Submitted by the Green-Meldrim House
Nov. 8, 2024 – Mark C. McDonald will be returning to Savannah’s Green-Meldrim House’s on Nov. 21 to deliver a lecture on architecture and preservation. The impetus of the lecture will be the October 2023 publication of Architecture of the Last Colony by the University of Georgia Press. McDonald will talk about the content of the book which includes the best examples of historic preservation in Georgia. Following the program, attendees may purchase a book and have it personalized.
McDonald recently retired from the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation after 15 years of service as its CEO. Last year, with his impending retirement, he was asked to name his five favorite historic buildings in the state. One was the Green-Meldrim House as a fine example of Gothic Revival architecture.
Prior to Atlanta, he spent eight years leading Historic Savannah Foundation during a time of growth, community building, and national leadership. His organizational guidance began as director of Historic Salisbury Foundation in North Carolina in 1986. His was a 40-year career of progressive distinction following law school at UGA.
McDonald has the singular prospective to address what preservation means to the Peach State. On his retirement last year, Georgia Trust Board Chair Norris Broyles, cited several of McDonald’s accomplishments.
“During Mark’s time at the Trust, he has helped energize our Revolving Fund program, doubling the number of properties we have protected; he has directed two successful capital campaigns for the restoration of Rhodes Hall and its grounds; he has initiated a green building program at the Trust, helped rebuild our professional staff, and strengthened our financial position, among many other achievements,” Broyles said.
Mark is not the only preservationist in his family. His wife, Carmie Jones McDonald, graduated from SCAD with an MA in Historic Preservation and updated Historic Savannah: A Survey of Significant Buildings in the Historic Districts of Savannah, Georgia (Third Edition) in 2005. More recently, she spent her energies in ministry and religious studies. She was ordained into the Episcopal priesthood and is the Associate Rector at the Church of the Epiphany in Atlanta.
Following his talk there will be a reception and an opportunity to get acquainted or reacquainted with McDonald. The program is free of charge, but attendees are asked to RSVP to reserve a seat at 912-233-3845 or jcredle@greenmeldrimhouse.org
Free Public Lecture – Parlor Presentation: Green-Meldrim House
Who/Speaker: Mark McDonald, recently retired CEO, Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation
What: Lecture and Book Signing – Architecture of the Last Colony
When: Thursday, November 21, 2024 at 6 p.m.
Where: Green-Meldrim House, 14 West Macon (Harris and Bull Streets – Madison Square)
Sign-Up: Reserve a seat – 912-233-2345 or info@GreenMeldrimHouse.org
Synopsis of the book (from Amazon):
Architecture of the Last Colony surveys the most important extant buildings in the state of Georgia, focusing on structures that showcase successful historic preservation practices and techniques. Richly illustrated with full-color, large-format photographs of these structures along with descriptions of their architectural significance, this book tells the story of how Georgia’s built environment reflects its growth from 1733 to the present. While numerous books about Georgia architecture feature buildings that have been lost to demolition, this volume focuses on extant structures that readers can visit and observe for themselves.
The buildings range in style from the folk-art structures of St. EOM’s Pasaquan and Howard Finster’s Paradise Gardens to the suburban Craftsman bungalows of Leila Ross Wilburn to the lavish antebellum mansions of Savannah and Athens, Georgia. Noted architectural photographers, including Brian Brown, Diane Kirkland, James Lockhart, Charlie Miller, and John Tatum, provide the companion photographs.
The six chapters in the book, written by architectural historians with subject-matter expertise, are organized chronologically and by architectural style, covering the earliest buildings in Georgia up through significant contemporary structures of the twentieth century. These buildings tell a diverse story that shows how nationally significant architects and Native Americans, pioneer, female, and African American architects have all contributed to Georgia’s built environment.