Mid-Century Metro Atlanta

Mid-Century Arc on Flickr

Atlanta in reality, has quite a bit of Mid-century Modern design and influence to behold. What it doesn't have, are huge amounts of neighbors that have open lots to see what is there. Due to the dense landscape of brush, bush, and trees, it took me quite a while to notice all the mid-century that exists. Just so you understand, I'm not about to try and show an example of all the styles of MCM homes or buildings that exist. I will show a few styles that I have run across though. Personally, I had the privilege of entering a large number of these incredible houses when I worked as a pest control technician, or what ever you call them. In fact, as of about 9 years ago, many of the original owners still lived in there homes. Also, I had the interesting experience of living in the Riverbend Apartments on the Chatahoochee of "Catch Me If You Can"* fame.

Please understand that I could spend all day talking about where you can find Mid-Century/Mid-century Modern homes in the Metro Atlanta area. Howerver, that would be a really long post. So, I'm going to mention a little about the areas where I used to work and live. Plus, these are the areas that I have photos of.

While I worked as a pestcontrol technician, I worked a huge territory. I worked all the way from Northern Gwinett, thru buckhead and in to the marietta and smyrna areas. All of these areas have a number of mid-century, modern and non, houses that are very interesting to see. As I mentioned before, I found that it took a keen eye to see thru the hedges and see the treasures that laid beyond those sneaky things. In fact, I have walked up to more than my share of houses, fences, gates and intercoms to ask the person at home when there house was built and if I could walk around it to take a look see. Surprisingly enough, most people where very friendly and let me in.

Unfortunately, at the time, I hadn't gotten into photography heavily and never had a camera with me. So, I don't have photos of some of the coolest houses that I had the pleasure of seeing.

Where to find MCM homes in Atlanta.

On the west side, you can find Mid-century houses in the old portions of just about all the small towns. Even Paulding County has a few gems. Very few though. So... I suggest that you stick to the more progressive areas. One instance of this would be Smyrna. While you're not going to see a ton of the MCM homes from the main roads, Austell, Windy Hill, Atlanta, Cobb Parkway, and South Cobb Drive, just go down some of the local neighborhood roads and you will see some nice houses a block or so from the main highway. One instace of this is, just off of Windy Hill, you can find a few neighborhoods with a house similar to the one just to the left of this paragraph.

You need to understand that the mid-century modern homes that do exist in Atlanta are generally not of the famed "California Style".  These ranches are generally just an elongated 50's or 60's ranch with long banks of windows, open beam ceilings, and paneled and rock exteriors. While not extreme, they are very beautiful. Many of the mcm houses in Atlanta where also built with brick. It seemed to be the fad of the times.

Good rules of thumb to use are

Near this Fire Stone on South Cobb there are number of mcm ranches.

- Any of the old main thru fairs that where popular in the 50's and 60's are usually good places to look as well. One example of this is South Cobb Drive. On this road, from just about the Chatahoochee river , all the way up thru Northern Kennesaw, there are a number of old neighbor hoods with some cool houses laying hidden.

-Look at neighborhoods near old sections of town. Is there an old shopping center, or square? Was there one once? A good example of this is the Marietta Square. Just driving around there, you will find a number of interesting mid-century and mcm houses waiting to be found.

-Look for old land marks. One example of this is the OK Cafe off of West Paces Ferry. This sector of the city has been well know for years to be affluent. Because of this, there are quite a number of Mid-century houses that have been built. Many of these houses are the more famous houses, as they are not tract houses.

Photo by SellModern.com

-Look for longtime affluent areas. Buckhead is would be an example of such an area, as well as Roswell/Johnson's Ferry. These areas have a number of older homes that have been around for many years.

Really, there are a number of places more as well. I know in the Decatur, Stone Mountain, Duluth, and Candler Park I've seen a lot. In reality though, there's now way to tell you about all of them. If you would like to know more about the mid-century homes in the Metro Atlanta area. I suggest that you check out www.atlantamoderns.com, www.northcrestmodern.com, atlanta.curbed.com/tags/mid-century-modern, and docomomoga.org/wordpress. If you would like to see a few more images of some mid-century homes in the Metro Atlanta Area, check out this link here.

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