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The Elegant Side of Ponce Was Raised a Mile and a Half Away, and When I Was 10 and 11, Druid Hills Was the Place

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The Elegant Side of Ponce Was Raised a Mile and a Half Away, and When I Was 10 and 11, Druid Hills Was the Place The Elegant Side Of Ponce was raised a mile and a half away, and when I was 10 and 11, Druid Hills was the place. In my opinion, it still is.' This is the second of two parts on Ponce de Leon, one of Atlanta's oldest thoroughfares. By Gayle White Conilitulion Slat Writer T MUST have been a "Life With Father" kind of world in the early 1900s when Druid Hills was young. I If you drive, jog or bicycle down Ponce de Leon from Briarcliff Road to Decatur, ills easy to imagine when proper businessmen — moderately wealthy to very rich — raised proper children in proper houses, shook their heads over their daughters' choice of escorts, and then took their sons-in-law into the family business. Going east from Atlanta, from the point where Ponce de Leon divides Briarcliff Road on the north from More- land Avenue* on the south, the old street enters a new dimension and a different county. The service stations, bars and early apartments west of the intersection in Ful- ton County give way in DeKalb to churches — everything from Krishna to Primitive Baptist, from Christian Scien- tist to Mormon — and grand old houses in various states of disrepair. In some houses, estimated to sell for between $140,000-1250,000, as well as in newer condominiums and apartments, proper families still live a genteel kind of existence close to the city. The Ashcraft House. Mrs. W.D. Warren, the for- mer Rebecca Ashcraft, lived with her family in the NeeNe l Reid-designed house at 1341 Ponce de Leon during the eer a "when parties were very elaborate and you entertained at home." St*tf Photo—Louie Ftvoritt See PONCE DE LEON, Page 5-B At top, the Hebebrands with their daughter AnnAnt the dining room of the Ashcraft House at 1341 Ponce de Leon Ave. At far left, Mack and Leslie Carlton stand outside the condominium they bought six-and-a-half years ago at Lion't Gate. At left, Marion and Paul Kuntz stand outside the John Hurt House at 1655 Ponce de Leon Ave. For The Old Boulevard: What Next? HE STORY goes that Frederick Law Olmstead, the Then, on the night of Sept 29, 1943, police received a call landscape architect who designed Central Park in New to the Heinz home. There they found a hysterical Mrs, Heinz TYork, was the first to suggest painting a cross on the in the library where the body of her husband lay on the sofa. ambulances carrying wounded soldiers during the Civil War. Two years later, Horace Blalock, a railroad employee, Thus began the Red Cross. was taken into custody and questioned in connection with Today, one of Olmstead's most famous contributions to another burglary. His fingerprints matched those taken from Atlanta, the boulevard portion of Ponce de Leon Avenue, could " the Heinz house. Blalock confessed to having shot Heinz during use a littH first aid. a struggle, and served 10 years of a life sentence in prison. Two of the street's most famous and once fabulous Lucy Heinz moved from the house, and some years later houses are silently deteriorating behind curtains of greenery ^ married Enrico Leide, conductor of the first Atlanta Sym- which are growing out of control. phony Orchestra. Standing empty, its stucco finish broken only by the The house passed into the hands of "a lady who lived in empty stares of pane-less windows, 1610 Ponce de Leon looks the downstairs section of the main house with a pack of dogs, as if it is a house with a story behind it. and converted the second story and garage and outbuildings The huge Mediterranean-style house was built for Lucy into apartments," Jenkins recalled. "People who rented these Candler Heinz, only daughter'of Coca-Cola magnate Asa G. apartments say the place is spooked and that strange things Candler, and her second husband, banker Henry Heinz. In its go on there ... It was said that on particularly dark nights a day, the home was a showplace. person could be heard walking around the grounds, but no one About 1941, the Heinz family began to have trouble with could be seen. It was also said that pistol shots could be heard burglars, former Atlanta police chief Herbert Jenkins recalled late at night, like someone target practicing, but no one could Sfett Pnoio—Jo« B«nton in a 1971 Journal-Constitution Sunday magazine article. See HISTORY, Page 4-B .
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