SPARTA, Ga. — Near downtown Sparta sits a beautiful white house. Just down the road is its twin building, but they look nothing alike anymore.
The former is thriving after being restored, while the other awaits a buyer to return it to its original glory.
The former Sparta Female Dormitory was built in 1815, and the front of the house was added in 1831. The two-story structure was the Sparta Female Model School, established in 1832.
The building offers 3,800-square feet of living space on 0.31 acres, but it needs a lot of work.
Owner Amber Rhea bought the house in Feb. 2020 looking to save it. "It just seemed like the right thing to do," she said.
She bought it at an auction only a week after learning about the building.
"We were the only bidders," she said. "That was kind of validating... it just kind of confirmed that if we had not purchased the house [then] it would still be today at the same state it was in a little over a year ago, and the future would be very uncertain."
Rhea and her business partner tamed the overgrowth surrounding the house, and an architect came out and did a structural inspection to write up a report.
"We did get it to a place where it's more stable than it was," she said.
The interior of the house was cleaned out. They secured windows in a non-destructive way and made repairs to the roof.
"Ultimately it's in pretty good structural condition," Rhea said. "It's not something that is going to collapse tomorrow."
A look inside the Sparta Female Dormitory building
Now here's where the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation comes in. Through the Revolving Fund, they're hoping to sell the building to a preservation-minded buyer.
"We exist to save Georgia's historical buildings," said president and CEO Mark McDonald. "We're trying to save it, because it has an extreme amount of historical significance."
McDonald says Rhea "saved this building from demolition," but that it's not completely safe until someone commits to buying and fixing it up.
"This is really a last ditch effort to try and save a historic, important building," he said.
Its twin building is owned by someone else and has been rehabilitated.
"People could look at that one and see what it would look like after they rehabilitated the property," McDonald said.
McDonald says the buildings are important because of the history of female education in a time that "education was something that was limited to people with lots of money."
Once someone buys the building, they will begin a process of making plans, getting those plans approved by the Georgia Trust, and starting construction. The person who buys the house will have a two-year deadline to finish restoring the house, but extensions can be granted if progress is being made.
McDonald says that if someone would "step forward" and buy the house, it would save it from being demolished.
If you want to learn more about the building, or you are interested in buying it, you can contact Dennis Lovello at the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation at 478-885-7819.
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