Asa G. Candler Jr.

Life and career

Asa G. Candler Jr. studied at Emory College in Oxford, Georgia, where one of his classmates was Alben W. Barkley, who later became vice president. After finishing school, he worked to get Coca-Cola bottling plants up and running all over North America. He also managed the building of several office buildings in Atlanta and oversaw the construction of Candler Airport, which is now known as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. For over two decades, Candler was active in running Westview Cemetery in Atlanta, where he created Westview Abbey, one of the world’s largest community mausoleums.

Briarcliff Farm

In 1910, he left the fashionable Inman Park neighborhood, where his father also had a mansion, and moved to a run-down farmhouse on a 42-acre property called Briarcliff Farm on Williams Mill Road in what is now Druid Hills. The road was renamed Briarcliff Road in the 1920s after the estate he later built there. Candler ran a large farming operation that sold meat and produce to local shops, raising cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens. During World War I, the farm supplied milk to Fort Gordon.

The farm was known for its use of electric lights and fans, individual drinking fountains for the cows, and its overall cleanliness, which boosted yields and quality. In 1916, he started planning to turn the farm into an estate with a mansion called Briarcliff, built between 1920 and 1922 in the Georgian Revival style. Architect Dan Bodin helped oversee the work. In 1925, Candler had the mansion expanded, adding a 1,700-square-foot music room with a vaulted Tudor interior, limestone fireplace, and painted walls.

Briarcliff estate and mansion

To outdo his father and older brother, who had Aeolian organs, he installed a $94,000, 88-rank, 187-stop cathedral-sized Aeolian organ in that room—the largest privately owned organ in Georgia and the eighth largest Aeolian had ever built for a home. It debuted in November 1925 with a recital by family friend Palmer Christian, broadcast on WSB radio. In 1952, the organ was donated to Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, and was renovated in 2008. The estate also featured a golf course, two swimming pools (one open to the public for 25 cents), and a private zoo.

Personal life

Asa G. Candler Jr. was a big game hunter who also loved aviation, competing in air races around the country. He picked up magic and sleight of hand during trips to China and India. By 1930, his mansion included a room packed with magic gear, and every spring he threw a "high-jinks" magic show party for his friends. On his estate, he kept a private zoo with exotic birds and animals, housed in cages designed by architect Bodin.

He might have bought the creatures from a broke circus owner while traveling in Europe. The collection featured a Bengal tiger, four lions, a black leopard, a gorilla, baboons, and six elephants named Coca, Cola, Pause, Refreshes, Refreshing, and Delicious. In 1935, money troubles led him to put his pipe organ up for sale, but he ended up keeping it. A neighbor sued him and won $10,000 after a baboon jumped over the zoo wall and ate $60 from her purse.

Marriages

He later gave away the entire menagerie to the Atlanta City zoo at Grant Park. Candler first married Helen Magill in 1901. She was the daughter of Colonel John H. Magill, a former newspaper editor, and Laura Eberhardt Magill. Helen was active in the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Fine Arts Club, the Atlanta Woman's Club, and the Atlanta Garden Club, and was often praised in the local press for her elegant gowns.

She died in January 1927 at age 40. Her funeral was led by Asa Jr.'s uncle, Methodist Bishop Warren Akin Candler, and she was buried in Westview Cemetery. In October 1927, Bishop Candler married Asa Jr. to his second wife, Florence Adeline Stephenson, who had been his secretary for nine years. Asa and Helen had three sons—Asa G. III, who died at seven months, John H., and Samuel—and four daughters: Laura, Helen, Martha, and Lucy.

Religion

Candler was a member of the Atlanta First United Methodist Church. A 1951 interview noted that his struggles with alcoholism, depression, and other problems were eased by a surrender to God.