Georgia things I love

Smith-Turner House, Lexington, Georgia

Abandoned Georgia Mental Health Institute

Location: 1260 Briarcliff Road, Atlanta, Georgia

Date of photos: February and March, 2014

Last owner located: State of Georgia

Current owner: Emory University

This 42-acre campus is the site of two groups of buildings. At the northernmost point is the Candler Mansion, a large house built in 1920 by Asa Candler, Jr. It was sold in 1953 to the State of Georgia to be used as a treatment center for alcoholics. The mansion has been abandoned since 1998.

The second area consists of a large building surrounded by five smaller outbuildings. This is the former Georgia Mental Health Institute, a hospital built in 1962 for people who had been found “not guilty by reason of insanity” and other persons with mental illness. The photos below show one of the outbuildings, or cottages, which were used to house patients who required permanent residence at the center. All of the cottages are currently abandoned.