Joel Chandler Harris Home
1050 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd., SW
Atlanta, GA 30310
(404) 753-7735
Hours: Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sunday 1 p.m.-4 p.m. Closed on Mondays and major holidays
Admission: adults, $6; senior citizens and teenagers, $4; children ages 4-12, $3
Anytime is a good time to visit the Wren’s Nest; however, December is a special time. Each year the house is decorated with authentic Victorian decorations and special storytellings are scheduled.
The comfortable Queen Anne home, now sitting in the hustle of "the big city," was named by Joel Chandler Harris and his children for the family of birds that set up housekeeping in the family's mailbox. Harris lived here with his family, including nine children, from 1881 until his death in 1908. The house began as a three-room structure with the dirt-floor kitchen located in the basement and accessible only from the outside.
In 1884, after the sale of two books, Harris enlarged the house, including an upstairs room intended for his study. However, Harris had become so accustomed to being near his family that the room quickly became a storage area. While living here, Harris wrote 30 books, many reflecting life in rural Georgia.
Located in Atlanta's oldest neighborhood, the house contains authentic Victorian wallpapers, carpet, and curtains. The foundation is of native field-stone, and the pine woodwork has been faux grained to look like oak. Children enjoy the many replicas of Brer Rabbit and other Harris characters.
Saturdays from September to May and Tuesday through Saturday from mid-June to mid-August visitors can sit back and listen to a storyteller spin the yarns made popular by Harris. (A small extra fee is charged for the storytelling.)
A museum shop is open during tour hours.
Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908)
He was a small red-haired man, shy and with a bad stammer. This is hardly the way readers of the Uncle Remus tales would think of the writer who introduced the African folk tales to the United States during the 1880s.
Joel Chandler Harris was born on December 9, 1848, near Eatonton, Georgia. Growing up the son of a single parent, Harris received little formal education; however, he became quite a reader, delving into world, English, and American literature.
He was married to Esther La Rose for 35 years; they had nine children.
In 1862 Harris left home to work as an apprentice on the Turnwold plantation for the weekly newspaper, The Countryman. For four years, Harris learned about printing, writing, and publishing from Joseph Addison Turner, a respected plantation owner, writer, and editor. Harris also worked closely with plantation blacks and listened as they told folktales that were to later make him a popular writer.
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