This Craftsman bungalow was the Columbus home of renowned novelist and playwright Carson McCullers (1917-1967), famous for her novels The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Member of the Wedding, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, and Clock Without Hands. It is typical of the Craftsman architecture that characterizes the neighborhood. To further the legacy of its celebrated resident, the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians is today a house museum and artist residency space owned and operated by Columbus State University.

Lula Carson Smith was born in Columbus, Georgia, on 19 February 1917 to Lamar (1889-1944) and Vera Marguerite Waters Smith (1890-1955). Lamar was a jeweler and watchmaker. Upon graduation from Columbus High School in 1934, Carson moved to New York City, where she began to write, publishing her first work in Story magazine in 1936. Even as she began to have success as a writer, McCullers’s life was rife with difficulty. A misdiagnosed and untreated case of rheumatic fever in childhood caused a series of cerebral strokes as she aged. By her mid-20s, Carson was partially paralyzed on her left side. She made regular visits back to Columbus at this time. In 1937 she wed Reeves McCullers (1913-1953), in what has been described as a lavender marriage.

When Lamar died at his jewelry shop in 1944, Marguerite sold the Columbus house and moved to Nyack, New York, and purchased a Victorian now known as the Carson McCullers House, also owned by Columbus State University. Carson lived in the Nyack house with her mother and sister, and after World War II, with her husband, who committed suicide in 1953. Later, Carson bought the house from her mother and lived there until her death. A final massive stroke in 1967 ended her life at age 50.

Hillcrest-Wildwood Circle Historic District, National Register of Historic Places