Three Resources Added to the National Register of Historic Places

Three resources were recently added to the National Register of Historic Places.  The National Register of Historic Places is our country’s official list of historic buildings, structures, sites, objects, and districts worthy of preservation. The National Register provides formal recognition of a property’s architectural, historical, or archaeological significance. It also identifies historic properties for planning purposes, and insures that these properties will be considered in the planning of state or federally assisted projects. National Register listing encourages preservation of historic properties through public awareness, federal and state tax incentives, and grants. Listing in the National Register does not place obligations or restrictions on the use, treatment, transfer, or disposition of private property.

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The Chi Omega House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on July 11, 2019. The property is located at 324 South Milledge Avenue in Athens (Athens-Clarke County). The property owner sponsored the nomination, and consultant John Kissane prepared the nomination materials.

Constructed in 1961 for the Mu Beta Chapter of Chi Omega, the brick, I-shaped Chi Omega House occupies a one-and-a-half acre lot that includes three zones corresponding to the three main uses: living/recreation, administration, and dormitory. The property sits in a residential neighborhood west of the University of Georgia’s North Campus within a row of architecturally significant houses that date from the 1850s to the 1930s and now function as fraternity and sorority houses.

The Chi Omega House is significant at the local level in the area of architecture because it is a good example of a late, more restrained interpretation of the Colonial Revival style, which was a popular style throughout Georgia and the United States from the end of the 19th century through the mid-20th century. The building’s symmetrical façade, medium-pitched side-gabled roof with narrow eaves, front entrance accentuated by a fanlight and sidelights, multi-pane double-hung windows, and a brick exterior are indicative of its style. With minimal ornamentation relative to earlier versions of the style, however, the Chi Omega House is representative of a stripped variation of the Colonial Revival style popular in the 1950s and 1960s when more modern styles were prominent and practiced by the building’s architects, Augusta firm Kuhlke and Wade.

The Chi Omega House is also significant in the area of landscape architecture for its designed landscape representing the work of prolific landscape architect – Hubert Bond Owens. Owens, who created the first professional landscape architecture program in the South at the University of Georgia in 1928, practiced landscape design locally and nationally and was influential in the landscape architecture profession, serving as president of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and receiving many honors. At the Chi Omega House, Owens used designed hardscapes; a wide variety of plant materials; and a spatial arrangement characteristic of mid-20th century design with a mainly open front yard, a scattering of trees near the street, and a variety of shrubs around the house, which is representative of his typical design approach that often employed elements of Colonial Revival-style landscape architecture.

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The Weiss-Steinberg-Bush House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on July 2, 2019. The property is located at 1300 Buena Vista Road in Augusta (Richmond County). The property owner sponsored the nomination, and nomination materials were prepared by Historic Augusta, Inc.

Initially constructed in 1932 with a 1947 rear addition, the two-story, south-facing French Vernacular Revival-style Weiss-Steinberg-Bush House is located at the intersection of Buena Vista Road and Lombardy Court, approximately five miles west of downtown Augusta, in an area known as Forrest Hills. The large corner parcel contains the house and several contributing secondary buildings and structures including a c.1939 one-story brick cottage, a c.1956 timber-framed pavilion, a c.1930s woodshed, and a noncontributing c.2014 playhouse.

The Weiss-Steinberg-Bush House is significant at the local level under Criterion C as a good, representative example of an architect-designed house in the French Vernacular Revival style, as defined in the statewide context Georgia’s Living Places: Historic Houses in Their Landscaped Settings. The style, which is found in Georgia’s suburban neighborhoods from the early 20th century, is demonstrated by the house’s very tall, steeply pitched roof, brick veneer exterior, cast-stone accents, exposed heavy timbers, and casement windows. French Vernacular Revival style houses were only occasionally built in the 1920s and 1930s, and it is not a common style found in Georgia.

The Weiss-Steinberg-Bush House is also significant at the local level under Criterion A in the area of social history for its association with the historic preservation movement in Augusta in the 1960s. William “Bill” and Marie “Frenchie” Bush, the house’s third owners, led the push, along with other concerned Augustans, to form Historic Augusta, Inc., an organization dedicated to the preservation of buildings and sites in Augusta and Richmond County. When Historic Augusta was incorporated in 1965, Bill Bush served as its first president through 1969. Many informal meetings and planning sessions were held in the house and the Bush family used personal funds to save local landmark buildings as the fledgling organization gained momentum and support.

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The Woodlawn Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on July 2, 2019.

The Woodlawn Historic District is a largely residential area located approximately two miles west of the Augusta city center in Richmond County. The district is roughly bounded by Walton Way, Emmett Street, Wrightsboro Road, and Heard Avenue. Historic Augusta, Inc. sponsored the nomination and prepared the nomination materials.

In 1882, the Georgia legislature passed an act annexing the land west of 15th Street and east of the incorporated village of Summerville into the city of Augusta, essentially filling the gap between the two municipalities. Shortly thereafter, in 1890, the city’s streetcar system was electrified. Both of these events led to a development boom in the western suburbs of the city, as multiple subdivisions developed on large tracts of land that, south of Walton Way, had long been collectively recognized as Woodlawn. Woodlawn developed as an assortment of subdivisions platted between 1887 and 1954. The district encompasses 19 separate plats, developed by a variety of owners, and as such, the internal gridded street patterns of the individual subdivisions rarely align, resulting in the absence of an overall street pattern. Sidewalks are present throughout much of the district, and most houses have generous setbacks and small backyards. Initially promoted as a streetcar suburb and later as automobile friendly, the Woodlawn Historic District is significant at the local level under Criteria A in the area of community planning and development as it represents the early and mid-20th-century streetcar-facilitated western migration of Augusta’s middle-class residents from downtown neighborhoods to more “fashionable” neighborhoods away from downtown.

The district is also significant under Criterion C in the area of architecture for its representative collection of residential types and styles popular in Georgia between the late 19th to mid-20th century. House types represented include late Queen Anne cottages and houses, English cottages, bungalows, American Foursquares, American Small Houses, and ranch houses as defined in Georgia’s Living Places: Historic Houses in Their Landscaped Settings, a statewide context. Similarly, a variety of popular architectural styles are represented within the district, with the most widespread of these being Folk Victorian, Colonial Revival, and Craftsman also as defined in Georgia’s Living Places: Historic Houses in Their Landscaped Settings.