The Hillyer-Kernaghan House, designed by renowned architect Neel Reid, was added to the Historic Macon Foundations’s 2024 Fading Five list on Thursday.

The preservation nonprofit also removed from the list of threatened sites the Willingham-McBrearty House on College Street, on the list since 2021. In doing so, Historic Macon deemed it no longer under threat.

Nathan Lott, Historic Macon’s executive director, made the announcements from the site of the Hillyer-Kernaghan House, located at 2715 Cherokee Ave.

“The sites on this year’s list are important to the Macon community, and we’re dedicated to saving all of them with help from our partners and our supporters,” Lott said. “We are grateful for everyone who believes in our mission and stands with us.”

Historic Macon sifts through nominations each year to craft its Macon’s Fading Five list. 2024 marks the 10th year of the program, which calls attention to historic sites across Macon-Bibb County that could be lost due to insensitive development or neglect.

Since the launch of the Fading Five program in 2015, Historic Macon has put 20  properties on the list. To date, 14 of them have been saved and protected while just one has been lost. 

In 2014, the community lost two historic structures, Tremont Temple Baptist Church and the former Charles H. Douglass home, to commercial development, prompting the Fading Five initiative.

A property remains on the list until the site is no longer under threat, the foundation determines that it has been appropriately preserved, or it is lost. An updated list is announced annually.

Thanks to the generosity of The 1772 Foundation and the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, HMF has a dedicated fund — the Fading Five Fund — to preserve endangered places in the community. Those funds have been used to revitalize houses in the North Highlands neighborhood and acquire the old Fire Hall No. 4 on Third Street, which is now Historic Macon’s office. A majority of the sites that have been saved, however, were rescued by private owners.

Besides the Hillyer-Kernaghan House, Macon’s Fading Five list for 2024 also includes: the D.T. Walton Building; the Dr. E.E. Green House; the Roxy Theatre; and the First National Bank and Trust Co. Building. 

HILLYER-KERNAGHAN HOUSE, 2715 CHEROKEE AVE.

Acclaimed architect Neel Reid designed the Italianate villa-style home, and it was built in 1910 for banker L.P. Hillyer and his wife, Lela.

Hillyer worked for American National Bank of Macon, and he later founded and was president of Bibb National Bank He was a founding director of the Federal Reserve in Atlanta. He died in 1921. The Kernaghan family, of Kernaghan-Goodman Jewelers in Macon, owned the home for decades. The current owner is Billings Enterprises in Warner Robins.

The unoccupied house — about 4,700 square feet — has five bedrooms and three bathrooms, and it sits on about an acre of property in the Cherokee Heights neighborhood. A fire inside the house, believed to have been started by a vagrant, damaged historic wainscoting and scarred the window openings, leaving the house threatened from “demolition by neglect.” It is for sale, and a committed preservationist could purchase and restore the home. 

The home is one of several along Vineville Avenue, its cross streets and  in Cherokee Heights where Reid designed a series of American Georgian, Colonial Revival and Italian Renaissance derivations in the years before World War I. They represent a simpler era of sleeping porches, garden houses and graceful gardens approached through French doors.

FIRST NATIONAL BANK AND TRUST CO., 2791 HOUSTON AVE.

This building, built in 1957 as the southside branch of the First National Bank & Trust Co., closed in 2000. It made the Fading Five list in 2021 — the youngest building ever listed. The property was purchased in February 2019 for $32,000. 

It is a mid-century modern building, designed by Macon architect W. Elliott Dunwody Jr. It has traditional and art deco details, such as the door surround and the belt course under the roof, reminiscent of a Greek temple.

It is now back on the market, and Historic Macon is eager to work with a new owner to find a viable new use for the sturdy building.

D.T. WALTON BUILDING

What is now the D.T. Walton Building, located at 591 D.T. Walton Way, was built in 1887. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982.

Dr. D.T. Walton Sr. bought the building — at the intersection of Cotton Avenue and New Street — in 1936, and he operated his dental office there. It’s part of the Cotton Avenue District, a major center of Black-owned businesses that flourished during the Jim Crow era of strictly enforced racial segregation.

Other businesses operated out of the building over the years, including the offices of Drs. Wanza A. Davis and Joshua S. Williams; Dixie Tobacco and Candy; the Dixon John Radio Service; Lary’s Bakery; Six Point Weiner Stand; J.L. Montgomery Art Supply Co.; a harness maker; a life insurance company and a women’s clothing store.

The building, which the nearby First Baptist Church now owns, has been vacant since about 2005. Historic Macon is in dialogue with the congregation’s leadership about grant opportunities for sites associated with African American history and the civil rights movement. Additional research and documentation may be required, though, to secure such funding.

THE ROXY THEATRE, 445 HAZEL ST.

The Roxy Theatre was deemed eligible for the National Register of Historic Places by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs in the areas of  entertainment/recreation and ethnic heritage as an example of a venue built specifically for African American entertainment during the era of segregation. The building is a rare surviving example of a Quonset hut-type structure adapted for use as a theater.

It was built in 1949 and hosted both movies and live performances until 1958, when the theater closed.

Renovating the building would energize economic development in the surrounding Greenwood Bottom area and complement commercial development along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. It is presently secure, and the surrounding grounds are maintained. However, a broken window and tree sprouting near the foundation indicate a longtime vacancy.

DR. E.E. GREEN HOUSE, 353 MADISON ST. 

Dr. E.E. Green graduated from Howard University Medical School in 1886, and he and his family moved to Macon afterward. In 1890, four years later, he built a house at what was then 405 Madison St., in the heart of the Pleasant Hill neighborhood. It was home for Green, his wife, Georgia, and their four children — two of whom went on to work in medicine.

Later, he also moved a pharmacy that he owned in Macon, Central City Drug Store, into his home, and he may also have treated patients there too. 

The house is about 2,700 square feet. After the Greens lived there, it was a single-family home for teachers and others for the next 20 years. It was turned into apartments in 1950, and it has sat vacant since 2000.

Tops Housing LLC in Lawrenceville bought the home in 2021 for $37,000. It has since transferred twice and is now owned by Atlanta-based Taishan Capital Ventures. As it sits vacant, repair work seemingly stalled. Historic Macon is eager to help remedy this unnecessary example of demolition by neglect.