157 Grady Ave

The land beneath 157 Grady Avenue that once sat between the Hill, Billups, and S.D. Mitchell Plantations was later developed along with much of the Boulevard neighborhood as Athens’ first streetcar suburb by the Athens Park and Improvement Company. Constructed in 1913, 157 Grady Avenue is a beautiful house built in a vernacular style, with some possible influence from the stately Neoclassical style popular in the era but less common in the Boulevard neighborhood. 

While information regarding interior renovations on 157 Grady is limited, there are notable additions to the home throughout its history. It is evident from the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps that a portion of the back addition was constructed as early as between 1913 and 1918, with a small detached car park also built on the property during this time. Athens-Clarke County records also show a rear addition occurring after 1960. More recent additions include a more substantial back addition and the construction of a pool and pool house on the property in 2020, further contributing to the development of this house and property without impairing the home’s historic character. The 2020 addition was designed by the same architect who made an addition to the Stovall house at 223 Boulevard. 

The first recorded resident of 157 Grady Ave was Henry McLean in 1912, who worked as a commercial agent for the Central Savannah Line of the Central of Georgia Railway. The home served as a duplex until at least the 1960s, housing multiple individuals, couples, or families, with the house being converted back into a single family home in the 1970s. These early residents belonged primarily to the white working and middle classes as most residents of Boulevard did during this era, working such jobs as service foremen, bookkeepers, and salesmen.

 Contrary to common perceptions of this period, both male and female residents in this period worked outside the home, as was more common in this working and middle-class neighborhood. Hailing from a notable Athens family of the period, Alton O. Flanagan Jr. lived at this home from circa 1940 to 1955 at the latest with his wife, Mary, and son, Jimmy, and served on the County Schools Committee and Athens Oil Group Committee in 1955. In 1972, newly-married Kathleen Day and her husband began renting half of the home from Jimmy Flanagan, later buying the property in 1973. During the early period of their ownership, they rented half of the house to a law student and his wife until Kathleen’s husband graduated from UGA. He then began law school in 1975, and upon his graduation in 1978, got a job in Monroe, Georgia. They, along with their two young children, then moved and sold the home to Richard Crowe.  Later notable residents include William Keller from 2010 to 2015, who served as the head of the Center of International Trade and Security as a professor at UGA, and Joseph Miller from 2015 to 2019, who is a law professor at UGA. 157 Grady Avenue has been home to dozens of residents from many walks of life in its nearly 120-year history, reflecting the diversity of activity that has defined Athens throughout its history.