MACON, Ga. — A century-old home in Macon’s Cherokee Heights neighborhood is the city's latest property facing demolition and neglect.
The Historic Macon Foundation announced they've added the Hillyer-Kernaghan home to their 2024 Fading Five List. It’s an annual look at historic properties in need of preservation.
Julia Morrison said when she moved to the neighborhood two years ago, she noticed it right away.
"Driving by the street and this pink house with the beautiful columns and some of the details stood out to me so much and it's an incredible historic house," she said.
Morrison is one of the neighbors who nominated the five-bedroom, three-bathroom home for the Fading Five List. She said it’s a house with dignity that deserves preservation.
"I started looking into the history of the house, some of the people who lived in it before, some of the different families, it's clear that it's had a really long shelf life and that it was built to last," Morrison said.
Morrison said she believes the restoration of the home will sustain the neighborhood's history.
The home, built in 1910 for a banker and his family, is on sale for $225,000. It was designed by prominent architect Neel Reid. Historic Macon Foundation Executive Director Nathan Lott said they hope putting it on the list will bring more attention to it.
"The fact that there is a 1910 Neel-redesigned house here in Macon that needs a preservation-minded buyer who's willing to perhaps sink time, money and above all passion into it and bring it back to its glory,” Lott said. “That would be the ideal scenario, it may take time."
Right now, the 4,700 square-foot house is vacant, and someone recently started a fire inside. Lott said the goal is always getting the property sold, restored and removed from the list, but it doesn't always happen that way.
“There have been a couple that were delisted because they were torn down or they were lost forever," he said.
Lott said Historic Macon can help a potential buyer get historic tax credits and a property tax freeze to help with the costs. To learn more, you can visit the Historic Macon Foundation website.
The 2024 Fading Five List also includes four other historic properties. Some of them date back to the 1880s. The D.T. Walton Building, which was once a prominent center for black-owned businesses during the Jim Crow era. The Dr. E.E. Green House, which was once home to the central city drug store in the 1890s. The Roxy Theatre, which was a rare steel-arched structure. And the First National Bank and Trust building, which was one of the youngest buildings to join a Fading Five List.