Macon Magazine

6: Italianate Mead-Cubbedge-Willingham House, 261 College St., circa 1853-54 THE ITALIANATE STYLE derived from the Picturesque movement that emphasized harmony between architecture and the landscape. In 1842, American horticulturalist A.J. Downing authored "Cottage Residences," a popular volume illustrating ideal houses in Gothic and Italianate styles blending with the natural habitat. is dwelling, with its substantial setback from the street, exhibits major features of the Italianate style: a pedimented gable centering on an asymmetrical façade of a projecting front section and a recessed section opposite, a second floor balcony over the arched front doorway, paired brackets supporting deep eaves, a low-pitched roof, paired two-over-two sash windows, a bay window on the rear of the south façade and two arcaded porches (loggias). Eventually, the south end of the parcel was subdivided to create two additional lots, thereby reducing the "rural" quality. Henry Mead, brought by First Presbyterian Church to Macon to start a school and who played a major role in the start of the Georgia School for the Blind, acquired this site in the 1840s. Mead sold the property in 1854 to educator Sylvanus Bates for a price indicating that he had built the house. Bates, and possibly Mead, operated an Antebellum academy, the College Street School. After ownership by City Councilman John Jones, prominent banker-broker Richard W. Cubbedge purchased the building in the 1870s and lived here until his death in 1891. Osgood P Willingham, founder of Willingham Sash and Door Company, was the next owner. Willingham, whose family enjoyed the house for many years, made alterations including the removal of the loggias, the original door and the surmounting balcony. After years of vacancy and neglect – and rumors that the dilapidated house was haunted – a local couple bought it and engaged architect J.L. Sibley Jennings to restore it. Jennings studied the structure and developed drawings for restoration with continued multi-family occupation. e house was sold, however, and the new owners, Gary Matthews and Dr. Barbara Matthews, engaged Macon historian Julie Groce to assist them with a complete restoration as a single-family residence in 2003. 7: Eastlake Style McHatton-Wood-McGhee House, 275 College St., circa 1880-85 CHARLES EASTLAKE, a mid-19th century English architect and designer, inspired an artistic, yet restrained style of domestic building in England that eventually spread across the world. In America, the best-known examples in this mode are on the West Coast and generally of wood construction. e brickwork of this house, the applied banding, the stone segmental arches of the window lintels and the Tudor-like gable featuring a strapwork band leading to a finial and a central sunburst feature, all hearken to the roots of this style in Arts and Crafts Period Britain. While the wrapping front porch with its thinly turned columns, jigsaw cut balustrade and pediment with a carved central ornament could also be features of a Queen Anne style house, the relative restraint, the flat surface of the body of the house and the predominating gable point to the concurrent Eastlake inspiration. e son of a Louisiana secessionist who later become a sugar planter in Cuba, Dr. Henry Chinn McHatton was an important physician in late 19th century Macon. He married Eliza Hubbard of Connecticut while training at Bellevue Hospital in Brooklyn in 1880, and soon after the subsequent birth of their child, the couple moved to Georgia. McHatton had a distinguished career nationally and internationally and was the second chairman of Macon Hospital (now Navicent Health). At the time of his death, the Washington Post called him "one of the leading physicians and surgeons in the South." Eliza McHatton was active in various medical and civic organizations while her husband actively pursued his avocation as an ornithologist. eir son omas H. McHatton, founding chairman of the Department of Horticulture and director of the Garden School at the University of Georgia, grew up in this house. Prior to his death, McHatton gave use of the house to the Red Cross for training of volunteers for service in World War I. e house was divided into apartments before its 1980s restoration by architect J.L. Sibley Jennings for Dr. Perry Cohn. JUNE/JULY 2020 | maconmagazine.com 79

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