- Collection:
- Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation Presentation Slide Collection, 1968-2000
- Title:
- Gordon Banks House
- Creator:
- Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation
- Contributor to Resource:
- Pratt, Daniel, 1799-1873
Adam, Robert, 1728-1792
Gordon, John Brown, 1832-1904
Banks, William N.
Raley, Robert L. - Date of Original:
- 1971-12
- Subject:
- Architecture
Historic sites--Georgia--Coweta County
Historic buildings--Georgia--Coweta County
Architecture, Domestic--Georgia--Coweta County
Cultural property--Protection
Historic preservation--Georgia
Historic buildings--Conservation and restoration - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Coweta County, Newnan, 33.38067, -84.79966
- Medium:
- color slides
historic preservation
historic buildings - Type:
- Still Image
- Format:
- image/jp2
- Description:
- Work on the Gordon-Banks House began in 1827 for John W. Gordon, a general in the militia and a wealthy cotton planter. The architect-builder was Daniel Pratt, who sailed from Boston to Savannah to seek his fortune in the South. After a year in Savannah, Pratt went to Milledgeville, then the capital of the state; and from 1821-1831 he built seven or eight extraordinary classical townhouses and plantation seats in Baldwin and Jones counties. This two-story house of white clapboards was built in Haddock, Georgia circa 1821. The style is Classical Revival - Roman rather than Greek. The interior details are unusually refined for the Georgia Piedmont. All eight of the mantels are intact, each of a different design of [Robert] Adam inspiration. The house was moved from Haddock to Newnan in 1969-70, and amendments (compatible with Daniel Pratt's original design) were added to replace the original outbuildings which had long since been destroyed. In the 1820's Milledgeville was enjoying a boom economy when fortunes were sometimes made in a season; and if its closely knit society was less urbane than its counterpart in Savannah and Charleston, it was lively and competitive and it had a penchant for elegance and high living. The houses that Pratt built there not only have intrinsic architectural value, they also document a colorful social era. In 1848 John Gordon sold his house to Dr. Horatio Bowen, who installed his son Thomas and his family there. The Bowens occupied the house during the Civil War and the Reconstruction years, and in 1880 Thomas Bowen sold it to his brother-in-law, James Blount, of Macon. The Blount family never lived in the house, using it only for summer holidays; and it was unoccupied for many years until it was removed to its present location in Newnan where William N. Banks, the present owner's son, restored the house to its original luster together with Robert B. Raley, AIA, of Wilmington, Delaware, a longtime associate of the Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum. Variant names include: Gordon Banks House, Gordon-Banks House. See ref# 72000383 (Gordon-Banks House) https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/upload/national-register-listed-20240710.xlsx
- External Identifiers:
- Metadata URL:
- https://dlg.usg.edu/record/gthp_gthp-slides_347
- Digital Object URL:
- https://dlg.usg.edu/record/gthp_gthp-slides_347#item
- IIIF manifest:
- https://dlg.usg.edu/record/gthp_gthp-slides_347/presentation/manifest.json
- Language:
- eng
- Additional Rights Information:
- Please contact holding institution for information regarding use and copyright status.
- Holding Institution:
- Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation
- Rights:
-
