By Gretchen Keiser

The residence of the Atlanta archbishop on West Wesley Road will be torn down and a new home built on the site, since a proposal to renovate the old home proved too costly.

Workers this week expected to demolish the 60-year-old house where several archbishops of Atlanta lived and to begin construction on a new plan.

The renovation work, which was approved early in 1990, was so extensive that a cost estimate suggested it would run in the neighborhood of $800,000, according to the architect and archdiocesan officials. Tearing down the house and building a new one is estimated to cost $620,000, said the architect Carol Braun.

Needed work included a new roof on the home, which still bears its original, tile roof, new plumbing, new electrical wiring and new heating and air conditioning. Furnishings and carpeting in the home had been in use throughout Archbishop Thomas Donnellan’s more than 20 years as archbishop of Atlanta and needed to be replaced.

The floor plan of the older home also created difficulties when the residence was used as a gathering place for archdiocesan functions, since it was divided into many small rooms with linking narrow hallways.

Archbishop Eugene Marino, SSJ, has been using the residence extensively for gatherings of priests, sisters and deacons, and for smaller meetings and meals with religious leaders, both from the archdiocese and the province, and with civic officials.

The new floor plan, which will increase the square footage of the home somewhat and make a smoother flow for gatherings and meetings, is designed to serve the archbishop’s use of the residence. It is not only residence for the archbishop, but also an archdiocesan facility with many flexible uses, Father Edward Dillon, vicar general, pointed out in an interview.

“It is a diocesan facility that was in need of substantial maintenance,” Father Dillon said, and the actual amount of repair needed “was more then we considered practical.”

Options studied included renovating the home, selling the property and buying a new home elsewhere in Atlanta, or taking it down and rebuilding on the West Wesley site.

“We agonized long and hard over that decision and in the end we made it based on several considerations,” the vicar general said. The College of Consultors, a body of priests who advise the archbishop, “made the pastoral decision” to keep the archbishop’s residence on the site where it is, near to the Cathedral of Christ the King and at the traditional archbishop’s residence. The archdiocesan Finance Council made the final decision between renovating the old home or building a new one.

Carol Braun pointed out that the builders will try to stay in the “footprint” of the prior residence, and particularly are guarding shrubs and trees that surround the house. One oak in the front yard is believed to be 300 years old, she said, adding that the front yard from the doorway to West Wesley Road will be unchanged by the construction work.

Archbishop Marino and Father Don Kenny, vocations director for the archdiocese, have been living in a rented home on Hillside Drive near Holy Spirit parish since late January. The construction is expected to take until Dec. 1.

(Next Week: A Look At The New Residence)