Marlor presented the face of Antebellum Milledgeville

Daniel McDonald
The Union-Recorder

April 25, 2008 11:06 pm

— Few men have defined as much of Milledgeville’s built environment as John Marlor.
The master builder who was born in England, raised in Charleston, S.C., and later came to Milledgeville, left an undeniable impression on Georgia’s fourth state capital and on American architecture by combining several styles together to create the Milledgeville Federal, characterized by large columned double porticos, a cantilevered second story balcony and side gabled roofs.
Marlor moved to Milledgeville in 1815 and began a 19-year relationship with the city that remains apparent today. Betty Sanders Snyder wrote in “The Dictionary of Georgia Biography” that little is known about Marlor’s time in Charleston except that he may have apprenticed there or that he was largely self-taught from English and American plan-book designs.
Once in Milledgeville, Marlor took the popular Georgian style, added the fanlight above the front entrances and precipitated the early classical revival by building towering double columned porticos. Marlor’s signature touch, said Old Capital Museum Director Grant Gerlich, are the curved cantilever staircases connecting the first floor to the heavens, which was becoming increasingly possible as evidenced in Marlor’s Benevolent Lodge No. 3 in downtown Milledgeville.
Once Milledgeville residents saw Marlor’s amalgamation, few home buyers blinked until the late 1800s. It didn’t hurt that Marlor collaborated with prominent Milledgeville architects and home builders Daniel Pratt and Elam Alexander. To this day, confusion exists concerning who designed and built some of the houses constructed during the period of Marlor and Pratt’s collaboration. But however the houses came about, it was Marlor who hired Pratt when Pratt moved to Milledgeville in 1821.
According to “Milledgeville: Georgia’s Antebellum Capital” by James C. Bonner, Marlor’s construction work was done primarily by seven slaves, all of whom were carpenters. Snyder adds, that Marlor owned 7,000 to 8,000 acres of timberland and a mill on Town Creek. From Marlor’s mind, skilled hands and Georgia’s natural bounty came a visual splendor that reminds us of the craftsmanship of our forebears. One that will be with us for years to come thanks to those who have seen it necessary to preserve the past for the future.
In downtown Milledgeville, Marlor’s work can be seen in the Brown-Stetson-Sanford House, The John Marlor Arts Center, The Blounts-Parks-Mara-Williams House, The Newell-Watts House, The Stovall-Conn-Gardner House “13 Columns” and his crowning achievement, the Masonic Temple.

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