A Brief History of Glenridge Hall

             In the winter of 1927 Thomas K Glenn met Elizabeth Ewing, courted her, and in September married her. He was 59; she was 48. TK had been a widower for thirteen years, raised two sons, and amassed a considerable fortune. Elizabeth persuaded him it was time to spend the money. In 1928 the couple commissioned Atlanta society architects to design houses for four different pieces of property Glenn owned: a Paces Ferry Road Italianate villa designed by Francis Smith (directly across from the already famous Swan House), a Sea Island Rococo-style beach house by Philip Schutze, a Sandy Springs Tudor country house by Samuel Inman Cooper, and a simple but elegant four-bedroom Neil Reid style mountain cottage on the Highlands Country Club golf course.

             Glenn decided to start with the Tudor country house on the four-hundred acre Sandy Springs farm he had purchased in 1915. Elizabeth fully intended to “outdo” her new sister-in-law Flora Glenn Candler’s famous Tudor-style home “Callanwolde.” All through 1928 Sam Cooper and the newlyweds created and refined three complete sets of blueprints, and even then made further additions and improvements while the house was being built. Construction of the mansion and its separate five-car garage and staff house for eleven took sixty workmen all of 1929 to complete. Meantime the Glenns made several voyages to Europe to collect enough art and furniture to fill twenty rooms. Glenridge Hall officially opened in October 1930 to celebrate Sam Cooper’s engagement.

             The Depression was clearly not going away, and so TK, banker and businessman, decided against building the other three houses.

             From 1915 to 1930 TK had already developed his Sandy Springs farm into a fully self-sustaining agricultural experiment with a five-horse stable, blacksmith and carpenter’s shops, massive cow barn, state-of-the-art dairy, smoke house, tractor and equipment barn, and three spacious duplexes for eighteen resident workers. Throughout the Depression the farm produced a wide range of seasonal crops, feed, seed, poultry, cattle, swine, dairy products, fruit, nuts, and even their own honey. TK also had built a skeet range with two trap houses, a rustic club house, eight miles of shaded bridle trails, a two-hog barbeque pit, and a covered picnic pavilion that seated 200. He frequently invited all the employees of Trust Company Bank, or Atlantic Steel, or Coca Cola, or Georgia Power to enjoy true Southern hospitality.

             The opening of Glenridge Hall, however, transformed “The Farm” into a grand country estate and TK Glenn, a Southern Gentleman Farmer, into a 20th- Century American Country Squire. Although it was a fifteen miles from town, an invitation to Glenridge was always worth the trip.

             And so from 1930 to 1946 TK and Elizabeth enjoyed Glenridge both as a quiet rural weekend retreat and as a permanent stage set for lavish social and corporate entertaining. Although his grown sons Wadley and Wilbur moved into the “Boys’ Wing” at Glenridge Hall year round, TK and Elizabeth continued to reside during the week in the top two floors of the Biltmore Apartment House.

             In June 1946 with both his daughters-in-law expecting, TK announced his intention to leave Glenridge Hall to his firstborn grandchild. Sadly, in July he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died in October before committing his intention to paper. His widow remained in Atlanta exactly one year and then decamped to the Waldorf Towers in Manhattan where she died in 1970.

             Wadley and Wilbur continued to live in Glenridge Hall, each with his own family now, until 1950 and 1951 when they built separate homes elsewhere on the estate. Glenridge Hall sat empty until 1952 when Westminster Schools rented the mansion and its staff house as a dormitory for 25 girls, 10 boys, and 8 adults. In 1964 Westminster built dorms on campus and moved out of the Hall. From 1964 to 1966 the house again stood empty and subject to vandalism by those brazen enough to sneak through the woods or up the mile-long driveway. To prevent further damage, Wadley and Wilbur moved the Glenridge farm manager and his family of five into the Hall, but by the mid-seventies the farm had completely ceased to function. On Derby Day (the first Saturday in May) 1980, TK’s firstborn grandchild Frances moved back into Glenridge Hall to begin her lifelong ambition to restore and preserve the seriously endangered house.

             During the 1970’s the Glenridge Hall property had been broken into four pieces by the construction of GA400 freeway and Abernathy Road. The brothers first sold the farmland east of GA400 to John Portman for a major office development called Northpark. Then in 1979 Frances discovered that her father and uncle had also been persuaded to sell the northwest quadrant, containing Glenridge Hall, to developer Frank Carter for yet another office park. She was furious and spent a year convincing her father to pull the Hall and 47 acres around it out of the deal. Everyone, except her fiancé Joey Mayson, suspected Frances surely had lost her mind.

             By 1987 Frances and her husband had firmly established Glenridge Hall as an architectural masterpiece, a unique regional treasure, and a social, cultural, and civic landmark for Sandy Springs. Sadly, on September 12, 1987, the day after giving birth to their daughter, Frances Glenn Mayson died of massive infection. Not long after, Joseph Mayson took early retirement from his college professorship to become a full time single parent and to continue his wife’s dream of restoring, preserving, and sharing Glenridge Hall.

             In 1996 Dr. Wadley Glenn’s widow (also named Frances) decided to put Glenridge Hall into a trust, and so honored both her father-in-law and her daughter’s intentions that Glenridge Hall remain a living legacy to the family of TK Glenn and to serve and enhance the community of Sandy Springs.