Historic home hidden in forest is a Buckhead gem

Perched on a hill sits a magnificently maintained original Buckhead estate home.

Driving up the driveway, one isn’t sure whether there is a house at the end or if the winding road goes on forever.

Finally through a clearing looms a beautiful brick English Tudor.

It is not necessarily unique. There are Tudors of similar age throughout Atlanta.

What makes this one different is the setting and its condition.

On a website created by the owners are side-by-side photos of the house today and the house way back when.

From the exterior to the grand central staircase to the rooms, they are nearly identical.

Owners English and Matthew Norman have gone to great lengths to ensure its preservation, even restoring some of the original features that had fallen into disrepair.

An Adair Realty brochure listing the house in 1953 says the house is in North Tuxedo Park.

I would put it closer to Chastain Park. It is on Hillside Drive between Northside Drive and Powers Ferry Road. The booklet also states the house has a “slopping” 600-foot frontage, which explains the endless driveway.

The Merediths had the house built in 1935.

Kenneth Meredith’s listed occupation was manufacturer’s agent. He eventually became the president of Oxford Manufacturing Company. Today, it is the New York Stock Exchange-listed Oxford Industries, the manufacturer of brands including Lilly Pulitzer, Duck Head and Southern Tide, to name a few.

The couple engaged architect James Wise, a Georgia Tech grad, to design their north Buckhead home. It is not one of the names one comes across when researching Atlanta history and homes, but it should be.

He was an architect of some renown. Even if people don’t know him, they know his work.

Early in his career, he worked as a draftsman for architect Lloyd Preacher, who designed Atlanta City Hall, which the city completed in 1930.

In 1931, Wise started his own firm.

He designed homes throughout Atlanta, including on Peachtree Battle Avenue, Brookhaven Drive and Ridgewood Road. He designed many homes in Loring Heights, where he lived.

He also renovated the carriage house behind the Swan House in 1966 for the Forward Arts Foundation. It is better known today as the Swan Coach House.

The Meredith house’s distinct characteristics include soaring chimneys. One is connected to a prominent fireplace in the front living room with a hand-carved mantle. The room has a high-pitched roof buttressed by thick, exposed timbers. On the front of the house are overlapping gables.

William Monroe designed the landscaping of the now-3.5-acre property. He created much of Chastain Park and is considered Atlanta’s first landscape architect. His nursery was on Boulevard, which became Monroe Drive in Midtown.

The Normans purchased their house in 2010 after a developer’s plan to raze the house and build several homes on the property in 2008 fell through.

Matthew Norman says he and his wife didn’t save the house. The economy did.

In 2018, they had it added to the National Register of Historic Places. Visit themeredithhouse.com to learn more. It is, in my experience, the best-researched house in Buckhead.

For their efforts, Buckhead Heritage Society honored them with the Belle Turner Lunch Preservation Award at its annual holiday celebration last month at the Meredith House.

Belle Turner Lynch was one of the founders of Buckhead Heritage Society. The organization spun out of her efforts to preserve the historic character of her neighborhood.

She passed away in 2021 and the society honors her legacy with the annual award.

Most Buckhead homes are ostentatious. Passerby are meant to see and admire them.

The Meredith house is the opposite. It is out of sight and out of mind. It exists purely for those who call it home.