Stone Mountain Park hasn't decided what to do with manor home that belonged to a Civil War colonel and caught fire five months ago

A protective tarp is torn and no longer covers much of the roof (Picket photo)

Five months after it was ravaged by fire, no decision has been made on the fate of a historic home that is the centerpiece of a recreated antebellum plantation at Stone Mountain Park.

The Davis-Dickey home, which was owned by a Confederate colonel, was believed to be a total loss. The November 2023 fire was concentrated in the center and upper portions of the home; its wings were not as damaged. The park is east of Atlanta.

The Georgia fire marshal’s office determined that an electrical fault in conduit near the entrance to the home was the cause of the fire.

I drove by Historic Square, home to the manor residence, last week. A blue tarp placed over the roof after the blaze was in pieces, leaving sections of the roof open to the elements. There was no sign of activity at the home, which is surrounded by a security fence.

“Fate of building is pending,” park spokesman John Bankhead said in a Monday email, without elaborating or speaking to whether the house may be rebuilt. All items, mostly period furniture and antiques, not damaged by the fire are in storage, Bankhead said.

More damage is evident on the other side of the house (Stone Mtn Park Dept. of Public Safety)

The Davis-Dickey home is among a collection of relocated antebellum structures in Historic Square. The residence was built in the community of Dickey, west of Albany, Ga., for the family of slaveholder Charles Milton Davis, who left Aiken, S.C., in 1850. It was moved to Stone Mountain in 1961. The house faces the park's famous Confederate memorial carving.

Davis served as a colonel in the Calhoun County cavalry. Other websites indicated he served as well in the 12^th Battalion Georgia Cavalry and the 10^th Georgia State Troops. All of the units appeared to be stationed in Georgia.

Stone Mountain Park in recent years has been under pressure to remove features, street names or exhibits that depict what critics and scholars call symbols of the Lost Cause and white supremacy. The Stone Mountain Memorial Association has pledged to make changes, but some say the pace has been too slow. The park last year relocated four Confederate flags that were next to a popular trail.

Stone Mountain rises behind the home before the fire (Jason Armstrong, HMdb.org)

Architectural historian Lydia Mattice Brandt and associate professor of history Philip Mills Herrington, writing in the March 2022 Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, detailed the history, timeline and goals of the antebellum plantation now known as Historic Square.

They write that the plantation complex buttressed Georgia’s resistance to desegregation in the late 1950s and early 1960s and is a mixture of fact and fantasy. The authors suggest a reinterpretation of the square is critically important.

The Picket has reached out to the Stone Mountain Memorial Association for comment on the current role and possible future of Historic Square but has received no reply. I saw several groups touring the site last week.