March 23, 2024

Cobb Fire Dept. put out a fire today in the shed/garage behind the McAfee House. It appears to have started near the roof which suggests that homeless may have set the blaze.  The garage is connected to the house by a breezeway and no damage to the historic house was done. However this should serve as a wake up call to the Medford family, the county, residents and historic preservationists.  Cobb Landmarks has two families interested in relocating the house and barn to a historic area. CRN is willing to rezone the property pro bono with a split zoning to preserve the house on the corner of the lot on a small plot.  

The Medford family should consider donating the house to Cobb Landmarks or consider the split zoning proposal which would make the property much easier to market with a viable retail zoning. It would be a shame to see the house demolished or burned when there are people ready and willing to help save it onsite or off.  Its a real shame the county does not see the value in preserving the pretty two acre tract with the house and barn on its original site. The county seems ready and willing to throw money at just about anything but not at this rare opportunity to preserve a historic house on the site where it was built in @ 1840.

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Since last June, after the applicant for Tommy's Express, Z-8 withdrew without prejudice, there has not been a contract on the Historic McAfee House and its two acre site.  In July, Erin Mulgrew, Karen Huck and I formed Friends of McAfee House Inc. with the hope of preserving the house on its  historic site. After a group discussion on August 17, we felt that the best way to approach it was the method by which we had nearly succeeded in saving it in June 2023; by rezoning the site to NRC and LRO, with the house site occupying a 12,000 sq ft plot, and the rest would be appropriately rezoned commercial.  If accomplished, Friends of McAfee would have sought grant funding to restore the house which meets all requirements for a Historic Registry listing.

I suggested this approach to Realtor Guerry Overcash in September and continued to remain in touch, reaffirming the offer in October, and earlier this year. Friends of McAfee would rezone the house and pay rezoning costs.  We believed this would have support from the community. I never received a definitive answer on whether

this was acceptable to the Medford family and restated my offer yesterday.

Today I received the response from Mr. Overcash who had talked to Mrs. Medford.

The Medford family is not interested in the approach we offered and feel that if anyone wants to keep the house onsite, they need to buy the entire two acre site for $2.5 million dollars.  They additionally feel that the sale would be easier to accomplish with the house removed from the site.

I told Mr. Overcash that our small board would not object, and that I would notify Trevor Beemon and another individual who had expressed interest in removing the house to another location.  I also left a message for Ben Sutton of Georgia Trust.

I appreciate that we were able to keep the house onsite this long, but raising $2.5 million is a very long term project. Certainly the split zoning would have been more doable and would have made the land more marketable for an interested buyer.

It is unfortunate that the land and house c. 1840 can't be preserved as a small park, surrounded as it is by development. It is across from Bells Ferry Elementary and just up the road from Noonday Creek Trailhead. The Battle of Noonday Creek

resulted in the house being used by Union General Kenner Garrard and gave the house it significant status.

I wanted to inform you of this outcome, and of course expect that all county permits will be applied for and followed as the house is removed from the property.

As a reminder, a link to the You Tube video of the house is below.

Preserve the Robert McAfee House

Sincerely,

Carol Brown

Friends of McAfee House and Historical Society, Inc.