Cherokee Heights house added to Historic Macon’s ‘Fading Five’ list

At the top of a gentle rise in Macon’s historic Cherokee Heights neighborhood sits a two-story Italianate villa-style home. 

Its salmon pink stucco exterior is chipping in places, windows are boarded up with plywood and the western wing was badly damaged in a fire, but the Hillyer-Kernaghan House at 2715 Cherokee Ave. retains the essence of its original grandeur.

The building is the latest addition to the Historic Macon Foundation’s Fading Five list, a now decade-old project that highlights historic properties in need of preservation that are at risk of falling into complete disrepair.

“At one point, this home was the heartbeat of Cherokee Heights,” Historic Macon Executive Director Nathan Lott said at a press conference. “It’s fallen on hard times.”

Designed by architect Neel Reid for L.P. and Lela Hillyer, the home was later owned by the Kernaghan family — which owned Kernaghan-Goodman Jewelers in Macon — for decades. 

The Hillyer-Kernaghan House is one of several along Vineville Avenue, its cross streets and Cherokee Heights designed by Reid before World War I, according to Historic Macon, representing “a simpler era of sleeping porches, garden houses and graceful gardens approached through French doors.”

The unoccupied 4,700-square-foot house, now owned by Billings Enterprises in Warner Robins, was damaged by a fire several years ago and is threatened with “demolition by neglect.”

Restoring and preserving this neighborhood anchor, Lott said, is important to both Cherokee Heights and the larger city core. Cherokee Heights was one of the original suburbs of Macon, the first stop on the streetcar line from downtown.

“Macon-Bibb cannot prosper if the historic districts at the heart of our city are in decline,” Lott said. 

Other properties on the Fading Five list include:

• The Roxy Theatre, 445 Hazel St. — Eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, the Roxy is a rare surviving example of a Quonset hut-type structure. Built during segregation, the building served as a movie theater and performance hall for Macon’s Black community until it closed in 1958.
• First National Bank and Trust Co. at 2791 Houston Ave. — This mid-century modern building designed by Macon architect W. Elliott Dunwoody Jr. was built in 1957 and is back on the market. It has traditional and art deco details
• Dr. E.E. Green House, 353 Madison St. — The home and office for Dr. Green, who graduated from Howard in 1886 and built the home in the heart of Pleasant Hill. It has sat vacant since 2000, with several stalled renovation attempts.
• D.T. Walton Building, 591 D.T. Walton Way — Built in 1887, this building has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982. Dr. Walton purchased the building at the intersection of Cotton Avenue and New Street in 1936 and operated his dental practice there. Owned by First Baptist Church, it’s been vacant since 2005.

The Historic Macon Foundation started the Fading Five list in 2014 after Macon lost two important community buildings near the medical center downtown — Tremont Temple Baptist Church and the former home of Charles H. Douglass. A commercial building that houses a Dunkin’ Donuts now sits on the property.

Historic Macon doesn’t own or renovate the properties on the Fading Five List. But the organization can help prospective buyers get in contact with owners and assist them in walking through the complexities of preservation tax credits and historic district requirements.

Of the 20 properties Historic Macon has added to the Fading Five list, 14 have been “saved” — purchased and renovated, at least to a point.