Photograph courtesy of Dane Sponberg
Glenn Wallace, SCAD senior vice president for college resources and the visionary behind the SCAD Design Group, spoke on Sunday, August 15 to a packed house about Ivy Hall and its award-winning restoration by the university. The house is located on Ponce de Leon Ave., in midtown Atlanta. Vice President Wallace described the labor of love that is now the Writing Center for SCAD’s emerging young writers. “It’s about the students,” Wallace told the audience, which took up the top portion of the house as well as the downstairs foyer. “We want to this facility to be used for the next generations and beyond,” he elaborated.
The Peters family first built Ivy Hall in the 1880s and after their departure, the building was turned into a restaurant called The Mansion in the 1970s. The building has not only had many different owners, but has also experienced numerous fires in its long existence. The ivy-laced structure has been taken apart and put back together in some areas, but stands as monumentally beautiful as its original self.
Although the neighborhood surrounding Ivy Hall has become more urban and modern over the years, the house renovations have restored the building to nearly its original 1883 architecture. Some of the house’s original features include its fireplaces and glassed-in porch. The building’s modern conveniences are camouflaged in its historical façade and detailed characteristics. Vice President Wallace described the house as “the iPhone of its day, with cutting edge technology and leading ideas for the future …” with as much zest and zeal as the building had in its heyday. Students come to study, learn and write inside a beautiful work of art as well as a technologically up-to-date facility.
“This is about the students and how we can use great things to restore the building … but if it doesn’t have the life continuance [for students and beyond], then it doesn’t matter. It’s about the next life afterwards and what we will do [to continue to grow],” Wallace stated. Echoing his message, Albert Cuspin-Annkah, a third year interior design student, stated that the building’s architecture “inspires” him and that he is “amazed at how they pulled everything together.” The awe of the students and other guests at the lecture demonstrates how far Ivy Hall has come and how the facility can continue to be a beneficial learning environment for generations to come.