The Atlanta Burns Cottage
The Burns Club of Atlanta retains the honor of having as their clubhouse the only reproduction in the world of Robert Burns' birth home.
After the turn of the 20th century the club began an effort to obtain land and erect a cottage to be used as a clubhouse. In 1907 the club purchased 15 acres (61,000 m2) in what is now the Ormewood Park neighborhood of Atlanta, at the end of the trolley line on “Dogwood Hill” across from the Confederate Veterans Home on Confederate Avenue (now the site of the Georgia Highway Patrol headquarters).
Atlanta architect and member, Thomas H. Morgan, obtained the exact measurements of the original Burns cottage in Alloway, Scotland, and prepared plans for the Atlanta replica. Construction of the building was supervised by Robert McWhirter, a member of the club and a skilled stonemason, and was finished in 1911 using quarried granite from nearby Stone Mountain instead of traditional mortar and rubble construction found in Burns’ birth home.
The originally thatched, but now-shingled, roof has shallow eaves and gables that connect directly to the chimneys. The three fireplaces in the cottage are constructed of random stones with mortar joints raised and rounded. The fireplace in the center of the cottage features an inset stone plaque in memory of Burns. Of the three doors on the front of the cottage, only one is used. The cottage’s uncommonly small windows reflect one particular Scottish practice of taxation in which homeowners were taxed according to the dimensions of their home’s window openings. The low, one-story building is generally rectangular, but is slightly curved, as was the original, which accommodated the curve of the road it was built along. The interior of the house is also a close replica of the Scottish cottage, and was divided into the traditional three areas: butt, ben and byre.
The cottage is managed by a caretaker who lives on the grounds.
Read more about this topic: Burns Club Atlanta
Famous quotes containing the words burns and/or cottage:
“What’s done we partly may compute,
But know not what’s resisted.”
—Robert Burns (1759–1796)
“The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail—its roof may shake—the wind may blow through it—the storm may enter—the rain may enter—but the King of England cannot enter!—all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!”
—William Pitt, The Elder, Lord Chatham (1708–1778)