Details

Subject(s)

• Businessmen—Georgia—Atlanta—Biography [Browse]
• Millionaires—Georgia—Atlanta—Biography [Browse]
• Atlanta (Ga.)—Biography [Browse]
• Briarcliff Mansion (Atlanta, Ga.) [Browse]
• Candler, Asa Jr. 1880-1953 [Browse]
• Candler, Asa Jr. 1880-1953—Homes and haunts [Browse]
• Chandler family [Browse]

Summary note

"Nestled in the outskirts of Atlanta, in a suburb called Druid Hills, lies Briarcliff Mansion. It sits on Briarcliff Road in the Briarcliff neighborhood, surrounded by strip malls and business with Briarcliff in their names. The mansion and the land it occupies are owned by Emory University, which refers to it as its "Briarcliff Campus." Fortune and Folly, in part, illuminates the largely lost story of how the mansion, and the entire surrounding neighborhood, got its name. But in order to understand the mansion, we have to understand the man who built it. Briarcliff Mansion once belonged to a man named Asa Candler, Jr.-or Buddie as friends and family knew him. The second son and namesake of Coca-Cola founder Asa Griggs Candler, Buddie was a wealthy real estate developer of great successes and greater failures. A man of big vision and bigger adventures, and a socialite whose boisterous, unapologetic personality made him both beloved and reviled in the Atlanta community between 1910 and 1950. But after he passed away in 1953, his stories faded from memory, either tangled up with or overshadowed by his father. It's no mystery why Briarcliff garners attention. It's self-consciously grandiose, built to display maximum grandeur to the neighborhood. It towers over the landscape, set far back from the road behind a filled-in, overgrown pool. Its face is stitched together where a music hall was added two years after the main house was completed, and the bricks don't quite match up. Fortune and Folly offers a deep-dive into the life of Asa Candler, Jr. to excavate a piece-and place-of Atlanta history"-- Provided by publisher.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references.

Contents

• Part 1 The early years
• A Boy Named Buddie
• In the Heart of Dear Old Emory
• Go West, Young Man
• Mill, Marriage, and Family
• Part 2 Young professional
• The People's Buddie
• Gentlemen, Start Your Engines
• The Legend of the Merry Widow
• Trouble at the Track
• The Fall of the Atlanta Speedway
• Buddie the Phoenix: The Great Garage Fire of 1911
• Part 3 Welcome to Briarcliff
• Build Your Own Empire
• A New Cycle Begins
• Buddie the Phoenix: The Great Sell-Off (Love, Loss, and Real Estate)
• Part 4 Midlife and more
• Airplanes and the Dark Arts
• Lions and Tigers and Elephants?
• Laundry and the Eternal
• Buddie Candler on Trial
• The Long, Slow Slide
• Buddie's Best Buds
• What's Next for Briarcliff Mansion?

Show 21 more Contents items

Other title(s)

Weird and wonderful life of the South's most eccentric millionaire

ISBN

• 9780820365237 (paperback)
• 0820365238 (paperback)

LCCN

2023031440

OCLC

1389607580

Statement on responsible collection description

Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...