I've always had an affinity for abandoned buildings. Look, I love a properly restored and preserved building of any kind - home, museum, whatever. But it's how it gets there - a home can fade into nothingness and then rise from the debris into its something bigger and brighter than its former glory - that has always struck a chord with me. Maybe its the Cinderella effect. But this fascination consumed me slightly in the past week or so as I learned about the Barker House.
Some say it looks like a spaceship landed on Sawnee Mountain, while others don't even know it's up there. But still others know the Barker House as a private home where local architect Jim Barker and his wife lived until his death.
The Barker house, empty now with the windows boarded up, perched at the top of Sawnee Mountain, waits patiently for change. That change could mean the end of an era for the unusual home, complete with total demolition. Or, a last ditch effort by friends and family could bring new a whole new life to the house.
I spoke with Bambi Parham, architect Jim Barker's daughter, about the house itself and the effort to salvage it.
"My dad, he was an architect, and he designed churches. Barker and Cunningham was the name of the practice and they designed churches all over the Southeast, I wanna say three to four hundred." You may recognize some of their work around the region, including First United Methodist Church and Lakewood Baptist in Gainesville and First United Methodist in Cumming.
"He bought this property here in Cumming back in the 60's and just held on to it. But he knew he eventually wanted to build on to it but he had a really hard time thinking of a design," Parham said.
"I know this sounds real corny, but he really did just wake up in the middle of the night one night, got up and sketched the design of the house. It looks like a spaceship and its got an underground part that's a lot like the Flinstones - cave-like, very rustic - then, when you go up in the elevator in the center of the home, you go up into the round part, which is very modern, and that's where the second living space is.
"It's not a huge house by any means. But he sketched that and it took him about three years to build and he pretty much built himself -with help of course - but he was pretty much on the job about three years and that was in the early 80's." It's worth noting here that Parham said she grew up in Roswell, and not in the home on top of the mountain.
"He and my mom lived there. He died suddenly of a heart attack around 1992 or 1993, and Mom tried to stay in the house as long as she could, I think she stayed about 10 more years, by herself, and then it just got to hard for her to maneuver around that kind of house, even though it had an elevator it was still difficult for her."
Parham said they initially looked for a private investor, but instead it was sold to the Trust for Public Lands, which was working to create what is now the Sawnee Mountain Preserve. Parham said they believed the house would be preserved by the trust, but it was instead sold from the Trust to the County.
Parham said they are continuing to gather paperwork and contracts associated with the house to review, just to see if somewhere it states, specifically and in writing, that the house was to be maintained.
"We're not trying to get it back in our possession... what we want to do is see what we can do to save the house. So we're contacting the Architectural Institute, we're contacting other architects, lawyers, different organizations. We're going to see if we can get some different people to come in and give us an estimate of what it would cost to get it back in shape and see if there's someone who could possibly take the project on."
Parham said they're in the early stages of all that planning, but they ultimate goal is to get it fixed and give the house a new purpose.
"Ideally, I'd like to see it become a part of the Sawnee Mountain Preserve, that it would be part of the hiking trail they're putting all over the mountain and that it could be used by the public as an observation [point]... where they can go in, enjoy the view and enjoy the uniqueness of the house," Parham said when I asked her what her dream plan would be. "I think it would be great if there was someone who could live in the house... and be like the keeper of the house."
Forsyth County spokeswoman Jodi Gardner sent me some of the information on the county's side of things. They say about five studies have been done on the home, as early as 2003 and recent as 2010. Those studies addressed renovation costs, the most recent concluding $1.8 million would be needed to restore the home to its best state - the same amount the county paid to acquire the house in 2003. It would also require upgrades like Americans with Disabilities Act requirements and fire code improvements. Plus, the county has some public safety concerns, as vandals tend to gravitate towards empty buildings in secluded places.
If you're curious about the fate of Barker House, we'll be keeping tabs on the house on the blog - as of last week, the demolition has been tabled for six months to give the family some time to work on a proper plan for it.
Until next time,
Stay curious.
