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Hay House
The Johnston-Felton-Hay House in
Macon, Georgia is more often referred to as the Hay House, which had
been constructed between 1855 and 1859 by William Butler Johnston
and his wife, Anne Tracy Johnston in the Italian renaissance revival
style; and called the "palace of the south". This magnificent
mansion sits atop Coleman Hill on Georgia Avenue in downtown Macon,
by the Walter F. George School of Law that is a part of the Mercer
University. This majestic 18,000 square foot 24 room mansion was
designed by the New York architect, T. Thomas and Son with four
floors and crowned by a wonderful three-story cupola, commissioned
by innovative owners and master craftsmen, with outstanding
technological advantages that were relatively new in the mid-19th
century. They would include central heat, a French lift or elevator,
an intuitive ventilation system, hot and cold running water, an
in-house kitchen and a speaker-tube system that connected fifteen
rooms. For three generations, only two families would live here,
with the majority of the mansion's furnishings preserved from the
Hay family that lived here from 1926 to 1962, with a number of
pieces carried over from the Johnston family, that included an
exquisite Eastlake-style dining room set, and a beautiful 1857
marble statue, "Ruth Gleaning", by American expatriate sculptor,
Randolph Rogers. Johnston would gain his significant riches from
investing in public utilities, banking and railroads, instead of the
typical agrarian cotton economy, and in 1851 he would marry Anne
Clark Tracy, who was 20 years younger than he was at the time; and
they would begin a marvelous extended honeymoon in Europe from 1852
to 1855. As they journeyed across Europe they would stop at the
museums, art studios and historic sites, collecting sculptures, fine
porcelains and paintings for mementos of their magical grand tour.
It was while on this excursion that they became inspired by the
magnificent Italian architecture, so naturally, when they returned,
they would construct their home in the Italian renaissance revival
style. Sadly, only two of their six children would live until
adulthood, with Caroline born in 1862, and Mary Ellen in 1864,
growing up in the glorious mansion on Georgia Avenue. Anne Johnston
would pass on in 1896, and leave Mary Ellen and her husband, Judge
William H. Felton the estate to live in and enjoy. They would
remodel and redecorate many areas of the outstanding house, as well
as modernizing the plumbing and installing electricity, having their
only child, William Hamilton Felton, Jr. in 1889. Junior would marry
Luisa Macgill Gibson in 1915, and they would move into the house
with the older Feltons and have two sons while there; William
Hamilton III and George Gibson Felton, who lived in the house until
1926. After the Judge and Mary Ellen passed on, in 1926, the heirs
would sell the house to Parks Lee Hay, Sr., who had started the
Banker's Health and Life Insurance Company, for $61,500. The Hays
would significantly redecorate the mansion to more reflect the
changes that were happening in the 20th century, and the house would
continue to be a landmark locally for genteel living. After Mrs.
Hays passed on in 1962, her heirs would start the P. L. Hay
Foundation and run the home as a private house museum, and because
of its national importance, it would be made a National Historic
Landmark in 1974, and by 1977, the estate would be transferred to
the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation. The house has become a
major attraction in the city of Macon, and welcomes over 20,000
visitors each year.
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Sidney Lanier Cottage
 The
Sidney Lanier Cottage in Macon, Georgia was built in 1840, and
Sidney would be born here in February of 1842, moving with his
family to Griffin, Georgia just after his birth, returning with his
family to Macon where he finished his elementary schooling. At the
age of 14, he would enter Oglethorpe College by Milledgeville,
Georgia, graduating in 1860 with high honors, actually at the top of
his class, and then he joined the Confederate Army in 1861 with the
Macon Volunteers. He would be sent to work on the blockade runners,
where he would be captured and imprisoned in 1864, spending five
months in a federal prison, where he would contract tuberculosis, or
consumption as it was called back then. This illness would haunt him
for the remainder of his life, but even so, he would marry Mary Day
in 1867 in the Christ Episcopal Church in Macon, and they would
eventually have four sons. After trying various trades, and even
spending some time in his father's law offices, he would go to
Baltimore, Maryland, playing flute for the newly formed Peabody
Symphony, as well as lecturing in the English department at Johns
Hopkins University. In 1881, Lanier would pass on near Lynn, North
Carolina, at the age of only 39. Mary Day Lanier, would live another
half century, editing, publishing and promoting her husband's
voluminous manuscripts, poems and letters. Lanier was a gifted poet,
realizing it a bit late in his life, but during his short stay on
the earth, he ventured into many areas, like playing the flute,
writing poetry and other works, while working at various jobs. The
cottage would be added to the National Register of Historic Places,
as well as being made a Landmark of American Music and in 2004, a
Landmark of American Poetry by the Academy of American Poets. A few
items that are still located in the cottage are Lanier's flute,
which is a silver, alto flute created by the Badger Flute Company,
numerous portraits, first editions and Mary Day's wedding dress from
1867. In the near future, the Sidney Lanier Center for Literary Arts
will also become part of his heritage located in the cottage.
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Car Rentals
Macon
The
Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, Georgia is a community museum
for Middle Georgia, starting out in 1956 as a children's museum in
the Wesleyan Conservatory, and then moving into its own facility in
1964, with a planetarium, workshop and gallery. Today it houses four
galleries that change their displays quite often, the Mark Smith
Planetarium, live animal habitats, the Discovery House containing
hands-on activities, a lovely nature trail, classrooms, observatory,
garden, store and auditorium. They have recently added exhibitions
about fines arts, the humanities and science topics that are
showcased for periods of four to six months. A new addition was
added in 1980 that installed the majority of the museum's
infrastructure, with the Discovery House, classrooms and new lobby
added in 1996. In their collections, there is a unique
skeleton of a 40 million year old whale that had lived in Middle
Georgia during that era, and was discovered in a kaolin mine in
Twiggs County, Georgia. They found a vertebrae of a small shark
still inside the belly of the whale, indicating that the large sea
creature had just eaten before he died and is now part of the
exhibit called zygorhiza. Another exhibit is the large low-fire
whitebody with numerous commercial glazes called the Gesturing Woman
and created by Viola Frey. Another is the four trapezoids as two
rectangles V, from 1987 and created by George Rickey in stainless
steel. The kinetic sculpture has become one of the focal points at
the museum and is rarely at rest, floating, turning and moving by
the smallest breeze. Ruins and rituals was created by Beverly
Buchanan in 1979 and is an array of concrete objects that supposedly
talks to the memories and mythologies of the ancients; while the
Kingfisher Cabin that had been constructed in 1928 by Harry
Stillwell Edwards and his son, Jackson Lane Edwards. The cabin was
built by Harry, who was a southern writer, quite well known down
here, who built the cabin as a sanctuary to write in that was
situated on his property in Holly Bluff. It would be moved to
Wesleyan College in 1941, to be preserved, but was moved to the
museum in 1964 to be restored, and it would be further rejuvenated
in 2006. Young Pan is the bronze sculpture created by Marshall
Daugherty in 1986 and sits awkwardly in a secluded garden area by
the museum, wondering quite possibly how he would end up in a small
woods in Middle Georgia.