Buckhead Heritage Gives Awards

Buckhead Heritage Honors Preservationists of the Year and Outstanding Volunteer

Buckhead Heritage recently presented the 2022 Belle Turner Lynch Preservation Award to English and Matt Norman and the Bob Helget Award for Outstanding Volunteerism to Ivan Allen IV. Buckhead Heritage is a non-profit organization dedicated to identifying, preserving, restoring, and promoting Buckhead’s historic resources for the benefit of future generations.

The Belle Turner Lynch Preservation Award is named for the late co-founder of Buckhead Heritage, who advocated against demolition of historic structures and helped Wright Mitchell found Buckhead Heritage in 2006 as a non-profit preservation advocacy group.

English and Matt Norman have worked since 2010 restoring The Meredith House, creating a website dedicated to their efforts, and successfully listing the house in 2018 on the National Register of Historic Places. Matt, an evangelist for local preservation, discussed the research and restoration work in a Buckhead Heritage Speaker Series lecture in 2022. The Normans also opened their home for Buckhead Heritage’s annual Holiday Gathering in December 2022, where the two awards were presented.

Hazel and Kenneth Meredith, the original owners, hired James C. Wise, an Atlanta architect, to design the house. Builder Sam Satterwhite completed The Meredith House in 1938 at a cost of $40,000. The gardens and outdoor fireplace were designed by William L. Monroe, a well-known Atlanta landscape architect. The house today encompasses many original design features due to the Normans’ efforts.

The Award for Outstanding Volunteerism honors Bob Helget, a Founding Member of Buckhead Heritage and the organization’s treasurer for many years. In his later involvement, he became an Emeritus Board Member and continued to volunteer his time on a variety of fronts.

Ivan Allen IV, the recipient of this year’s award, has significantly contributed to the preservation of the New Hope AME Church cemetery. Ivan worked with New Hope Church and its neighbors, Buckhead Heritage members, foundations, and the public to raise tens of thousands of dollars to complete the fencing surrounding the cemetery, restore existing monuments, and mark the large number of unmarked graves there. He coordinated New Hope workdays with longtime volunteers from Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, and Oakland Cemetery staff doing training and monument restoration.

This is the second year the two awards have been presented. The 2021 Belle Turner Lynch Preservation Award went to community activist Laura Dobson, Richard Lee of Branch Properties, and Aaron Taulbee of Kolter Urban. The trio worked together to preserve a portion of the National Library Bindery Building on Peachtree Road. Ellen Porter, the recipient of the inaugural Bob Helget Award for Outstanding Volunteerism, served as Buckhead Heritage’s volunteer bookkeeper and accounting office specialist for three years.

For more information about Buckhead Heritage, visit the organization’s website at www.BuckheadHeritage.com or contact Executive Director Richard Waterhouse at 404.467.9447.

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