Arthur Tufts

Builder of the New Emory

Within a year of Asa Candler’s “Million Dollar Letter,” the first buildings of the Emory campus in Atlanta were under construction in Druid Hills. Needing to erect many large buildings in a hurry, Emory’s trustees turned to one of Asa Candler’s most trusted lieutenants, Arthur Tufts. Thirty-six years old in 1915, Tufts had already spent ten years overseeing all the building operations for Candler and The Coca-Cola Company. On the new campus he built the Theology, Law, Physics (now Callaway), Chemistry (now Bowden), Anatomy, and Physiology buildings and Dobbs, Winship, and Alabama residence halls. About the time he undertook construction of the first buildings on the Druid Hills campus, he acquired twenty-five acres along Clifton Road, where he built his own home. Named Woodlawn, it nestled in the woods east of Clifton and was reached by a long, semicircular drive with impressive gates at each end—Lowergate, near North Decatur Road, and Uppergate, closer to the house. The gates survive in name only, through Lowergate Parking Deck and Uppergate Drive. The Tufts family first occupied the house in 1917, and, following Arthur Tuft’s death of influenza in 1920, his widow remained in the house until 1943 when the University purchased the property to house nursing students. Some other Emory units housed there have been Information Technology, Campus Planning, and the Biomedical Media Department. In 2002, an extensive renovation was completed. The house is currently occupied by the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Sources:  Hauk,  Legacy of Heart and Mind: Emory Since 1836, Emory Magazine, Autumn 2000