noted local architects

Lewis Edmund “Buck” Crook, Jr.  was born in Meridian, Mississippi in 1898. In 1915 he enrolled in Georgia Tech’s Department of Architecture and in 1919 graduated with high honors. He joined the firm of Hentz, Reid & Adler where he became a Neel Reid protégé. In 1923 he and another Georgia Tech alum/Hentz, Reid & Adler architect, Ernest “Ed” Daniel Ivey, formed Ivey & Crook, Architects. Crook was the designer and Ivey the supervisor of construction. Ivey is credited with founding Georgia Tech’s Department of Architecture.

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The firm designed and built nearly 600 residences, churches, and schools between 1923 and 1967, including over one hundred in Atlanta, the Emory University President’s home, SAE fraternity houses at Emory and the University of Alabama, the LaGrange College Library, and a number of homes in Griffin, including:

• 451 East College Street (1926)

• 530 East College Street (1927);

• 435 East College Street (1928); alterations and additions to the back side of the house.

• Maple Drive (1929)

• 1056 Maple Drive; additions to the cottage (1928)

• 435 East College Street (1929)

• C.R. Hopper Home, (1932)

• 717 East College Street (1935)

• 821 Maple Drive (1935)

• 716 East College Street (1936)

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Joseph Neel Reid, or Neel Reid, was a prominent architect in Atlanta in the early 20th century. Born in Jacksonville, Alabama in 1995, his family moved to Macon in 1890. His firm, Hentz & Reid was formed in 1909. In 1912 he designed a Griffin home at 435 East College Street.

The firm became Hentz, Reid & Adler in 1915 and was in business under that name until Reid died of a brain tumor in 1926.

• The firm designed the Hawkes Free Children’s Library (a Carnegie Library) at 210 S. Sixth Street in 1916. The building is now used by the Griffin Spalding School System and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

• Also listed on the National Register is St. George Episcopal Church at 132 North 10th Street. Hentz, Reid & Alder designed the Parish Hall in 1921.

• In 1923 the firm remodeled 435 East College Street.

 

Frank McCall, born in Gainesville, Florida in 1916, moved to Moultrie, Georgia as a young boy. An Auburn University graduate, he practiced in Moultrie until World War II. Following the War he moved to Macon and worked with Elliott Dunwody, Jr. until 1957. A prolific classicist architect, he did much work throughout Georgia, especially on Sea Island. His designs in Griffin include:

• 1076 Maple Drive

• A Tudor home at Brook Circle and Woodside Drive (reportedly this was his Auburn senior project)

 

James Means was born in Macon in 1904; his family moved to Atlanta in 1906. Means became a part time “office boy” at age 13 for Hentz, Reid & Adler. He enrolled in architectural classes at Georgia Tech but did not graduate. Means then apprenticed to Neel Reid. Following Reid’s death in 1926, Philip Shutze became the lead designer and Means remained with the firm until it closed in 1950. He worked with Edward Vason Jones in Albany for 4 years before returning to Atlanta where he designed more than 50 homes and buildings before his death in 1979.

Widely known for his restoration and reconstruction work and his incorporation of reclaimed materials, Means is celebrated as a classicist; many of his designs show the influence of such homes as the plantations on the James River in Virginia. Griffin homes which he designed are located at:

• 2251 Jackson Road

• 671 East College Street

 

Leila Ross Wilburn was the first registered female architect in Georgia. Born in Macon in 1885, her family moved to Decatur where she attended Agnes Scott from 1902 – 1904. She had private instruction in architectural drawing and in 1909 she opened her own firm. The firm specialized in pattern or plan book designs and many examples are found today around Atlanta. Wilburn died in 1927. Her papers are archived at Agnes Scott College in Decatur. Her Griffin work is at

• 672 Maple Drive (1923)

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