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. 

Horseleg Creek Road church, possibly abandoned.

Frazier Road

House on Frazier I've been interested in for a long time. I finally took a look. Nobody has lived here for years! It's quite lovely.

Pangborn Family Home, Decatur, Georgia

Location: 1497 Kahanna Court, Decatur, Georgia

Date of photos: January and February, 2014

Last owner located: Peggy Ann Pangborn Roos 

Current owner: Spartan Investors, LLC. 

UPDATE: Demolished, May, 2014

This beautiful house and surrounding land is one of the last original intact estates in the area. It has been purchased for development and will be destroyed, along with all nine acres of woodlands surrounding it. The home was built in 1930 by the Pangborn family. The last remaining family member, Peggy Ann Pangborn, moved to Virginia as a young woman, and there purchased and restored a historic home. She left it protected in her will, and when she died last year, she left no similar protection for this property. I have no idea why she allowed it to be destroyed, as the cousins she willed it to immediately sold it to a developer.