The McDonough-Adams-Kings Highway (MAK) Historic District, the city of Decatur’s first historic preservation district, is celebrating its centennial!
MAK is one of Decatur’s first residential subdivisions and was developed in the early 1900s by local businessmen Mayson and Weekes. They purchased the property in 1907, and the first homes were completed in 1910-1912. Homes on S. McDonough Street, Adams Street, Kings Highway and the cross streets continued to be built through the 1930s.
The MAK Historic District includes 150 properties north of Oakview Road and south of College Avenue, including Hancock, Ansley (east of Kings Highway), Dougherty and W. Davis streets.
MAK’s centennial celebrates the preservation of the historic character of the MAK neighborhood and the achievements of Leila Ross Wilburn (1885-1967), who designed at least 17 of the homes in the MAK district. A graduate of Agnes Scott College and one of Georgia’s first two registered women architects, Wilburn designed and built a home in the first block of Adams Street where she lived with her widowed mother and younger siblings. Unfortunately, it was torn down to make room for the middle school that now occupies the property.
Leila Ross Wilburn’s home designs reflected the values of the Arts and Crafts movement, which promoted craftsmanship, solid construction, family-friendly space and access to natural surroundings. She designed for a broad range of income levels, believing that everyone, not only the wealthy, deserved a well-designed home.
Wilburn published her architectural designs in plan books, including Ideal Homes of Today and Southern Homes and Bungalows. These popular plan books featured her “stock” designs. People could choose one of these designs and purchase the construction plans. These plan books reflect her concern for practicality of space from a woman’s point of view, and her concern for the southern climate with her generous use of porches. Through these plan books, she influenced neighborhood design throughout the Southeast from the 1920s through the 1940s.
Five of these plan books, along with enlarged mounted copies of the plans represented in MAK, will be available for public viewing at Agnes Scott College’s McCain Library during Decatur’s Tour of Homes, from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., Dec. 7 and 8, 2007.
MAK is very proud that Leila Ross Wilburn’s niece, Lib Kennedy, is the neighborhood’s oldest and longest-term resident. She lived in the neighborhood as a child during its development at the beginning of the 20th century and still resides on Adams Street.
