My last post about the creative genius of the late Furlow Gatewood mentioned that he hailed from Americus, Georgia, described by Mr. Gatewood’s friend, designer Bunny Williams, in the Foreword of the book One Man’s Folly: The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood, as “a wealthy farm town.”
Although many in the world of architecture, design and antiques considered Gatewood one of their most talented peers, he was largely self-educated and scarcely known outside their circles. Knowing that, and having visited his Georgia hometown myself, I was struck by the architecture in the small town where he was born and raised and the influence that it must have had on him from an early age.
Americus isn’t a large city. At last count, the population was 15,642. Sumter County, of which Americus is the county seat, is made up of broad fields and groves of pecan trees. The cotton, tobacco, and peanuts from those fields, combined with the pecan harvest, is still big business. Built largely after the Civil War and benefitting not only from the cash crops but also from a fortuitously located railroad, “wealthy farm town” was and still is a fitting description. And one of the surest signs of that early wealth still exists in the form of the lovely old houses. Predominately Italianate and Victorian, with more than a few very worthy structures from much earlier thrown in for good measure, their broad porches feature elaborate examples of fine corbels, brackets, moldings, columns and spindles. Paired with the lush warm climate of this region which makes for lawns and gardens overflowing with abundance, I can easily understand the creative hothouse that helped form the design aesthetic that became Furlow Gatewood’s signature style.
In that light, I thought you might enjoy a stroll around a small residential section of the town that he called home.