Tag Archives: Architecture of Ivey P. Crutchfield

Robert & Missouri Garbutt House, 1910, Lyons

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This home, designed for Robert and Missouri Garbutt by Ivey P. Crutchfield, is the grandest in Lyons. It is also known as “Twenty Columns”. Robert Musgrove Garbutt made a fortune in the timber business as the partner of H. M. Rountree in the late 19th century and served for a time as mayor of Swainsboro. Garbutt was first married to Missouri Coleman and upon her death married her sister, Sophronia Coleman. He moved to Lyons around 1894. In addition to his ongoing interest in the Rountree-Garbutt Lumber Company in Emanuel County, Garbutt owned or held interest in the Garbutt-Donovan Lumber Company in Lyons, Hartfelder-Garbutt Company of Savannah, Garbutt-Donovan Real Estate Company of Fitzgerald, and the Southern Foundry & Fitting Company of Savannah. He was also a major stockholder in the First National Bank of Fitzgerald and the First National Bank of Lyons. One of Fitzgerald’s most important commercial landmarks, the five-story Garbutt-Donovan Building, was also a venture.

Bobby Thomas Akins recalls: …when I was a boy, it had a second floor balcony around the three fourths of the house. My sister-in-law Ellen Akins and I were taken through the house by Mrs. Garbutt, a real southern aristocrat, but very friendly and kind. The little room on top of the house contained a copy of every newspaper ever produced by the Lyons Progress tied up neatly with string, stacked up around the walls of the room. [The house] had the most beautiful furniture I have ever seen.

National Register of Historic Places

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First National Bank Building, 1910, Vidalia

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W. D. Donovan, the first president of the First National Bank, built this structure using the design of Ivey P. Crutchfield. By the late 1920s or early 1930s, First National moved to a different location and this served as Darby Bank for a time.

Vidalia Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Leader-Rosansky House, 1903, Vidalia

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This home, with Neoclassical and Queen Anne elements, was built for Moses Leader and Nahum Aaron Rosansky, likely by Ivey P. Crutchfield. It’s the only surviving home associated with any of Vidalia’s founding fathers. Leader and Rosansky were Polish Jews who immigrated to America in 1890 to escape anti-semitism. They first met in Augusta and formed a business partnership. Moses Leader came to Vidalia first, while Rosansky stayed behind in Augusta building capital. Leader peddled goods from door to door at first. Rosansky was in Vidalia by about 1895, when the two opened their store. The Leader & Rosansky Store was the biggest in Vidalia from the late 1890s until its closure, and the owners were instrumental in developing the commercial district of the town. The pair also bought over sixty acres of land and developed it for commercial, religious, and residential purposes. Mr. Leader’s sister, Rosa, came to Vidalia in 1902 and married Mr. Rosansky. It was a thriving family business. Rosa Rosansky died in the flu outbreak of 1918 and the store was closed by 1928. Mr. Rosansky died in 1930. They had two daughters, but only one, Anna Rosansky Bauman, lived to adulthood. She sold the house to Marvin Shuman in 1945. The Shuman’s daughter, Anita Shuman Momand notes that when they purchased the home the spindles on the cast iron fence were each painted a different color.

National Register of Historic Places

Peterson-Wilbanks House, 1916, Vidalia

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Ava McArthur Peterson Wilbanks bought the lot for this house, a half-acre cotton patch at the time, in 1911. She first married A. A. Peterson, Jr., one of the largest landowners in Toombs and Montgomery counties. Upon Mr. Peterson’s death she married H. P. Wilbanks. The house was lost to foreclosure in 1936, at the height of the Great Depression.  It was purchased by W. Frank Jenkins in 1940. Jenkins was a grandson of W. T. Jenkins, who founded Vidalia in 1890 and was the namesake of its predecessor, Jenkins Station. He and his wife Katharine were the last residential owners of the house, living here until the 1980s.

The architect, Ivey P. Crutchfield (1878-1952) was responsible for commercial and religious work in Soperton, Glennville, Reidsville, Mount Vernon, Cochran and other nearby towns. He also built several other homes and commercial structures in Vidalia, including the town’s first bank. Crutchfield, a native of Wilkinson County, never received formal training in architecture but was a working architect by 1916. He left Georgia and was a successful architect in Fort Myers, Florida, until his retirement.

National Register of Historic Places