BROOKHAVEN REAL ESTATE
Brookhaven. Originally conceived as a golf club community in 1910, Brookhaven is a natural mix of early 20th century historic homes and cute 40's bungalows alongside new townhome and cluster home communities. As the northern neighbor of Buckhead, it offers the convenience of Atlanta but with a less urban character. The residential areas are within easy walking distance to shopping, dining and Marta mass transit.
It should not surprise anyone with even the smallest knowledge of Atlanta history that the Brookhaven area along Peachtree Road has developed rapidly in recent decades.
Located just north of Buckhead along the Fulton County and DeKalb County line, the sprawling neighborhood is home of a large train station in MARTA's rapid transit system, a grand country club development west of Peachtree dating from 1910, Oglethorpe University, numerous apartment communities and proliferating strip malls.
This and all the area between Brookhaven and the Central Business District have formed one of the most popular routes for prestige development since the days preceding the Cotton States Exposition of 1885.
From the beginning, the history of Brookhaven has been part of the history of DeKalb County. Before 1821 the land now in DeKalb County was a wilderness. The Creek Indians used it as a hunting ground and as "no-man's" land between their tribes and the war-like Cherokees north of the Chattahoochee River. In 1821, a treaty was made by the U.S. government with the Creek nation and the land in DeKalb County was dispersed by lottery to settlers. Some of the people who settled did so at a crossing of rough trails, which became known as Cross Keys. The site of old Cross Keys was located at a road junction near the Peachtree Golf Club and Nancy Creek Crossing.
What is now the business district of Brookhaven was once a small settlement known as "Goodwin's," presumably named after Solomon Goodwin, who built his home in 1831 at what is now 3967 Peachtree St. The house is still standing but is now located at 3931 Peachtree St., behind the family cemetery and by the present Steak Out restaurant. It is the oldest extant house in DeKalb County and was used to house Federal troops during the Civil War.
During the first two decades of this century, wealthy Atlantans began to build summer homes and estates around Buckhead and in the area known as Brookhaven. In 1910 the Mechanical and Manufacturers Club purchased 150 acres for the Brookhaven Country Club to include a lake, clubhouse, golf course and exclusive homes. Since many of the members of this Club also belonged to the prestigious Capital City Club, it was a logical step for that organization to purchase the Brookhaven Country Club for its own use in 1913.
Soon, the planned construction of grand homes started on the carefully laid out, curvilinear streets of the neighborhood. Some of Atlanta's wealthiest citizens moved to the development, their homes designed by the city's leading architects, including Neel Reid, A.F.N. Everett, and Pringle and Smith. The present clubhouse was built in 1927 in the Norman Revival style by Prestons Stevens. The golf course architect at Brookhaven, as well as for the Druid Hills golf course, was Herbert Barker of Garden City, Long Island.
In the 1980s, the Capital City Country Club development became a National Register Historic District as the first "planned early 20th-century suburb conceived as a golf-course/country club community." Significant development in Brookhaven continued in 1915 when Oglethorpe University reopened on land just north of the present MARTA station after being closed since the Civil War.
Most of the facility's oldest buildings were designed by Morgan and Dillon, one of Atlanta's oldest and best known architectural businesses. In the early 1900s, a commercial district began to grow along Peachtree Road to serve the increasing residents around the club and others moving to the surrounding neighborhood. In 1936 a community movie theatre opened with the film "Heidi" and by 1950 stores included a shoe store, drug store, hardware, filling station and an A&P grocery store.
In the 1970s Peachtree Rd. was widened to six lanes and the gentle curve of that thoroughfare in the Brookhaven community was straightened. Older businesses were eliminated by the expansion. Afterwards, the heavy rail lines and accompanying train station for MARTA came to occupy almost all of the land on the east side of Peachtree Rd.
As in virtually all other growth around Atlanta in this century, it was development of new means of transportation such as streetcars and automobiles that brought about the most change. These innovations in transport made it possible for areas like Brookhaven to emerge in the first place. The street scenes in parts of Atlanta, like Brookhaven, show the results of these ever present pressures of growth.