The Historic Augusta Society revealed its endangered properties list in a press conference, Tuesday afternoon at its headquarters in the Joseph R. Lamar Boyhood Home on 415 Seventh St.
The endangered properties selected for 2025 include the Skinner-Gardner House, the C.T. Walker School, the Old Fifth Ward School, the Butt-Kelly Sullivan House, the East Avenue block in Summerville and 412 Second St. in Olde Town.
The Skinner-Gardner House, at 3202 Washington Road, is one of the oldest in Richmond County, built circa 1810. However, the house, which sits on Washington Road at the entrance of the Montclair neighborhood, is not currently protected with a historic designation. Robert Mauldin, chair of Historic Augusta’s preservation committee, noted that relatives of the house’s last resident, realtor Carolyn Gardner who passed away in 2023, are arranging to have it relocated because of its location’s susceptibility to development.
The C.T. Walker School, at 1301 Wrightsboro Road, was built in 1934, funded by monies from a bond referendum and Public Works Administration funds. Formerly called the Fourth Ward Colored School, its building, designed by Augusta architect Willis Irvin, cost $154,000. Historic Augusta has placed it on its endangered properties list amid the Richmond County Board of Education’s plans to raze the building and move the school to Walton Way.
The Butt-Kelly-Sullivan House, 2131 Gardner St. in Summerville, was built in 1902. Its namesake traces back to the family of Archibald W. Butt, for whom the Butt Memorial Bridge of Fifth Street is named. Dr. G. Lombard Kelly, once the dean of the Medical College of Georgia, bought the home circa 1930. It has been vacant since 2009.
The Old Fifth Ward School, at 644 Crawford Ave. in the Harrisburg neighborhood, was erected in the 1880s, originally at 1734 Telfair St. It moved to its current address in 1920. The dilapidated house at 412 Second St. was built at the turn of the 20th century, and was brought to Historic Augusta’s attention by officials at nearby Christ Community Health Care.
The small block of East Avenue, between McDowell Street and Central Avenue, is lined with small cottages “the size of tiny houses,” Mauldin said, originally built for domestic workers, employed by the homeowners of the larger surrounded houses.
Mauldin stressed that the small Summerville block has “all the potential to be redeveloped,” but, like many of the named historic properties, “have started into, or well into, that process of demolition by neglect.”
Historic Augusta also named four sites listed in previous years’ endangered properties lists that it now considers “safe”: Kahrs Grocery, on 401 Greene St., listed as endangered in 2011; the house at 202 Greene St., listed in 2018; Union Lofts at 501, 507 and 513 James Brown Blvd., listed in 2008 and the Fifth Street Bridge, listed in 2008.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
