One of the historic summer homes of Dunwoody is the Cassidy-Lamb Home, circa 1930, located off Happy Hollow Road on West Fontainebleau Court. Dunwoody, Brookhaven and Sandy Springs became popular locations for Atlanta residents to build a summer cottage beginning in the 1920s through the 1940s.
I’ve already told the story of Maddox and Ebersole ownership of this home on pasttensega.com. The most outlandish story of Happy Hollow ownership is that of Janet Gray which I wrote for the Dunwoody Crier newspaper and can be found here.
In 2016, Brenda and Ken Lamb were the owners of Cassidy-Lamb Home and gave me a tour of the lovely, historic home. They first moved there in 1979.
When 92-year-old Sally O’Keefe Gurley Batson joined us for the tour, she was able to provide additional history. Mrs. Batson and her sister Clara O’Keeffe Black are granddaughters of the original owner, Clara Belle McMullen Cherry Cassidy. They often visited their grandmother’s home as children along with their mother Willie Belle Cherry O’Keefe.
Diane Black of Dunwoody and her daughter Catherine (fourth generation of the Cassidy family) brought Sally Batson to visit the home and share her memories.
Cassidy Lamb House, taken in the 1990s by Lynn Byrd of Dunwoody Preservation Trust.
Construction of the home began in 1930. Mrs. Batson recalled that Mr. Woodall, who lived nearby did repairs on the home and may have been the original builder. The stone foundation and stone fireplace add to the beauty of the home. A stone barbeque pit is also part of the property and was fondly remembered by Mrs. Batson. The home features tongue and groove pine paneling and coffered ceilings. The original home was on one hundred and forty acres, which the grandchildren enjoyed exploring.
“It was like going camping,” recalled Mrs. Batson of spending time at the home with no running water and no bathrooms. She remembered pumping water on the porch and bringing buckets of water into the house. The pump was still there on the porch, which had since been enclosed.
Their Uncle George Harvey Ferguson had a log cabin across Happy Hollow and the children would usually go there to swim because their pool had a sliding board. The Cassidy’s built a pool into an area of a creek on their property, but preferred the uncle’s pool.
A nearby tenant farmer named Mr. Robb looked after the home for the family. He grew corn and cotton on the land. Mrs. Batson fondly remembered playing with the Robb children when she came for visits.
Mrs. Batson remembered the road where the house and farm were located as having the same name in the 1930’s as today, Happy Hollow Road. She also recalled a country store at the intersection of Happy Hollow Road and Peeler Road, which they would sometimes stop at on their way to the family farm. This store was run by members of the Woodall family.
Batson’s grandparents were Clara Belle McMullen and William H. Cherry, who married in 1901 and had four children. William Cherry died, leaving Clara a widow who needed a way to support herself and her children, so she began selling insurance policies for Woodmen of the World.
Woodmen of the World was initially a fraternal organization that provided headstones at the time of its members death but evolved into an insurance company over time. Mrs. Cassidy rode the bus to visit women at their homes and talk with both husband and wife about the need for a policy on the wife. She would sometimes receive an invitation to stay for dinner (a Southern reference to lunch, of course) and would discuss the policy over the meal. Mrs. Cassidy later became the state manager for Woodmen of the World for Georgia and Tennessee and eventually moved to work at the company headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska.
Clara Cassidy lived at 33 Albion Avenue in Atlanta in the 1920’s. In 1927, she married John Patrick Cassidy and they continued to live at Albion Avenue. They started construction of the summer house on 1930, but Clara Cassidy oversaw its completion after he died in 1931. She moved to an apartment at 1765 Peachtree Street and continued to maintain and enjoy her summer home, sharing it with family until 1942.
Gasoline rationing began in 1942 as a result of World War II and Mrs. Cassidy was only allowed about one to one and a half gallons of gasoline per week. This wasn’t enough for trips to the farm. After Clara Cassidy sold the property, it was owned and used as a hunting lodge by First National Bank executive Baxter Maddox.
This historic home was in the path of the 1998 tornado, but Ken and Brenda Lamb took care to repair all the damages. Their home sustained so much damage, it was condemned at one point, but thankfully the history of the home convinced officials that it should be repaired.
Sally O’Keefe Gurley Batson died at the age of 94 in 2018 and is buried at Westview Cemetery. I’m happy I had the chance to meet her and tour the Cassidy Lamb House as she shared her memories.