TarvaPlantation

1850

Scale is the key word when cosidering Tarva Plantation. There is of course the scale of the property: some five thousand acres of pine wood, live oaks, a pond that anywhere but South Georgia would be called a lake, springs, thickets, sweet gums that look like cypresses, waves of sedge,

miles of roads which lead from one beatiful wild scene to another. There is the scale of the properties in the neighborhood. The scale of these places is described in numbers of acres which most folk think of only in terms of national parks. When one considers the total amount of land devoted to hunting plantations in Baker and Dougherty counties, the numbers are more like those used to describe military reservations. In fact, one can ride the main road from Albany to Newton and for 15 of its 20 miles, three plantations pass endlessly on either side. This amount of open land under management lends the area a feel rare-ly available on the eastern side of the Mississippi and much of it, including Tarva, is subject to conservation easements which will protect it in perpetuity. Then there is the scale of the house. It is sim-ple and not large by many standards but, oh, what scale. There is a freedom of movement inside this house which is at once rooted in 19th century ne-cessities and remarkably modern in conception. It has the almost mystical feel of the local pecan groves which share it unrelenting symmetry. There was no modern conceit of connecting the house to nature. Rather, with its massive doors and win-dows, one seems to still be outside among the oaks. Tarva received its name from 2oth century owners who heard this pronunciation of the family name Tarver. There were Tarvers in the area from the beginning. One source says that Hartwell H. Tarver accompanied Nelson Tift on his trip to establish a trad-ing post and layout the town of Albany in 1836. Hartwell Tarver was from Brunswick County, Vir-ginia, and settled in Twiggs County, southeast of Macon. He amassed several thousand acres in Baker County following the Battle of Chickasawachee Swamp earlier that year. Along the way, he was made a General of the Georgia Militia, served as postmaster of Tarversville, sired eight children by two wives, and at his death in 1851 was considered one of the wealthiest men in Georgia. It is unknown how Harwell Tarver’s lands were divided at his death as the Twiggs County Courthouse burned in 1901. However, he is said to have built houses for three of his children in what was then Baker County. The two in Baker County survive in pristine condition. The third was built in what after 1853 became Dougherty County.

The first, Pinebloom, was built for daughter Dollie who in 1848 mar-ried Alfred H. Colquitt, governor of Georgia from 1876 to 1882. Three miles north, he built a house for his son, Henry Andrew. The house is said to have been a wedding present for Henry who married Elizabeth Griffen Solomon in 1850. Tarva’s given date of construction relies on this tradition. Henry Andrew Tarver (1826-1897) had been in Baker County since at least 1847 when he was appointed to serve on a committee for advancing

the construction of a road in District 8 of the Coun-ty which included the land which became Tarva. Ac-cording to the 1850 census, he was a prominent plant-er owning 700 acres of im-proved and 3000 acres of un-improved land worked by 55 slaves. He served on grand juries in 1855 and 1861. After the War Between the States, he was elected to the Georgia Legislature in 1872. His service in the legisla-ture prompted the Tarvers to move to Atlanta and to treat the plantation as a summer home. An 1886 article in the

Albany Patriot reported that the Misses Cutliff had gone for a short visit “to the attractive country house of Col. H. A. Tarver of Baker County.” Although Tarver served only one term in the General Assembly, the family likely enjoyed the governorship of his brother-in-law. When the Tarvers returned from At-lanta in 1887, they took up residence in Albany. Henry, or H. A. as he was called, and Elizabeth, known as Fannie, had eight children, one of whom was Henry Andrew Jr. It is not clear how how the plantation was divided among those surviving at the first Henry’s death in 1897 but the plantation house passed to Henry Andrew, Jr. Also known as H. A., he was born in 1865 at Tarva. He graduated from Emory College in 1884 and returned to Albany. His marriage to Frances Welborn Holcombe in November of 1892 was described as a “Brilliant Social Event” in a full column article on the front page of the Albany Weekly Herald. Henry progressed in local politics from Deputy Clerk of Dougherty County to County Treasurer to Alderman of the City of Albany to Mayor for three terms. Albany’s Municipal Auditorium is a lasting monument to his years of leadership. Prior to his death in 1935, he was encouraging prepara-tions for the centennial of the city his grandfather had helped lay out. Henry was not the only Tarver to take an active part in local affairs. His

younger brother, Owen Fort, was elected repeatedly without opposition as Dougherty County Sheriff, an office in which he was serving at the time of this death in 1944. During this period little is known about the ongoing operation and actual ownership of today’s Tarva but Fort was the last Tarver to own the house. The second Henry died intestate, no will is listed in the Dougerty County indices for the first Henry, and any record of Hartwell’s will, if he had one, went up in flames in 1901. To further confuse things, a portion of the plantation passed to a sis-ter of the first Henry, Ann Tarver Hobbs, and to her daughter, Mary Decoursey Hobbs Jones. One clue lies in the will of the first Henry’s wife, Elizabeth, who in 1909 directed that Fort’s share be directed to the second Henry. Tarva was reassem-bled by Russell A. Alger, Jr., beginning in 1941 when he purchased the house and 1296 acres from Fort Tarver. He conveyed this property to the his father’s trustee who in the same year purchased the 1743 acre tract which included Mrs. Jones’ interest for $8.00 per acre. The final tract of 1427 acres which had been owned by the Reynolds Brothers Lumber Company was purchased in 1945. It is as difficult to keep the various Russell Algers straight as the Henry Tarvers. The Russell who bought the Tarver Place was actually the third of the group and and had a son by the same name. They all hailed from Michigan where the first, a major general in the Union army, built a successful lumber business and served as Michigan governor, Secretary of War under President McKinley, and was a U. S. Senator at the time of his death. His son Russell was one of the initial investors in the Packard Motor Car Company and built a mansion in Grosse Pointe designed by Charles A. Platt, the New York architect best known for his design of the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. His son Russell grew up in that house, married Phoebe Bailey of New York, had a son named Russell, and bought Tarva. Knowing a good architect when he saw one, Alger retained Edward Va-son Jones (1909-1980), to restore Tarva. Jones was trained as a dentist but his love was architecture and his first building was the lodge at Gillionville Plan-tation. That effort lead to a four year stint with Hentz Adler & Schutze where he worked with highly regarded classicist, Philip Trammell Schutze from 1938

to 1942. After designing ships in Savannah for the war, Jones opened his Alba-ny practice in 1945. It ultimately led him to the State Department’s Diplomat-ic Reception Rooms and the Whitehouse where his work achieved national recognition. Jones’ calling cards were a deep respect for the classical archi-tecture of South Georgia and restraint. He used both for the Algers at Tarva. The Algers did not stay long at Tarva, selling to Mary Haskell Hunter

of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947. Mrs. Hunter was the granddaughter of Howard Melville Hanna, a brother of the more famous Marcus Alonzo or Mark Hanna. Howard joined his brother in forming the M. A. Hanna Co., now Polyone Corp. He was involved in shipping and oil, eventually selling his energy interests to Stan-dard Oil of Ohio. Various family members owned hunting properties near Thomasville. Russell Alger and Mary Hunter may have been acquainted through their grandfathers’ connections with President McKinley or Mrs. Hunter may have simply been smitten with Tarva. However she ended up in Baker Coun-ty rather than in Thomasville, once she came, she held the property until her death in 1972. During her ownership, she continued work with Jones and later with Frank McCall

of Moultrie on renovating the kitchen. She collected numerous antiques and brought an aunt’s collection of ruby glass to add to the charm of the place. She named it Tarva, ostensibly because everyone pronounced it like that any-way. Her will left her real property, including a horse farm near Lexington, Kentucky, and a ranch in Missoula, Montana, to her daughter, Barbara. Barbara Hunter’s passion was breeding and racing thoroughbreds at her Brownwood Farm. In a 2010 article about Brownwood in the racing publi-cation, BloodHorse, her farm manager was quoted as saying, “She’s not much on changing things.” So it was at Tarva. Things continued on for the next forty years pretty much as they had for the prior twenty-five. Since Ms. Hunter’s death in 2012, the current owners have worked to bring Tarva up to date without sacrificing its inherent charms. Much of that charm derives from the scale of the place. Rather than replicating the Greek temples others were building in the 1850s, the Tarvers chose a form ultimately derived from the “cottages” of Louisiana and the tropics. The house is a one story structure with porch supported by square posts span-ning the facade, all under a relatively low hip roof. The entry, and its mates on both sides of the house feature wide, four-panel, double doors with transoms and sidelights, the latter aligned with the panes of the other win-dows. The entrance has a the only trim in the house truly in the Greek mode with its fluted pilasters and entablature, and the porch posts are spread at

the center to allow a full view of it. The fully turned balusters of the porch railing contrast with the simplicity of the posts. The remarkable thing about the house is the cross hall which opens to porches on either side of the house. The intersection of the two halls is reflected in the diagonals of the wide pine flooring, reminiscent of the cross-ing in a cruciform church. At the corners of these halls, four equal size rooms with ceilings over fifteen feet high and fireplaces in interior chimneys provide twin parlors, the dining room, and the principal bedroom. The parlors open off the hall through high double doors and each fea-tures four windows. Those facing the front of the house extend to the floor. These room have large plaster medal-lions and elaborate cornices rising from an egg-and-dart molding and including a grapevine motif popular in the era. The woodwork on the interior, other than the mantels, hints at the coming Italianate style with its use of modified pediments over the all openings. Another pair of double doors are available to sepa-rate the principal bedroom and the two which are located in line with it from the main part of the house. All of these originally opened to a shuttered porch which was presum-ably enclosed by Edward Vason Jones, to judge from its el-egant triple-hung windows. This and the rebuilding of the steps to the three porches are the only visible signs of intervention by Jones, a testimony to his deft handling of the insertion of modern necessities. The only major changes which have occurred to the house are in the the kitchen wing. There are references to the original kitchen being a separate building which would be expected for a house of this stature in 1850. There are also references to the hall behind the dining room having been a breeze-way. The best guess is that the current kitchen was added at some point in the late 19th century and connected by a breezeway. This is consistent with the lower height of its ceilings and would have still allowed for windows on the rear wall of the dining room, maintaining the symmetry of the house. Regardless of when the conversion took place, the dining room still has two marvelous windows and the kitchen would make any caterer green with envy. The current owners have brought the entire house into pristine con-dition. The furnishings from the Hunters’ times have been augmented with comfort in mind. The baths and systems have been updated to the highest standards and the glass in the bedroom windows onto the porch has been replaced with mirror to ensure privacy for all who are lucky enough to stay there. The two guest rooms in the adjacent cottage have also been updated. They have undertaken the challenge of preparing the land to serve as a prime hunting property. The result is a remarkable house on an idyllic expanse of land. The combination is as rare as the care which succeeding owners have lavished on this South Georgia landmark.

Tarva Plantation 1850 was researched, written, and designed by John David Myles, principal of Wild Holly Studio. An attorney, former circuit judge, and preservationist, he has written and lectured for the Filson Historical Society in his native Kentucky and is the author of a soon to be published comprehensive study of historic archi-tecture in Shelby County, Kentucky. Myles has also consulted on various restoration projects. He and his wife, Mary Helen, received awards from the Ida Lee Willis Foun-dation and Preservation Kentucky for their restoration of the 1839 John Dale house in Simpsonville, Kentucky, where they live with their Scottish terrier and stray cat.

This report was commissioned by Chip Hall and Lee Walters,Plantation Services, Charleston, South Carolina, and Albany, Georgia

Copyright 2016 Wild Holly Studios

W I L D H O L LY S T U D I O 1908 Webb Road, Simpsonville, Kentucky 40067 (502)722-0819 (502)381-0791 jdm@johndavidmyles.comm