With all the wind and rain coming across the eastern part of the country I have had more than a few folks ask about the Tara façade and whether it was encased in some kind of special “architectural raincoat” to keep it safe and dry in that old barn. But the truth of the matter is that the Tara façade is still standing in the same old dairy barn (built in 1951 according to a date carved in the concrete floor) that Ms. Betty Talmadge stacked the first piece in when she took possession of the façade in 1980. Sure I’m concerned about it and would like to see it incased in the finest structure available but it has weathered (excuse the pun) a lot of changes and seen a lot of years go by from the windows of that old barn and maybe that is where it wants to remain.
The Tara façade was completed in 1939 and resided on the back lot (just down the street from the western town and around the corner from Mayberry) for twenty years under the California sun until it was dismantled and shipped to Georgia in 1959. After its “welcome home party” at the State Capital, the museum plan failed to materialize and it was stuffed (yes, stuffed) in two old car sheds off a back road north of Marietta for the next twenty years. So when Ms. Betty first cast her eyes on it, it was a miracle that there was anything left to see of the once grand home of the O’Hara’s. But Ms. Betty was not deterred and she led her crew back up those north Georgia trails with an old cattle trailer used for delivering pine straw and brought the Tara façade to Lovejoy,….where Margaret Mitchell said it was located when she wrote the story some forty-four years earlier.
So I guess if you look at Tara’s travels and the hardship she has endured, a little bit of Georgia’s rain and cold is not that tough to handle. She has been tossed and turned after being pushed aside on the lot. She has been both courted and castigated on her way to the dairy barn and today, I believe all she wants is to be seen and showcased to those who gained so much strength from her story. I believe if she could speak to you all, she would only ask for a visit from those who claim to have so much affection for her.
So, to do what I can to help you make her acquaintance; for the rest of the year I will be offering special tours for those who will come with at least ten visitors. I will work with you and your group to set a tour date during the week or weekend. I will spend a little extra time on the tour so that we can make this an adventure as the group brings a few lawn chairs, a bottle of wine (or beers in the cooler) and we sit and talk, answer questions…and I share “just a few more” tales I have come across. There is but one Tara and it resides in Lovejoy, Georgia and if you want to see it you will have to make a special trip for it deserves more than just a passing glance. For those who want to take this special tour please email me at peter@peterbonner.com and be ready for fun, adventure and a photo of your group posted on the blog site…just to make everyone else, “pea green with envy”.
I’ll be looking for you up at the gate.
Peter
I only recently read that Tara was part of the studio lot that Desi Arnez and Lucille Ball owned…and Desi refused to have it torn down and disposed.
There is a photo in the Talmadge House of Lucille Ball when she visited after Tara was moved to the site.
I’m still trying to get my 10…It is so hard to get people to commit….
Peter is an absolute master at telling this story and its truths. Loved every minute of the tour, and time with Peter. I’ve been a fan and follower of the myth of Tara since a boy and to finally see this amazing piece of stagecraft rendered me speechless. It’s massive and moving at the same time. My utmost respect and support for Peter on this one.
Wow Todd, Thanks for the kind words.
Greetings Mr. Bonner,
Much to my delight I have stumbled upon your website and found it most enjoyable; wonderfully timely and romantic. America needs to rally around its past and even a fictional account of the early success and failures of a more romantic time period is welcomed. TARA is an American icon.
As with many other Americans, GWTHW is one of my favorite American folk stories and Tara a mythical place to those of us who cherish the story and understand it as loosely based factual part of American history. Tara is as important architecturally as a The White House. It touches every American.
I am an Architect, and although I live and practice in New York, would be most honored to assist in your endeavor to restore TARA.
From your photographs, it does not appear that there is much preserved other than partial windows, and window frames and cornices, shutters and a few low porch columns.
Please allow me to make a few suggestions which you must have already considered, but if not, may find useful:
1) find a local GEORGIA architect to draw you up plans for what TARA would look like if rebuilt. I do not know if any design plans of “TARA” exist, so there may be some artistic license required to recreate interior layout and details based on the film (which were likely filmed in a studio and not within the back lot “façade”). The drawn design must faithfully capture the proportion and exact dimensioning of the original façade.
The lines of the photographic images of TARA are very simple and would very simple to reconstruct either in concrete block or 2 x 6 wood stud. It would require a concrete foundation, just as a house. Either base structure would be bricked over and the new façade easily recreated from the period photographs. The roof would have been cedar shake. Remaining surviving pieces would be in fitted into the new structure, and missing pieces recreated.
I estimate the structure would be about 8,000 – 10,000 square feet when completed (or there abouts). Not much by todays mc mansion standards.
If you have a location to build and “reassemble” the façade pieces, you will most likely have to file the plans with the local building dept, just like any other building would require.
I anticipate building costs are similar in Georgia as in New York and you would be looking at approx. $500,000 to jump start the building of this edifice as a core and shell. Faithfully finishing off the interior would be costly also, as recreating period moldings, etc, is labor intensive.
Not sure what other expertise I can offer you to pursue this, other than to imagine it as a “museum” experience; completed furnished with pre civil war antiques with exterior acreage of sweeping lawns , formal gardens and cotton fields, and of course the slave quarters.
A recreated American legend would draw crowds, I am sure, as does Disneyland.
Kind Regards,
Frank Tomaselli, RA