The 2017 issue of “The Sandy Springs Gazette,” a publication of history that was produced by Heritage Sandy Springs, has an article titled “Glenridge Hall: A Sandy Springs Treasure.” Two great losses-Glenridge Hall and Heritage Sandy Springs. Heritage Sandy Springs was closed down during the Covid pandemic and the materials once held by them are now in the city offices.
Glenridge Hall was demolished to make way for Mercedes Benz in April of 2015.
An artist’s rendering of Glenridge Hall
I first researched Glenridge Hall when I wrote about a 2011 Dunwoody Nature Center “Monarchs and Margueritas” fundraiser event. The article was for the Dunwoody Crier newspaper.
The historic home was designed by Samuel Inman Cooper for Thomas K. Glenn. He began his career as a clerk in Atlanta in 1887, later becoming executive secretary to Joel Hurt during the development of the Atlanta Electric Streetcar Company. That company eventually evolved into Georgia Power.
He was also involved in the development of Atlantic Steel, the Rabun Gap Nacoochee School, the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority (Grady Hospital) and many other business and philanthropic organizations. He was president and chairman of the Trust Company of Georgia, which is now Sun Trust Bank.
Thomas K. Glenn and his wife Agnes had two sons, Wilbur and Wadley Glenn. However, Agnes died at a young age, and after living as a widower for thirteen years Thomas K. Glenn married Elizabeth Ewing in 1927. The couple commissioned various Atlanta society architects to prepare plans for four properties they owned. One of these was a Sandy Springs parcel consisting of four hundred acres that overlooked the Chattahoochee Valley with views of Kennesaw, Sweat, and Blackjack Mountains. With 1930 and the onset of the Great Depression, Glenn decided against beginning homes on the other properties.
Thomas K. Glenn planned for the Glenridge property to be a self-sustaining agricultural experiment, beginning from the moment he purchased the property. He had a stable, blacksmith shop, carpenter shop, cow barn and dairy, smoke house, tractor and equipment barn, and three duplexes for resident workers built on the property. The farm produced a wide variety of crops, feed, seed, poultry, cattle, swine, dairy products, fruit, nuts and honey. There was also a skeet range, club house, horse trails, barbeque pit and picnic pavilion for two hundred guests. He often invited employees of Trust Company Bank, Atlantic Steel, Coca Cola or Georgia Power to enjoy these activities. .
Heritage Sandy Springs interviewed Frances Glenn in 1995 and the Sandy Springs Gazette article titled, “Glenridge Hall: A Sandy Springs Treasure,” contains many quotes from Frances. She married Thomas and Agnes’ son Wadley Glenn. Frances talks of spending time with the Glenns while Wadley was away during WWII. “I met Mr. (Thomas) Glenn in 1935. I was dating his son Dr. Wadley Glenn. At the time, I was at Grady Memorial Hospital as an anesthetist. And I would come out to the country-it was the country then-and ride and have lunch out there.”
Frances says they started building the house in 1929, but completed it in 1933. “And they had musicals and he had a big barbeque place and the Skeet Club. And they would have parties like that. Every week they would have a Skeet Club shoot.”
The home was later used in movies and television, including the movie Driving Miss Daisy and the television series Vampire Diaries.
Glenridge Hall was placed on the list of Georgia’s Places in Peril in 2014, according to the October 30, 2014 issue of the Macon Telegraph. After some deaths in the Glenn family and realizing how expensive it would be to renovate the home, it was sold and demolished in April of 2015. The property is now home to the national headquarters for Mercedes Benz USA. For 83 years it was the site of lovely Glenridge Hall.
In addition to the Sandy Springs Gazette, the information and drawing for this post came from the conservators of Glenridge Hall as of 2011 and from “Sandy Springs More Past Tense” by Lois Coogle.