The neighborhood was designed for Atlanta’s social, business, and government elites. Many were moving away from their former homes on Peachtree Street, which was becoming more commercialized. Tuxedo Park was a welcome escape from the crowded city, increasingly sooty from all the trains. With an automobile, which at that time only the very well-to-do could afford, the ride into town took just 20 minutes.

Over time, other developers created six smaller neighborhoods  surrounding the original subdivision. All were influenced by the country-retreat design aesthetic of Tuxedo Park, which included mandatory large lots, uniform deep setbacks, and curvilinear roads respectful of the hilly terrain and winding creeks and streams. The area in general became popularly known as Tuxedo Park.

As an early 20th century suburban development, the district contains most of the then-popular, turn-of-the-century Revival styles, many designed by well-known architects, including Frazier & Bodin; Cooper & Cooper; Hentz, Reid & Adler (later Hentz, Adler & Shutze); Ivey & Crook; Pringle & Smith; James Owen Southwell; Philip Trammell Shutze; Thomas G. Little, Sr.; and André Steiner. The sections of the neighborhood developed after World War II contain one- and two-story houses in a variety of styles, including Colonial Revival, French Vernacular, International, Neoclassical Revival, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired, and Rustic.

Various entities have tried to get Tuxedo Park listed in the National Register since the 1990s, but without success. The Tuxedo Park Civic Association hired Laura Drummond in January 2023 to attempt a nomination. It was a lengthy process, but Laura presented the nomination to the Georgia National Register Review Board in November 2024, and the Tuxedo Park Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on February 24, 2025.

The building displays a classical linear configuration consisting of a large, two-story, central block (corps de logis) flanked by single-story wings (hyphens), which are themselves flanked by larger but secondary cubes (pavilions) at each end. Although an assemblage of different masses, the house is balanced and perfectly symmetrical around the central north-south axis. The central block houses the grand central staircase, dining and living rooms, kitchen, and major bedrooms. The north side of the main block features a central two-story projecting bay and floor-to-ceiling jib-head windows opening onto a large flagstone terrace with stairs leading into the expansive gardens.

The house has had minimal alterations since its construction. Original windows, doors, flooring, hardware, elaborate moldings, two fireplaces, an iron spiral staircase, a curved bar, and other design features remain intact. The original Athos Menaboni oil-painted murals in the game room, although covered by modern latex-based paint, are recoverable. The library retains the original vermillion red chosen by Shutze to match the color of the main gallery of the 1817 Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, designed by famous Regency architect John Soane.

The property of just over 1.5 acres is located in Tuxedo Park, a residential neighborhood in the northwest section of Atlanta called Buckhead. Gently rolling hills, winding creeks, and mature hardwoods characterize this select–and historic–residential area which was first developed during the early decades of the twentieth century.

Laura Drummond presented the completed nomination to the Georgia National Register Review Board on October 28, 2022, and the property was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on December 19, 2022.

Contractors Donaldson & Pierson began construction of the load-bearing brick building with limestone accents in June 1905.  It was dedicated on May 30, 1906, and the first students moved in during September of that year.  Notable architectural features include two cupolas, seven chimneys, a wrap-around verandah with star-patterned balustrade, decorative eave brackets, and a double front-entrance door with leaded glass sidelights and a four-lite arched fanlight. The ground floor historically housed the dining hall, kitchen, chapel, meeting rooms, and parlors, while the upper two floors were dormitories.  Today the dormitories remain upstairs, but the ground floor now has a central lobby, the Katherine Woltz Reception Room, and the College Admissions, Development, and Marketing & Public Relations offices.

For the project, Laura Drummond of APPS with Jean Spencer, paint conservator, investigated the building, taking photographs, and collecting mortar and paint samples.  Paint analysis was performed by Frank Welsh of Welsh Color & Conservation, Inc., while David Arbogast of Arbogast Mortar Analysis tested the mortar and stucco samples. Laura’s report included a building description, a building chronology, an assessment of the exterior conditions, and prioritized maintenance recommendations.

The award-winning rehabilitation of Rebekah was done by Jenkins·Peer Architects of Charlotte, NC. In 2018, the building won the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation Chairman’s Award for Excellence in Sustainable Rehabilitation, and received LEED Platinum Certification. In 2020, Rebekah received the North Carolina AIA Tower Award.

For over 130 years, Bethel A.M.E. Church has served not only as a house of worship, but also as the social center and principal gathering place of the community.  The church was designated a City of Acworth Historic Landmark in 1998, and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on May 9, 2002.  The Romanesque Revival style church is a rare example of a 19th century African American church that remains virtually intact and still home to a vibrant A.M.E. congregation.  In 2012, the church authorized the documentation of the property in a conditions assessment report undertaken by Laura Drummond of APPS.  The report was the preliminary to a capital campaign to raise funds for the rehabilitation of the church.

This historic site is owned by the City of Roswell, who commissioned a Historic Structure Report from Robert & Company.  Laura Drummond was hired as the the project leader.  She investigated, researched, and produced the report, including construction history, architectural analysis, conditions assessment, maintenance plan, recommendations for preservation and treatment, and photographic documentation of the fourteen-acre site.

Before forming APPS, Laura Drummond was a co-founder and partner in Keystone Preservation Associates.  In 2010, the City commissioned Keystone to head a team to produce a nomination for the historic downtown district to the National Register of Historic Places.  Laura took district photographs and produced the district maps.  She researched and wrote the 26-page Description Section of the nomination, compiled supporting documentation, historic maps and photographs, and she edited the final document.  The Decatur Downtown Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on May 23, 2012, NRIS #12000281.

Laura also researched the histories of the various tabby structures on Ossabaw, one of Georgia’s coastal barrier islands, and helped create an Interpretive Plan for the three circa 1840 tabby slave cabins of the island’s North End Plantation.  The Plan was produced by the Heritage Preservation Program at Georgia State University.

On a return trip to Ossabaw Island, Laura assisted in the restoration of the tabby on the three cabins, which housed slaves, and later, servants until the 1990s.

Constructed on the town’s high ground, the main house is a traditional ‘white columned’ Greek Revival style home, but with the distinction of being rotated forty-five degrees so that the front entrance is in the north shed facade of the side gable roof, while the two ‘temple-front’ pediments face east and west.

This historic site, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, is owned by the City of Roswell, who commissioned a Historic Structures Report from Robert & Company.  Laura Drummond was hired as the the project leader.  She investigated, researched, and produced the report, including construction history, architectural analysis, conditions assessment, maintenance plan, recommendations for preservation and treatment, and photographic documentation of the seven-building site.

The main house and surviving outbuildings were in the possession of Hembree family members until 2007, when the farmhouse, the detached kitchen, two corn cribs, and one acre of land were donated to the Roswell Historical Society.

Recognizing that they possessed rare examples of nineteenth-century farm buildings under single-family ownership, the Roswell Historical Society obtained a National Trust for Historic Preservation grant to document the property.  Laura Drummond was hired to produce architectural evaluations and conditions assessments of the four buildings.

The various owners have added to the buildings and gardens, creating the estate that is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places.  A cultural landscape report was commissioned from Robert and Company, and Laura Drummond was part of the team that documented the sixteen-acre property.  She researched and wrote the history of the site and its owners, as well as the history and descriptions of the eleven historic character areas, encompassing eighteen buildings and structures.

Image, above: Italianate-style main house during the Arrowsmith ownership (1885-1910), probably similar to its original appearance.

Image, top right:  Main house, southwest corner; Historic American Buildings Survey; Bernard W. Close, Photographer; 18 August 1936.