray writes: League became an architect by necessity. In 1922, divorced at age twenty-three with two small children, she entered a profession for which she had no training. Her husband of five years had left her with no financial resources, and she needed to find employment. Six generations of her family, including an uncle in Atlanta, [Charles Ellis Choate, one of Georgia’s most prolific architects in his lifetime] had been architects. She joined a Macon firm as an apprentice and remained there for the next six years, as she managed both office and child-rearing duties. During that time League also took correspondence courses from the Beaux Arts Institute of Design in New York City.
*- Travels through Troup County: A Guide to its Architecture and History dates the house to 1916, but I believe this to have been an oversight.
This classic Italianate cottage was built for Nicholas Lewis. During the Civil War, it was occupied by refugees from various Southern states. A prominent local physician, Dr. Henry Hamilton Cary, purchased the home in 1869.
