The Briarcliff Hotel, now the Briarcliff Summit, is located at 1050 Ponce de Leon Ave. NE (original address: 750 Ponce de Leon Ave.) in the

Virginia Highland Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

neighborhood of

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Asa G. Candler, Jr. Asa Griggs "Buddie" Candler Jr. (August 27, 1880 – January 11, 1953, in Atlanta) was the eccentric son of Asa Griggs Candler Sr., co-founder of Coca-Cola. Candler Jr. helped build his father's business into an empire. He later became a real-es ...

, the eccentric son of Coca-Cola magnate

Asa Candler Asa Griggs Candler (December 30, 1851 – March 12, 1929) was an American business tycoon and politician who in 1888 purchased the Coca-Cola recipe for $238.98 from chemist John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia. Candler founded The Coca-Co ...

Sr., owned the real estate firm that built the Briarcliff in 1924. The Briarcliff is 9 stories tall in an "H" shape. It opened as "the 750", a luxury apartment building with 200 units. The architect was G. Lloyd Preacher, who also designed Atlanta's

City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

. After the

1929 stock market crash The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...

, it was converted to a commercial

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

, subdivided into 400 units in order to offer cheap rates. In the late 1940s Candler reconverted the hotel into luxury apartments, taking the top floor and making it into a penthouse suite for himself and his second wife, Florence. His inlaws, Edgar Chambers, Sr and Kate Mumford Chambers, parents of his daughter Laura's husband and owners of Parks Chambers, an upscale men's clothing store in Atlanta, lived in a large apartment on the 1st floor in the building known as "1050 Briarcliff" or more simply as "1050". In the 1960s, after the death of prominent tenants, the building was deteriorating and was sold by Candler's heirs and again called the Briarcliff Hotel. The hotel was uniquely tied to

gospel music Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music, and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is com ...

Hovie Lister Hovie Franklin Lister (September 17, 1926 – December 28, 2001) was an American gospel musician, Baptist Minister, and politician. Lister was best known for his time as the front man of the Statesmen Quartet, perhaps the most well known and reno ...

and his

Statesmen Quartet The Statesmen Quartet (also known as Hovie Lister and The Statesmen Quartet) were an American southern gospel quartet founded in 1948 by Baptist Minister Hovie Lister. Along with the Blackwood Brothers, the Statesmen Quartet were considered the ...

had offices at the Briarcliff. Statesmen business manager Don Butler and tenor Roland "Rosie" Rozell partnered to open the King & Prince Restaurant inside the hotel. The building is now known as the Briarcliff Summit Apartments, providing Section 8 housing for the elderly. Residents are now all elderly with federally subsidized rent. In January 2012, a deal was reached whereby Evergreen Partners Housing will buy the property in May 2012 and renovate the building, which according to the ''Patch'' newspaper as of January 2012 was "falling apart", in the months thereafter."Historic Ponce Apartments Slated for Renovation, Construction set to begin this summer", Jaclyn Hirsch, ''Virginia-Highland Druid Hill Patch'', January 25, 2012
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References

External links

Photos of Briarcliff Hotel
{{Atlanta landmarks Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Georgia (U.S. state) Hotel buildings completed in 1924 Hotels in Atlanta G. Lloyd Preacher buildings National Register of Historic Places in Atlanta

See also

References

External links