1. Architecture and early history

2. Restoration and current use

3. Historic status

4. References

5. External links

Architecture and early history

Built atop a hill,^[5] Camak House was the first dwelling constructed on Prince Avenue; Meigs Street was added later, cutting off a portion of the original property.^[2] The architecture is Federal style,^[3] "relatively unusual in Athens",^[5] with locally produced ironwork in the front.^[3] The fanlight of the central doorway and the white-washed brick construction are typical elements of the style.^[2] The house has two stories, with a "four-over-four room, central hall plan"^[2] – a style "based on the standard Greek Revival floor plan"^[12] with a "raised basement, a low-hipped roof, and two-story pilasters".^[2] The basement originally housed slave quarters and the kitchen; the hazard of fire made it unusual for houses of the period to include a kitchen, but because of Camak House's brick construction the risk was thought to be low.^[5]

The floors were constructed using "knot-free heart-pine", and solid mahogany was used for the railing of the stairwell.^[5] Details include silver-plated doorknobs, "hand-forged locks and latches", and "a simple but visually striking Greek key pattern" for moldings and trim.^[5] Camak House was built with closets – a very unusual feature for the time.^[5]

Camak House was the location for a meeting to organize what became "the first successful railroad company in Georgia and only the third such company in the United States".^[5] James Camak was named president of the company, and later served as the first president of Georgia Railroad Bank.^[5]

Five generations^[3] of Camaks lived in the house until 1947.^[21] In her book Historic Houses of Athens, Charlotte Thomas Marshall notes that "It was not until 1904, eleven years after Dr. Camak's [son of the James Camak who built the house] death, that the first deed relating to the Camak house lot was recorded. At that time his sons, Louis and James Wellborn Camak, executed a quitclaim deed to their mother, Mary Wellborn Camak, acknowledging that the lot has been given to her by their father without a deed being made."^[6]{{#tag:ref|A quitclaim is a legal instrument by which the owner of a property terminates (quits) his right and claim to the property, thereby allowing his claim to transfer to another.|group=nb}} In 1949, the house was purchased to serve as the Mount Vernon Lodge No. 22, F. & A. M (Masonic lodge); then in 1979 by the Athens Coca-Cola Bottling Company.^[2]

Restoration and current use

Albert Sams was president of the Athens Coca-Cola Bottling Company when it acquired Camak House.^[5] He "was an active member of the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation and a generous philanthropist, particularly with regard to historic houses", and he planned to renovate Camak House for administrative offices; corporate mergers (ultimately with Coca-Cola Enterprises) in the 1980s ended those plans.^[5] However, it was the Sams family that sought Camak House's listing on the National Register of Historic Places.^[7]

The house and grounds had fallen into decay by 1993, when the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation and the law firm of Winburn, Lewis and Barrow formed a partnership to purchase Camak House from Coca-Cola Enterprises.^[5] The trust added protective covenants before selling the property on to the law firm, one of whose partners was John Barrow, who served as the "prime mover in these negotiations".^[5] A local company, S&W Development Corp, whose owner, Smith Wilson had been working in historic preservation for 18 years, was contracted to carry out the restoration work.^[5] The original floor plans, which had been altered during the Masons' tenure, were reinstated;^[5] Wilson was able to use drawings made of Camak House during the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration's documentation of historic buildings.^[5]

The house's restoration for use as law offices has been described by Elizabeth Dalton of the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation as "an excellent example of adaptive use".^[5] As of 2011, Camak House is owned by the law firm of Lewis, Frierson and Grayson, LLP.^[8]

Historic status

Camak House was listed as a "point of interest" in the WPA Guide to Georgia (which characterized the architecture as Georgian Colonial).^[9] The Athens Historical Society dedicated a historical marker on the grounds in 1963.^[5] The Historic American Buildings Survey documented Camak House (GA-14-67);^[10] on July 7, 1975, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places; on March 6, 1990, it was locally designated a Historic Landmark; and recognized by the Georgia Historical Marker Program (029–10).^[2]

References

External links

• Camak House State Historical Marker, Digital Library of Georgia

• William Francis Rhea
• William Francis Sheahan
• William Francis Spencer Ponsonby, 1st Baron de Mauley
• William Francis Stevenson
• William Francis Sutton
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• William Francis Walsh
• William Francis Whitman Jr.
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• William Frank Brunner
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• William Franklin (Dixie) Gilmer
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• William Franklin Graham