The Rufus M. Rose House is a late

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...

, Queen Anne style house located in the SoNo district 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 ...

. Occupying a narrow lot on

Peachtree Street Peachtree Street is one of several major streets running through the city of Atlanta. Beginning at Five Points (Atlanta), Five Points in downtown Atlanta, it runs North through Midtown Atlanta, Midtown; a few blocks after entering into Buckhead ...

, one and a half blocks south of North Avenue, the house was built in 1901 for Dr. Rufus Mathewson Rose. The architect was Emil Charles Seiz (1873–1940), who designed many residential and commercial structures in the city, including the 1924 Massellton Apartments on

Ponce de Leon Avenue Ponce de Leon Avenue ( ), often simply called Ponce, provides a link between Atlanta, Decatur, Clarkston, and Stone Mountain, Georgia. It was named for Ponce de Leon Springs, in turn from explorer Juan Ponce de León, but is not pronounced ...

Architecture

The house is an extremely rare example of a nineteenth-century town house built for one of Atlanta's wealthy citizens. Its red-brick exterior consists of bayed and multi-gabled facades interspersed with numerous window shapes and sizes, and numerous fireplaces. The original slate roof and front porch have been lost. Additionally, the property has carved, marble steps that originally ascended directly from the sidewalk on Peachtree Street up to the front porch. The home's tiny yard is the "singular survivor from Peachtree's residential heyday."City of Atlanta Online: http://www.atlantaga.gov/government/urbandesign_rufusrose.aspx/''Atlanta Historic Resources Workbook'' by the Atlanta Urban Design Commission, September 1981''AIA Guide to the Architecture of Atlanta'': University of Georgia Press, 1993Atlanta Preservation Center's ''SoNo/Midtown Commercial District Tour Guide'': APC, 2009

History

The approximately home was built for Dr. Rufus M. Rose in 1901 at a cost of $9,000. Rose, a former druggist and Civil War doctor who moved to Atlanta in 1867, was the founder of the R. M. Rose Co. Distillery (Mountain Spring Distillery), located in the Atlanta suburb of Vinings, as well as the owner of a large real estate business known as the Rose Investment Company. The Rose family lived in this home until 1921. From 1923, when the property was sold out of the Rose family, until the mid-1940s, the home was used as a private residence, then as a

rooming house A rooming house, also called a "multi-tenant house", is a "dwelling with multiple rooms rented out individually", in which the tenants share kitchen and often bathroom facilities. Rooming houses are often used as housing for low-income people, as ...

, then as offices for the Fulton County Relief Administration, then, once again, as a private residence. In 1945, James H. Elliot Sr. bought the house and used it as an antique store and museum, which he named J.H. Elliot's Antiques and the Atlanta Museum. Open to the public, the museum contained furniture belonging to

Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel, published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel '' Gone with the Wind'', for which she wo ...

, personal items of Bobby Jones, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie's throne, a

Japanese Zero The Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" is a long-range carrier-based fighter aircraft formerly manufactured by Mitsubishi Aircraft Company, a part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and was operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1940 to 1945. The A6M was ...

war plane and many other notable items. After more than 50 years, the store and museum closed in 1998. From 1999 to 2001, the house served as the headquarters for th
Atlanta Preservation Center
until it moved into L. P. Grant's

antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ar ...

mansion in Atlanta's Grant Park neighborhood. While the house is listed on 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 ...

(1977) and is designated as a Landmark Building Exterior (1989) by the City of Atlanta, it is currently vacant and endangered due to neglect. The house was sold for a price of $309,750 on August 24, 2011, to an individual by the name of Gholam Bakhtiari at an auction held by the real estate firm Williams & Williams. Vacant since 2001, the house was sold in 2020 to Inman Park Properties before being sold again to UC Asset, an Atlanta-based real estate investment firm, in 2021. Renovations on the property began in September 2021, though developers have not yet announced future plans for the property.

References

External links

Exterior and interior photos of home

Atlanta Time Machine
(House listed in "Downtown" tab)

{{Atlanta landmarks Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Georgia (U.S. state) Queen Anne architecture in Georgia (U.S. state) Houses in Atlanta Houses completed in 1901 National Register of Historic Places in Atlanta City of Atlanta-designated historic sites