Joel Chandler Harris House, also known as The Wren's Nest or Snap Bean Farm, is a Queen Anne style house in Atlanta, Georgia built in 1870. It was home to Joel Chandler Harris, editor of the Atlanta Constitution and author of the Uncle Remus Tales, from 1881 until his death in 1908. He is most known as author of the "Uncle Remus" tales, based upon stories he heard slaves tell during his youth.
The home still contains furnishings owned by Harris and utilizes the original paint colors. The house became known as Wren's Nest in 1900 after the Harris children found a wren had built a nest in the mail box; the family built a new mailbox in order to leave the nest undisturbed. The structure was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962.
The organization that maintains the Wren's Nest offers tours and regular storytelling. The organization also has two writing programs for Atlanta area youth: KIPP Scribes, in partnership with APS charter school KIPP STRIVE Academy, and Wren's Nest Publishing Company, an entirely high school student run literary journal.
It is located at 1050 Ralph D. Abernathy Blvd., SW, formerly named 1050 Gordon Street., SW.
Famous quotes containing the words joel, chandler, harris and/or house:
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
—Bible: Hebrew Isaiah, 2:4.
The words reappear in Micah 4:3, and the reverse injunction is made in Joel 3:10 (”Beat your plowshares into swords ...”)
“What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“You overfed the boy, Ma’am. You raised an artificial spirit in the lad, unbecoming to his station on life. This would never have happened if you kept him on gruel.”
—Vernon Harris (c. 1910)
“The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity with nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)