The 1960s Antebellum Plantation at Stone Mountain, Georgia lydia mattice brandt University of South Carolina philip mills herrington James Madison University T he publication of Margaret Mitchell ’ s novel Gone with the Wind in 1936, followed by the release of its landmark film adaptation in 1939, inspired a gener- ation of readers and moviegoers to yearn to travel to Tara, the fictional Georgia home of Mitchell ’ s pampered heroine, Scarlett O ’ Hara. Opened in 1963 at the new Stone Mountain Park, 15 miles northeast of Atlanta, the Antebellum Planta- tion catered to tourists wishing to catch a glimpse of the storybook Old South (Figure 1). The state of Georgia had promoted the state park project since its 1958 purchase of Stone Mountain, a 1,686-foot-high granite monadnock bear- ing the scars of an unfinished Confederate memorial. One of the first private concessions to open at the park, the Antebel- lum Plantation became integral to a renewed effort to com- plete the memorial and to transform the surrounding acres into a landscape of recreation, amusement, and veneration of the Confederacy. 1 Early visitors to the Antebellum Plantation turned off U.S. Highway 78 from Atlanta and traveled down newly paved roads, winding past construction sites and parking lots to encounter an ostensibly authentic Civil War – era scene that likely still smelled of sawdust and fresh paint. The complex featured numerous buildings, including a rose-tinted big house, an overseer ’ s house, a kitchen, a smokehouse, a barn, and two slave dwellings, many brought in pieces from the far corners of rural Georgia. Tourists might even have encoun- tered a familiar personage when they arrived at the curving steps of the big house: Butterfly McQueen, the actress who played the enslaved maid Prissy in the film version of Gone with the Wind . Speaking in her signature high-pitched voice, McQueen instructed female visitors to mind their imaginary hoopskirts as they ascended the stairs. Once inside, she prompted guests to marvel at the antique furniture and deco- rative arts on display, the possessions of a make-believe planter family. 2 Surrounded by the luxuries of plantation liv- ing, visitors also enjoyed views of the sheer northern face of the mountain, with its unfinished bas-relief sculpture depict- ing Confederate hero Robert E. Lee (Figure 2). Even with rising scholarly awareness of the need for crit- ical examination of monuments, it is tempting to dismiss the Antebellum Plantation as an example of prepackaged moon- light-and-magnolias kitsch or as a predictable extension of the Stone Mountain carving (the state of Georgia com- pleted the existing bas-relief of Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis in 1970). Without question, the plantation and the mountain are constituent parts of a state-sponsored landscape of White supremacy. Many Georgians had long despaired that the abandoned relief sculpture would forever remain incomplete: begun by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in the 1920s, the ambitious project to carve Confederate heroes onto the face of the mountain stumbled in later years. At one point the Atlanta Constitution dismissed the monument as “ another lost cause. ” 3 Yet in the decades following World War II, successful legal challenges to racial segregation (most notably Brown v. Board of Educa- tion in 1954) and a booming economy galvanized the White 6 3 Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 81, no. 1 (March 2022), 63 – 84, ISSN 0037-9808, electronic ISSN 2150-5926. © 2022 by the Society of Architectural Historians. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press ’ s Reprints and Permissions web page, https://www.ucpress .edu/journals/reprints-permissions, or via email: jpermissions@ucpress.edu. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2022.81.1.63. political establishment to reconsider Stone Mountain. In 1958, two years after adopting a new state flag that incorpo- rated the Confederate battle flag, the Georgia legislature cre- ated the Stone Mountain Memorial Association (SMMA), a new state agency authorized to purchase the mountain and create “ a perpetual memorial to the Confederacy. ” 4 The pro- moters of Stone Mountain Park thus intended to safeguard a mythical past while also making a claim for a contested fu- ture. They used the project to remind both Georgians and out-of-state tourists that regardless of the mounting fight for civil rights, antebellum racial hierarchies would remain intact. As an attraction that the SMMA expected would both capti- vate visitors and amplify the Lost Cause narrative, the Ante- bellum Plantation was a critical component of the Stone Mountain Park program. 5 Yet, as the story of the Antebellum Plantation reveals, there was no one road to Tara, nor did the project ’ s creators draw a straight line from segregationist state politics to the finished “ historic ” site. When the SMMA first began its de- liberations regarding the appearance and function of Stone Mountain Park in 1958, it considered building a “ Tara rep- lica, ” a seemingly straightforward white-columned lure for those in search of Gone with the Wind . Over time, the associ- ation shifted toward a more historical and educational ap- proach, advocating for a simulation of an authentic antebellum complex where visitors could explore and even inhabit the Old South. Such a scenic attraction would sustain the plantation myths of graceful White leisure and contented Black subservience, buoying the park ’ s political agenda by rooting the racial caste system of the present in an ancient, Figure 1 Antebellum Plantation, Stone Mountain, Georgia, postcard ca. 1970s (© John Hinde Archive). Figure 2 Stone Mountain State Park, Georgia, postcard view after 1968, showing the Antebellum Plantation in the lower-right corner (Newberry Library, Chicago, Dexter Press, Inc., Records). 64 J S A H | 8 1 . 1 | M A R C H 2 0 2 2 virtuous, and beautiful past. But the SMMA had little time to follow through with this ambitious idea. Overwhelmed by the scale of the tasks before it and in need of revenue, the SMMA outsourced much of the work of conceiving, building, and operating the site to a concessionaire, Stone Mountain Plan- tation Inc., thus transforming the project into a privately op- erated, for-profit attraction. What ultimately emerged as the Antebellum Plantation at Stone Mountain Park was the product of a messy, often ad hoc, park-building process shaped by an array of public and private actors with multilayered agendas. Despite its apparent simplicity, the plantation displayed and commemorated an imagined past born of a variety of commercial, ideological, and personal motives. One of the key figures in this enterprise was Christie Bell Kennedy, an investor and antiques collector who formed Stone Mountain Plantation Inc. to build an in- come-generating, authentic (albeit simulated) plantation com- plex that would entice the public through its mixture of historical accuracy and romantic allure. 6 Although Kennedy expected to profit from the sale of tickets, antiques, and the quaint inventory of a plantation country store, her priorities went beyond making money: she wished to demonstrate her knowledge, expertise, and good taste. In doing so she took for granted the land-of-grace-and-plenty trope of the Old South. There is no evidence that Kennedy questioned this timeworn depiction of plantation life or demonstrated any particular in- terest in defending it. For Kennedy as well as her colleagues, this narrative functioned primarily as a vehicle for achieving personal ambitions. 7 Like the SMMA, Kennedy found the perfect “ Tara ” sur- prisingly elusive. Careful examination of the historical evi- dence and surviving architecture and decoration of the Antebellum Plantation — much of which still exists remark- ably unchanged at Stone Mountain Park more than half a century later — exposes tensions and difficulties long dis- guised by the tranquil elegance of the pastel-colored big house. Kennedy and her colleagues continually negotiated authenticity and fantasy as they created a site that had multi- ple and sometimes conflicting functions: the Antebellum Plantation was simultaneously a living history museum, a moneymaking attraction, a pet project, and a Lost Cause commemoration. As realized, it resembled neither an 1850s Georgia plantation nor the white-columned showplaces of film, and it ultimately fulfilled neither the hopes of Kennedy and her associates nor those of the SMMA. Inventing a Plantation at Stone Mountain Park Stone Mountain has long attracted attention as a natural wonder. One nineteenth-century writer called it “ a tall and conspicuous eminence . . . [that] produces an impression of wildness and grandeur, difficult to describe. ” 8 Another observer recorded it as “ a precipice of seventeen hundred feet, whose awful altitude makes the brain dizzy, and com- pared with which Niagara is but a plaything. ” 9 While the gently sloping south elevation offered visitors an easy climb to the top and an expansive view, the steep north elevation was more forbidding, inspiring awe in the sightseers at its base. In the early twentieth century, the mountain became the focus of a series of efforts to create an extraordinary shrine to Confederate memory and White supremacy. These activities coincided with the successful codification of Jim Crow laws across the South and an associated surge of interest in build- ing Confederate monuments that peaked around 1910. In 1914, attorney William H. Terrell proposed in a letter to the Atlanta Constitution that Stone Mountain be acquired as pub- lic property and transformed into a Confederate memorial, with a park at its base and a temple for relics placed at the summit. Caroline Helen Jemison Plane, a Confederate widow and first president of the Georgia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, voiced her approval, and the 1915 premiere of the film The Birth of a Nation , with its sympathetic portrayal of the Confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan, galvanized public support. With the assistance of the UDC, Plane brought Gutzon Borglum (future sculptor of Mount Rushmore) to Atlanta to meet with Samuel Venable, the owner of Stone Mountain and an advocate for the memo- rial. On 25 November 1915, Venable participated in a cross- burning ritual at the summit that reinvigorated the Klan and forever linked it to the mountain. 10 After much planning and the disruption of World War I, Borglum finally began carving the UDC-sponsored memo- rial in 1923. The project quickly faltered, because of personal conflicts, funding shortfalls, and technical challenges. Bor- glum ’ s spectacular design featuring hundreds of massive cavalry figures proved impossible to execute, even with the help of profits from the U.S. Mint ’ s issuance of a commemo- rative Stone Mountain Memorial half dollar in 1925. That same year the UDC fired Borglum, who promptly destroyed his models and left the state. Work on his design came to a permanent halt in 1928. Left incomplete, the “ sublime emi- nence ” now featured a partial bas-relief sculpture of Robert E. Lee mounted on horseback amid scars wrought by chisels and dynamite (Figure 3). 11 The memorial languished until the 1950s, when Georgia ’ s defenders of racial segregation seized upon the mountain ’ s symbolic potential in their effort to resist the ascendant civil rights movement. During the Georgia gubernatorial race of 1954 — begun soon after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled “ sep- arate but equal ” public schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education — future governor Marvin Griffin prom- ised not only to keep the state ’ s schools segregated but also to purchase and develop Stone Mountain. 12 Even though T H E 1 9 6 0 S A N T E B E L L U M P L A N T A T I O N A T S T O N E M O U N T A I N , G E O R G I A 65 Griffin admitted that “ the dreamy romantic old way of cotton plantations is gone forever, ” he defended “ the Georgia way of life ” and attacked federal efforts to desegregate schools as “ the second reconstruction of the South. ” 13 In 1956, the same year he joined other southern governors in a pledge to fight integration, Griffin signed into law the adoption of a new state flag that incorporated the Confederate battle flag. Confederate imagery and valorization functioned as publicity tools of the massive resistance strategy against integration, succinctly connecting White supremacist, antifederal politics with a historical narrative of southern honor, heroism, and defiance. In 1958, Griffin signed off on the creation of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, a new state agency that would oversee the acquisition of the mountain and the completion of “ a perpetual memorial to the Confederacy ” and recreation area. 14 Like all of Georgia ’ s public parks, Stone Mountain Park would be segregated, despite the U.S. Supreme Court ’ s upholding of lower court decisions that such laws were unconstitutional. 15 This surge of Confederate commemoration in Georgia dovetailed with celebrations planned across the South for the forthcoming Civil War centennial in 1961. Local and state efforts to honor the Confederacy ’ s heroic struggle to defend itself against an aggressive and intrusive federal government legitimated contemporary acts of resistance and discrimina- tion by southern state legislatures. Parades and reenactments with costumed Confederates, new monuments, and the flying of Confederate battle flags at state capitols defied recent civil rights victories and insisted that the battle over race in the United States was far from finished. 16 While the idea of a completed Confederate monument at Stone Mountain offered an effective tool for propaganda, the reality of acquiring the mountain and adjacent property, cre- ating a park, and finishing the long-abandoned memorial presented a series of herculean tasks for the new SMMA. Governor Griffin and the state legislature populated the SMMA with powerful figures to safeguard the state ’ s signifi- cant investment in the site. By law, the SMMA ’ s seven- member board included four ex officio seats for Georgia ’ s secretary of state, attorney general, commissioner of agricul- ture, and public service commissioner. In 1958, these were, respectively, Benjamin W. Fortson Jr., Eugene Cook, J. Phil Campbell Jr., and Matthew L. McWhorter, who served as the board ’ s first chair. Griffin appointed the three remaining members, who represented the mix of political, economic, and cultural objectives tied up in the project: Scott Candler, secretary of commerce; S. Price Gilbert Jr., retired vice pres- ident of Coca-Cola; and Doris Walker Lyle, president of the Georgia Division of the UDC. 17 The legislature gave the group broad powers, including the ability “ to acquire, by purchase, lease or otherwise, and to hold, lease and dispose of in any manner, real and personal property of every kind and character for its corporate purposes. ” 18 So long as it ensured the key memorial and recreational purposes of the park, the SMMA could exercise creative control over the project ’ s design. Yet the enormity of the work proved too much for the SMMA, and it immediately began to consider ways to out- source responsibilities and offset expenses. The association faced not only severe financial constraints but also a daunting list of infrastructure improvements (including the relocation of a highway through the property), as well as the engineer- ing and artistic challenges posed by the unfinished monu- ment. 19 Seeking guidance, in 1958 the SMMA engaged Atlanta architecture and engineering firm Robert and Com- pany Associates to produce a master plan. The firm empha- sized the need to construct facilities that would generate much-needed revenue, arguing that “ the desire to pay hom- age to the Confederate leaders is still important, but it is now probably secondary to the economic motive. ” 20 Heeding this advice, the SMMA prioritized the construction of a lake, sce- nic drives, and picnic areas over historical or commemorative programs. By the summer of 1959, the SMMA also decided “ to lease out on concession all major items ” by inviting pri- vate investors to create and operate most park attractions. 21 While the SMMA retained some control over the operation Figure 3 Undated photograph showing the state of the Stone Mountain Memorial after the United Daughters of the Confederacy abandoned the project in 1928; the sculpture was still in this condition when the state of Georgia purchased the mountain in 1958 (Associated Press). 66 J S A H | 8 1 . 1 | M A R C H 2 0 2 2 and funding of the concessions, it assigned the responsibility for any storytelling that might accompany the memorial to these private vendors. The piecemeal and often disorganized public – private con- struction that took place at Stone Mountain Park meant that a unified park narrative centered on the Lost Cause failed to emerge. The hodgepodge of concessions approved by the cash-strapped SMMA (including an antique car museum, a game ranch and petting zoo, a Polynesian-themed marina, and a scenic railroad with mock Indian raids) communicated no coordinated message, beyond the need to attract tourist dollars. In the meantime, the status of the park ’ s would-be main attraction — the Stone Mountain Memorial — remained uncertain. As the SMMA found itself barraged with an ever-increasing amount of work, it left the monument ’ s nar- rative scheme, its configuration, and even its precise location undecided. As late as 1962, the SMMA considered abandon- ing the 1920s-era sculpture entirely to undertake new work elsewhere on the mountain. The question of what shape and style the memorial would take — abstract or representational, modern or a continuation of Lost Cause monument tradi- tions — lingered as the SMMA belatedly invited a group of artists to submit proposals for its completion. 22 As efforts to create the Confederate memorial limped along, Stone Mountain Park became more a theme park than a coherent site of remembrance. An open-air plantation complex for paying guests to ex- plore numbered among the first concessions approved by the SMMA. The association anticipated that such an attraction would draw visitors to the park, generate revenue, and com- plement the memorial, regardless of the design the SMMA ultimately chose. The complex would also fill a major void in Georgia ’ s emerging heritage tourism landscape. With no historic plantations regularly open to the public in the state at midcentury, a re-created plantation at Stone Mountain Park would appeal to the expanding market for plantation tourism, already well developed in the South Carolina Lowcountry as well as along Louisiana ’ s River Road, at Virginia ’ s James River, and in Natchez, Mississippi. 23 The SMMA ’ s early discussions about an invented antebel- lum historic site centered on attracting fans of a particular southern plantation: Tara, the fictional Georgia home of Scarlett O ’ Hara, heroine of Gone with the Wind (Figure 4). In April 1958, SMMA member Price Gilbert Jr. suggested con- structing a Margaret Mitchell memorial at Stone Mountain, an idea that over time members connected to a separate pro- posal for a museum housed inside a replica of “ Tara Hall. ” Re-creating Tara provided an obvious — almost default — version of the antebellum past for the park. Even just the façade of the house delivered a rapid-fire message about the glory of the Old South, catering to the White audiences who dreamed of inhabiting Tara. Both Mitchell ’ s Pulitzer Prize – winning 1936 novel and the 1939 blockbuster film em- ployed the house as a key protagonist. The mansion show- cased Scarlett ’ s style and privilege as a southern belle, the lighthearted interactions between enslaved characters such as Mammy and Prissy and their White “ family, ” and the plunder- ing of the South during the Civil War and Reconstruction. 24 Yet re-creating Tara posed numerous challenges. Would this be the Tara of the novel or the film? The movie set did not match the big house described in the book. Mitchell imagined Tara as a typical, unpretentious planter ’ s dwell- ing of the Georgia up-country, a “ clumsy, sprawling build- ing. ” She begged David O. Selznick, the producer of the film, to leave it “ ugly ” and “ columnless. ” 25 Selznick never- theless insisted on a more marketable white-columned façade that evoked the classical grandeur that literature, cinema, and historic sites had long conditioned the public to associate with southern plantations. 26 Stephens Mitchell, Margaret Mitchell ’ s brother and administrator of her estate, anticipated that the SMMA likewise would not be able to resist the appeal of white columns. When he gave his tepid approval for the use of his sister ’ s name on a Stone Mountain building, he made a point of noting that the name Tara should not “ be used in connection with some fine example of Greek Revival architecture. It was a simple country dwelling. ” 27 The arrival of the Tara movie set in Atlanta only affirmed the SMMA ’ s initial impulse to re-create Georgia ’ s most fa- mous — if imaginary — building. Consigned for decades to the back lot of Selznick International Pictures in Culver City, California, Tara ’ s remains rolled up in front of the Georgia State Capitol in two vans on 1 June 1959, the newly acquired property of Atlanta real estate developer Julian M. Foster. The SMMA met the same day in the State Agriculture Build- ing on Capitol Square and likely witnessed (and even joined in) the homecoming festivities, which included the governor, Miss Atlanta, and a Dixieland band. In his comments at the event, Governor Ernest Vandiver, the newly elected succes- sor to Governor Griffin, acknowledged the special place of the house in the collective memory of Georgians, one that hovered between fantasy and reality: “ Even though we know that Tara is a fictional, not a real plantation, it is a reality to many and it is with a great deal of pride and pleasure that we welcome Tara home. ” Foster planned to use the set pieces to rebuild Tara as a complete house with interiors on a site in nearby Clayton County. The “ reassembled ” house would then be the centerpiece of a re-created Tara plantation with cotton fields and vegetable gardens. Finally, Tara would exist, its gates open to visitors eager to experience the famous home from Gone with the Wind . But reconstructing Tara was easier said than done. The filmmakers had relied on sets built on soundstages for interior scenes, and the exterior shell sur- vived only in salvaged, weather-worn fragments. Ultimately T H E 1 9 6 0 S A N T E B E L L U M P L A N T A T I O N A T S T O N E M O U N T A I N , G E O R G I A 67 the project proved too daunting for Foster, who consigned Tara ’ s celebrated relics to storage. 28 While Foster ’ s Tara promised the white-columned vision of southern mythology, another plantation house scheduled for reassembly in Atlanta presented a vernacular alternative of earlier vintage. The Redman Thornton House, an unusu- ally intact late eighteenth-century Georgia residence from Union Point, Greene County, was a “ simple country dwell- ing ” much closer to the homely farmhouse Mitchell had imagined for the Tara of her novel (Figure 5). The Atlanta Art Association (AAA, precursor to the High Museum of Art) purchased the house in 1958 after discovering it dur- ing a search for period paneling with which to display a roll of Sauvages de la Mer du Pacifique , a celebrated early nineteenth-century scenic wallpaper by French manufacturer Joseph Dufour et Cie. 29 Impressed with the structure ’ s crafts- manship and unaltered state, the AAA opted to move it to the grounds of the association ’ s headquarters on Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta, where it would be preserved as a museum and gallery for the AAA ’ s growing collection of period southern furniture. This project was an explicit rebut- tal of the uncritical approach to southern history epitomized by Foster ’ s planned reconstruction of Tara. Unlike the white-columned stereotype, the Thornton House was an un- classical, asymmetrical, one-and-a-half-story building. AAA president Sarah Broadnax Hansell remarked that “ we hope to reemphasize Georgia ’ s long past — back beyond the White Column period — and to acquaint people with our early plan- tation life. ” 30 The AAA set the house in a garden with brick paths and opened it to the public in December 1960. 31 The association planned to further simulate an early plantation complex by adding authentic outbuildings. Antiques maga- zine featured the site in 1962, calling the house “ an out- standing example of the early architectural pattern of the Piedmont region of Georgia ” and emphasizing the scholarly achievement of its curation. 32 Amid the buzz of these two projects, the SMMA voted to broaden its idea for a Tara replica into an open-air, histori- cal plantation complex. Speaking at a meeting of the SMMA, Chairman McWhorter proposed making the Margaret Mitchell memorial “ a complete southern plantation house with gardens, slave quarters, sugarcane mill, etc., so the northern and southern tourists could be reminded of the way people lived on plantations during the Civil War. ” 33 Shortly thereafter, the group added the Margaret Mitchell memorial plantation exhibit to the master plan for Stone Mountain Park. 34 The SMMA obviously felt that there was enough Figure 5 Redman Thornton House, late eighteenth century, on the grounds of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, ca. 1967 (Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center). Figure 4 William Cameron Menzies, concept painting of Scarlett O ’ Hara at Tara in Gone with the Wind , ca. 1938 (© 2021, Daniel Mayer Selznick; Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin). 68 J S A H | 8 1 . 1 | M A R C H 2 0 2 2 enthusiasm for Georgia plantation history that the exhibit could compete with Foster ’ s Tara and the AAA ’ s Thornton House. Given its limited resources, however, the SMMA knew that only private money could bring this idea to fruition. 35 As the AAA reassembled the Thornton House in Mid- town Atlanta in April 1960, a pair of unlikely investors, Chris- tie Bell Kennedy and Kenneth Garcia, appeared before the SMMA to present their idea for a plantation attraction at Stone Mountain. Their rough proposal ultimately became the Antebellum Plantation, which opened three years later as one of the first for-profit concessions at Stone Mountain Park. The SMMA, eager to see the plantation concept real- ized without having to oversee its construction or operation, readily relinquished control to Kennedy and Garcia, even if there was little in their respective backgrounds to suggest that they could successfully undertake such an endeavor. In doing so, the SMMA allowed the investors to discard the planta- tion ’ s proposed functions as a museum and memorial dedi- cated to Mitchell. The state still expected the plantation to educate visitors, but its primary purpose would be to enter- tain them. 36 No surviving records document how Kennedy and Garcia created their partnership and proposal, but their backstories illuminate their attraction to the project and the vision they created for it. Both Kennedy and Garcia came from rural working-class backgrounds. Born in Tifton, Georgia, Ken- nedy entered the power circles of Washington, D.C., when she became the personal secretary of Walter F. George, U.S. senator from Georgia, in the 1930s. In 1957, she moved to Atlanta when she married William Edward Mitchell, the retired president of Georgia Power (his second marriage, her third). There she met Florida native Kenneth Garcia, an anti- ques dealer known as a seller of fine English furniture and a kindred spirit who shared her love of antiques. Like Kennedy, Garcia had gained access to Atlanta high society by marrying into it. The plantation project offered the pair an opportunity to collaborate, generate revenue, and communicate their re- fined taste and well-connected status. 37 Kennedy and Garcia initially proposed an ambitious chro- nological assemblage of buildings collected from around the state that “ would relate to the history of the early settlers in their simple log cabins . . . through the period prior to the Civil War. ” Multiple houses with decorated interiors would demonstrate various periods, styles, and classes in the south- ern social hierarchy and offer a visual progression of southern civilization that would culminate with the plantation house as its highest achievement. Their proposal specified pro- spective historical buildings (including a gristmill, a round barn, and two blacksmith shops) as well as individual pieces and collections of furniture and decorative arts. Far from a cheap, ill-informed amusement park attraction, the con- cession Kennedy and Garcia imagined was comparable to what “ the Atlanta Art Association is now doing behind the Museum ”— that is, the Thornton House. 38 By describing the concession as “ a permanent restoration of the Williamsburg Virginia type, ” Kennedy and Garcia in- dicated that they planned an immersive experience rather than a stand-alone house museum, something not unlike what McWhorter had recently suggested to the SMMA. A “ mule drawn cart or wagon ” would offer rides to the plan- tation house, traveling along an “ old weathered road with natural trees on each side. ” Living props would include “ ducks, turkey, geese and other fowl, ” “ costumed hostesses, ” and “ colored help . . . dressed in gay gingham costumes of the pre – civil war period. ” If displays of furnishings and fabrics in the plantation house would likely attract a largely female audience, they hoped to entice men by including a gun and tack room featuring dueling pistols, Kentucky rifles, squirrel guns, and horse racing gear. 39 Kennedy and Garcia planned to engage the strategies used at Colonial Williamsburg and other historic sites in the first half of the twentieth century, skillfully combining authenticity with fantasy. Staged architecture and decorative arts would both educate and inspire guests, providing backdrops onto which visitors could project and perform collective memories of the past. Kennedy and Garcia asserted the historical legiti- macy of their project by employing “ real ” buildings and objects, but, like the choices made by the architects of Williamsburg, their decisions about these reconstructions rep- resented a negotiation between the historical evidence and their personal tastes and assumptions. The project obviously privileged the arrangement of architecture and interiors over a specific interpretive program, given that such a plantation had never existed at Stone Mountain. The cohesion or speci- ficity of the narrative of the ensemble was ultimately less im- portant than its ability to transport visitors back in time. And like most colonial revival presentations of the mid-twentieth century, the project created a historical space in which White people held power implicitly and without question. 40 In contrast to Colonial Williamsburg ’ s architects, who re- constructed the buildings and streets of Virginia ’ s colonial capital in situ, Kennedy and Garcia proposed selecting ver- nacular structures from across Georgia to create an entirely new “ historic ” place. This difference between the two sites thus exemplified what Edward P. Alexander, then director of interpretation for Colonial Williamsburg, identified as the two avenues for contemporary house museums: the plan- tation would feature artistic (or aesthetic) period rooms, while Williamsburg featured historical period rooms. Artistic rooms aimed “ to exhibit in a tasteful manner outstanding examples of the interior architecture and decorative arts of a period, ” whereas historical rooms “ centered around the presentation of an actual room as it once appeared. ” In Alexander ’ s words, both kinds of exhibits depended on the T H E 1 9 6 0 S A N T E B E L L U M P L A N T A T I O N A T S T O N E M O U N T A I N , G E O R G I A 69 “ fresh knowledge ” of scholarly research and could “ convey a sense of having been lived in through natural touches. ” 41 Kennedy and Garcia also sought to emulate Williamsburg by encouraging visitors to imagine themselves as consumers of fine architecture and decorative arts both in the past and in the present. Alongside its meticulously researched exhibits, Colonial Williamsburg had pioneered the licensing of repro- duction historical furniture, textiles, paint colors, and other household goods. As evidenced by the colonial architectural details applied to buildings across the country, ranging from motels to suburban homes to the diminutively scaled Victo- rian Main Street of Disneyland (opened in 1955) had long proved to be tremendously marketable outside museum con- texts as well. Kennedy and Garcia ’ s plantation promised to stimulate visitors who were seeking not just the beauty of the past but also ideas for decorating their own homes. 42 Determined to create an attraction that would fore- ground their knowledge and taste, Kennedy and Garcia re- jected the SMMA ’ s idea of including a Margaret Mitchell memorial in their antebellum dreamland, arguing that it would detract from the “ intended purpose ” of the conces- sion. However much the public associated Mitchell with the Old South, a didactic museum on the life and work of the deceased author would break the spell of being carried back in time and distract visitors from the careful staging of buildings and objects. 43 Regardless of their preference, Stephens Mitchell withdrew the possibility of using his sis- ter ’ s name after learning of the “ commercial activities ” at the mountain. 44 As Mitchell explained to a reporter, “ I told them if they had a honky-tonk in mind or one of these nu- merous Taras, I didn ’ t want to have anything to do with it. ” 45 Kennedy and Garcia ’ s proposal also made no men- tion of how their plantation would relate to the Stone Mountain monument, either aesthetically or ideologically. As the SMMA was still debating how to move forward with the abandoned sculpture, there was no specific future me- morial to reference. Undoubtedly Kennedy and Garcia assumed their concession would dovetail ideologically with whatever design the SMMA chose to pursue. In August 1961, after more than a year of characteristi- cally sluggish negotiations, the SMMA voted unanimously to finalize a contract with Kennedy and Garcia. The agree- ment established a public – private partnership in which both sides contributed funds to an “ ante bellum plantation park, ” with the SMMA delegating most decision making to Kennedy and Garcia, now organized under the name Stone Mountain Plantation Inc. The state agreed to pay for the construction and/or relocation and restoration of fifteen structures, while Kennedy and Garcia would procure the buildings and oversee their “ construction and decoration. ” Stone Mountain Plantation Inc. ’ s primary expense was in this decoration, as Kennedy and Garcia had to outfit the buildings “ in such manner as to reproduce as nearly as practicable the type and style of furniture, furnishings and draperies as were used immediately prior to 1860. ” The parties agreed that these pieces would be “ of quality comparable to that found in other restorations throughout the United States. ” Revenues would come from visitor admissions (the state claimed one- third of gross admissions up to $75,000, and one-half after that), and Stone Mountain Plantation Inc. received permis- sion to operate both a “ country store ” and an antique shop within the complex. Kennedy and Garcia agreed to pay the state 8 percent of sales from the country store and 20 percent of antique sales. Considering that the pair also would be pay- ing the state at least $10,000 a year in rental expenses, they clearly expected the country store and antique shop to turn a significant profit. 46 The SMMA sought to populate Stone Mountain Park with attractions that would entice the public, generate reve- nue, and make history entertaining, and the Antebellum Plantation seemed to fit the bill. Not only would visitors en- joy exploring a simulated historic site, but the antebellum theme would also support the park ’ s purpose of Lost Cause commemoration. The promise of a high-quality “ restora- tion ” made dreams of a Confederate Williamsburg seem attainable. Kennedy and Garcia wanted to assemble beautiful interiors filled with light, color, and texture, spaces that would inspire visitors to buy their carefully selected goods or solicit their decorating services. All of this rested on the Georgia state government ’ s determination to prove to the world that the “ southern way of life, ” and by extension Jim Crow segre- gation, was somehow worth saving. Transforming the Big House For Kennedy and Garcia, the Antebellum Plantation ’ s big house was the most critical part of the concession: its scale and style would communicate the tone of the entire attrac- tion. It would not be a replica of Tara, but would it evoke the white-columned elegance of the Hollywood set or the up- country vernacular of Mitchell ’ s novel and the Thornton House? The SMMA probably expected Kennedy and Garcia to select a porticoed mansion, and they did consider the Gordon-Bowen-Blount House, a remarkably crafted early nineteenth-century dwelling standing near Haddock, Jones County (Figure 6). With its fluted columns, fanlights, and spiral staircase, this structure fit conventional expectations for a Georgia plantation house. Kennedy and Garcia may have learned of the Blount House through their architect, James Means, or through photographs of the house in two of the few architectural histories of Georgia then available, White Columns in Georgia , by Medora Field Perkerson (1952), and Early Architecture of Georgia , by Frederick Doveton Nichols (1957). However, the Blount House may have proven too 70 J S A H | 8 1 . 1 | M A R C H 2 0 2 2 expensive to move, or perhaps it was not for sale; either way, it never came to Stone Mountain. 47 Instead, Kennedy and Garcia selected the 1850s Davis- Plowden-Wilson House from Calhoun County in southwest Georgia (Figure 7). After transporting it more than 200 miles and refining its rough details, they made it the center of a newly invented landscape of outbuildings plucked from other locations. In “ restoring ” the house, Kennedy and Garcia stripped away its intertwined architectural and social histo- ries, refashioning it as a stage for an ambiguous play about the grace and beauty of the Old South. To achieve this transfor- mation, they relied on Means, a well-known designer of his- toricist houses in Georgia who had extensive experience with some of the state ’ s preeminent classicist firms. 48 Garcia and Means already had a close working relationship, with Garcia supplying many of the antique fixtures and elements of Means ’ s designs. Means created spaces that evoked tradition, but, as his biographer William R. Mitchell Jr. notes, “ the goal was not what might be called scientific history ” but rather “ creative eclecticism. ” He often employed salvaged materials (in some cases existing buildings) and architectural details in his designs to convey a sense of authenticity and texture. 49 By choosing a relatively modest, vernacular building that Means could freely manipulate and embellish, Kennedy and Garcia were able to attain both the authentically historical fabric and the flexible fantasy they wanted. In its altered form, the Davis House could evoke the believability of the Thornton House as well as the theatricality of the Hollywood Tara. Prior to its removal to Stone Mountain, the Davis House embodied the history an