My Favorite House: An ageless stone abode in Decatur

Who wouldn’t come knocking with offers for the house?
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My Favorite House

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Wallace Bryan and Lisa Turner, the designers who own the stylish Decatur store Trinity Mercantile, have a longstanding love affair with this 1929 house on Kirk Road. Bryan has admired it since she was a student at Agnes Scott College in the 1970s; and Turner, who is friends with a neighbor, once tried to buy it herself. Turner says that the previous owner, who lived in the house for more than 50 years, claims strangers often came knocking with offers. After sitting vacant for two years, the house finally did sell in 2008 to Lucia and James Case, who undertook a daunting three-year renovation directed by architect Peter Block. For starters, the house didn’t have central air, so the Cases had to dig trenches in 16-inch-thick concrete and stone exterior walls. Although no official records exist, the Cases believe the house was created by noted 20th-century architect Ernest Flagg, who designed the Singer Building in New York. The homeowners used Flagg’s 1921 book Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction as a guide. “We call it the Flagg Manifesto,” says Lucia. “We were constantly asking, WWFD? What would Flagg do?”

This article originally appeared in our Fall 2017 issue of Atlanta Magazine’s HOME.

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