The T. R. R. Cobb House built in 1842 is an historic

octagon house Octagon houses were a unique house style briefly popular in the 1850s in the United States and Canada. They are characterised by an octagonal (eight-sided) plan, and often feature a flat roof and a veranda all round. Their unusual shape and app ...

originally located at 194 Prince Avenue in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

, Georgia. On June 30, 1975, it was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. The original part of the home of

Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb (April 10, 1823 – December 13, 1862) was an American lawyer, author, politician, and Confederate States Army officer, killed in the Battle of Fredericksburg during the American Civil War. He was the brother of noted C ...

is a Greek Revival four-over-four "Plantation Plain" built about 1834. The house given in 1844 to Cobb and his new wife, Marion Lumpkin, as a gift from his father-in-law, Joseph Henry Lumpkin, the first Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. Cobb made additions to the house of new rooms, and by 1852, it had acquired its octagon shape and two-story portico. Cobb died in 1862, and his widow remained in the house until 1873 when she sold it. The house was maintained and the Cobb family was served by the two dozen enslaved people Cobb owned, who lived behind the main house. Until 1962, the house was used for a variety of purposes including rental property, a fraternity house, and a boarding house. In 1962, the

Archdiocese of Atlanta In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associat ...

bought the house to use as the rectory and offices for St. Joseph Catholic Church. In the 1980s, the parish was planning to demolish the house, and the Stone Mountain Memorial Association stepped forward in 1984, bought it, and relocated it to Stone Mountain Park in 1985. The restoration of the house never took place because of lack of funding, and the house sat for nearly twenty years. In 2004 the Watson-Brown Foundation bought the house and returned it to Athens in the spring of 2005. The Watson-Brown Foundation restored the house to its appearance of 1850; in 2008, the Georgia Trust gave their work its Preservation Award for excellence in restoration. The house was delisted from the National Register in 1985, but was re-listed on July 23, 2013. The house is now open as a house museum located at 175 Hill Street in Cobbham Historic District. The same foundation also operates other historic house museums in Georgia including

Hickory Hill Hickory Hill may refer to several places: United States (by state) * Hickory Hill, Arkansas * Hickory Hill, Florida * Hickory Hill (Thomson, Georgia), National Register of Historic Places listings in McDuffie County, Georgia, listed on the NRHP i ...

Thomson Thomson may refer to: Names * Thomson (surname), a list of people with this name and a description of its origin * Thomson baronets, four baronetcies created for persons with the surname Thomson Businesses and organizations * SGS-Thomson Mic ...

and the May Patterson Goodrum House in

Atlanta 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 ...

References

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External links

T. R. R. Cobb House
- official site Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Georgia (U.S. state) Houses in Athens, Georgia Octagon houses in the United States Houses completed in 1842 Museums in Clarke County, Georgia Historic house museums in Georgia (U.S. state) 1842 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state) Relocated buildings and structures in Georgia (U.S. state) National Register of Historic Places in Clarke County, Georgia Greek Revival houses in Georgia (U.S. state)