This morning as I get ready to give the last Tara façade tour of the year I thought it best to post the photos of the three houses on the property and how they connect to the project. As new folks arrive at the site there are a lot of questions as to which houses are listed and how they connect and so here is a little “refresher” to help clear up some of the questions. The first photo is of course Tara as seen on set in Hollywood. All filming was done there and there were no scenes shot in Carolina, or Georgia or anywhere else. Tara, while being three sided was simply an elaborate façade,….a front with no interior. The scenes inside the house were shot on a sound stage nearby so there were no interior rooms on the façade. The second photo is of the Tara façade just before it left Hollywood in 1959 for its trip to Georgia. When it arrived the plan for a museum in Atlanta was at a fevered pitch but that fell through and left the façade stored in north Georgia for the next twenty years. In 1979 Betty Talmadge (the wife of Senator Herman Talmadge) bought the Tara façade and moved it to her home in Lovejoy (where it is stored today). Despite Mrs. Bettys numerous attempts the Tara façade was never put on display even though she had all pieces inventoried and the paid to have the front door restored so that it could be used by the Atlanta History Center (that same front door is now on temporary display at the Margaret Mitchell House as it is still owned by the Talmadge family). For more about Tara story can be found at tomitronics. The third photo is of the Fitzgerald House which was Margaret Mitchell’s families plantation in Jonesboro and (according to Margaret) the model for the rustic plantation house above the Flint River where Gerald O’Hara and his family lived. Margaret said many times that her story was based on the tales she heard at the Fitzgerald House and so it was important for Mrs. Betty Talmadge to purchase and move the Fitzgerald House to her property when it was threatened with demolition in the 1980’s. Today the dismantled Fitzgerald House resides in the same barn with the Tara façade…awaiting its turn for restoration. Finally the fourth photo is of the Crawford-Talmadge House where the Talmadge families have resided since Sen. Talmage and his wife Betty moved in after WWII. The Crawford House was a witness to the fighting at Jonesboro and the Battle at Lovejoy Station. The Crawford ladies played host to General John Bell Hood and his army after Atlanta fell and later took down their draperies to make new dresses near the wars end. It was the closest neighbor to the Fitzgerald’s and was therefore referred to as Twelve Oaks after GWTW was published in 1936. This is where the restoration of the original pieces of the Tara façade has been going on for the past year and this is where I will meet my tour group at 10:00 AM. What better place to see the “real Tara”(Fitzgerald) and the “movie Tara”(the set) than on the property of an original Plantation Home known to the locals as Twelve Oaks? The restoration and presentation will continue and I hope shortly to be able to provide video of the work for those who may never arrive on our shores,…but who love the Saving Tara Project just as much as we. Keep buying the books and donate if you like…and help me get out the word about the new blog at savingtara. I’d better get going as I’ve got visitors to meet….up at the gate. Peter
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 12:26:51 +0000
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