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Historic Postcard of Fox Theatre
Historic District, the Georgian Terrace Hotel on the left,
Ponce De Leon Apartments on the right
Courtesy of Jody Cook
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The Fox Theatre Historic District is situated at the intersection
of Peachtree Street and Ponce de Leon Avenue in the Midtown section
of Atlanta. It contains three major buildings: the Fox
Theatre , the Georgian Terrace Hotel and the Ponce de Leon Apartments.
Built in 1911, the Georgian Terrace Hotel is a 10-story building
of brick and marble designed as a southern version of a Parisian
hotel. The Peachtree Street facade is composed of a two-story high
window arcade set under a wide cornice supported on narrow pilasters.
The center portion of the facade is stepped back and since the cornice
remains unbroken, the shallow entrance portico is created. Above
this two-story base, the facade remains relatively unadorned until
the actual cornice line of the building. The cornice is of highly-decorative
terra-cotta flush with the face of the building. The interior of
the Georgian Terrace features a marble lobby, general management
offices, a glass-enclosed lounging room, telephone booths, and elevators
on the first floor. The hotel also includes a dining room, cafe,
and a Ladies' Carriage entrance. The Ponce de Leon side of the hotel
originally included the "Terrace Garden" designed to represent a
tropical garden. Under exotic plants of widespread foliage, green
and white tables and chairs were spread to resemble the cafes of
Europe.
Ponce De Leon Apartments and
the Georgian Terrace Hotel
National Register photographs by Yen Tang
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The Ponce de Leon Apartments was one of the first large, high-rise
luxury apartment buildings in Atlanta. It provided residential quarters
and offered apartments from one-room to dozens of rooms. Built from
1912 to 1913, the Italianate building features two towers on either
side of a gently curving front facade. Balconies are found on some
of the upper floors and the pyramidal hipped roofs of the two towers
are covered in red tile. On the ground level of the building the
base is marked by a large colonnade which curves in a concave manner
with the facade. Shops can be found at both the ground and basement
levels along the colonnade.
Within the Fox Theatre Historic District, the Georgian Terrace
Hotel is located at 659 Peachtree St., in downtown Atlanta and is
open during normal business hours; visit the hotel's website at
www.thegeorgianterrace.com for more information. The Ponce de Leon
Apartments at 79 Ponce de Leon Ave. are private residences and not
open to the public. However, the shops in the lower levels of the
building are open during normal business hours. The district also
includes the Fox Theatre.
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