Information
Landmark: Ware-Lyndon HouseCity: Athens City
Country: USA Georgia
Continent: North America
Ware-Lyndon House, Athens City, USA Georgia, North America
Overview
In Athens, Georgia, the Ware-Lyndon House stands as a landmark-its wide porch and tall windows marking it as both a treasured historic home and a vibrant cultural hub.People praise it for its mid-19th-century architecture, its place in Athens’ history, and the way it links antebellum Southern society with today’s community arts-like the lively weekend workshops that spill music into the street.Today, it’s a house museum tucked inside the larger Lyndon House Arts Center, a place locals visit to wander sunlit rooms and connect with one of Athens’ most treasured cultural landmarks.Around 1850, Dr.Edward R. built the house, its brick walls still holding the warmth of a long-ago hearth.Ware was a respected physician who arrived in Athens in 1829, stepping off the coach with a worn leather bag in hand.Dr.Ware emerged as one of the first leaders in the town’s medical circles, tending to patients from the Civil War days well into the years that followed.Living in that grand old house, and backed by his high social standing, he turned the Ware residence into a lively hub for Athens’ gatherings, where polished floors echoed with music and conversation.In 1880, Dr.Edward S. took over, his name freshly painted on the wooden sign by the door.Lyndon, a well-known Athenian, ran a bustling drugstore and a noisy planing mill that later grew into the Athens Lumber Company.While Lyndon owned it, the house stayed at the heart of Athens’ upper-class social scene, its front porch often lit with the glow of evening gatherings.The Ware-Lyndon House stands as a rare survivor of Greek Revival design touched with Italianate flair, its tall, narrow windows catching the sunlight in the heart of Athens’ Southern streets.The house blends Greek Revival symmetry with tall, square-paneled columns holding up a broad portico, gabled pediments, and a classical entablature, while Italianate touches appear in its wide eaves with decorative brackets, arched and segmented windows, and ornate railings and doorways.Inside, high ceilings recall pre–Civil War Southern homes; nearly every main room features an ornate fireplace with a carved mantel, and period furnishings are arranged to echo the daily life of wealthy Athenians in the mid‑1800s.A grand staircase rises toward double parlors once lively with guests, and the property originally stretched from the North Oconee River westward into what’s now the heart of urban Athens.Most of the original grounds have vanished under concrete and asphalt, yet the site still holds the home’s spirit and its place in history.Over nearly two centuries, the Ware-Lyndon House has worn many hats, mirroring Athens’ shifting identity.In the early 1900s, after the Lyndon family left, the city took the keys.In 1939, the city bought its first property that wasn’t a government building-a brick house with sun-warmed steps.During World War II, the house served as a USO center, where soldiers could grab a hot cup of coffee and families found comfort in its warm, bustling rooms.From the 1950s through the 1970s, the Recreation Department ran the house, turning it into a lively spot where neighbors gathered over coffee and conversation.In 1973, the house became Athens’ first city-backed arts program, a shift that paved the way for its role today as part of the Lyndon House Arts Center, where sunlight spills across gallery floors.In 1976, it joined the National Register of Historic Places, its brick façade now officially part of history.In 1988, it was officially named a local Historic Landmark, securing its protection under city law like an old brick building locked safely behind iron gates.Today, the Ware-Lyndon House stands preserved as a public historic museum, where visitors can wander through its sunlit rooms on guided tours or join educational programs.You’ll find restored rooms filled with period-accurate furnishings, shelves lined with delicate decorative arts, and displays that bring 19th-century Athens daily life into sharp focus.Exhibits delve into social dynamics and race relations of the time, sharing stories of enslaved individuals who once lived on the property.Visitors can choose guided tours or wander on their own, with each path offering insight into the contrasting worlds of the elite and the marginalized during both the antebellum and postbellum eras.Next to the old historic home, the Lyndon House Arts Center opened in 1999, a bright, airy space born from a major push to expand and modernize.Inside this arts complex, you’ll find light-filled galleries with rotating shows by local and regional artists, studios for ceramics, painting, printmaking, and photography, classrooms and meeting rooms buzzing with workshops and community events, offices for the Athens-Clarke County Arts Division, and a gift shop stocked with handmade pieces from nearby makers; all of it woven into a restored historic home whose creaking floors meet sleek modern spaces, blending past and present in one lively place.The Ware-Lyndon House isn’t just a beautifully preserved piece of architecture; it’s a place where neighbors gather, stories linger in the air, and local culture continues to flourish.School groups come for regular tours, guided by programs linked to Georgia history and social studies.Special exhibits spotlight African American heritage and the legacy of slavery in Athens, while the Arts Center hosts workshops, lectures, and artist talks.Since 2019, staff have worked steadily to preserve African American history, gathering and sharing stories of the enslaved people who once lived and worked on the property, where the worn brick paths still remember their footsteps.Oral histories, careful archival digging, and ties passed down through generations have added fresh layers to the stories visitors encounter in the museum’s quiet, sunlit rooms.Among the featured stories are families like the Wilborns and the Halls, who, after Emancipation, built their lives in Athens’ lively African American neighborhoods, where church bells rang on Sunday mornings.You can now watch these stories in a short film or hear them in an audio podcast, both playing right here on site, with voices and images that bring them to life.You’ll find the Ware-Lyndon House at 211 Hoyt Street in Athens, GA, with free admission Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., free parking right on-site, and ADA-compliant paths, restrooms, and an elevator in the Arts Center; more than a preserved home, it offers a clear view into Athens’ past, where old brick walls, layered architecture, and a rich mix of social and artistic history come together.It draws a vivid line between the elegant, slow-paced charm of antebellum Southern life and today’s spirit of reflection and creative expression.Part museum, part buzzing arts hub, it sits where tradition meets fresh ideas, anchoring itself as a cornerstone of Athens’ cultural scene.
