02/20/09

Photo Gallery: Hill-Kurtz House

The Hill-Kurtz House is one of a number of structures in Griffin that was constructed by a builder named Gilman J. Drake who came to town from New Hampshire in 1857. He built the house for Benjamin J. Milner, a pioneer citizen of Griffin who financed the only cavalry unit sent from Spalding County to the Confederate forces. Milner sold the house and fourteen acres in 1866 to Henry Hill. His daughter married prominent Griffin attorney David Jackson Bailey who added the Victorian wing which forms the T-end of the originally square structure. The house was sold in 1920 to Ober Tyus who remodeled it extensively. It was sold to Catherine Griffin in 1948 and to W. Paul Kurtz in 1958.

Built about 1860, the Hill-Kurtz house is a one-story, hipped roof house built on a cross-hall plan. A portico with square Doric columns surrounds the square structure on three sides. This colonnade originally surrounded the building, but the rear facade columns were removed in the 1890's for an addition. The wing extends beyond the body of the house creating a T-shaped plan.
(Source: www.gshistoricalsociety.org)