The Hamrick home

For years, passersby in pastoral

south Fayette County admired a bowed driveway with a sturdy house sitting

at the top of an arch defined by cannas and crape myrtles.

As the seasons changed, the

colors leading up to the house changed too. The house that once presided

over this striking display is gone now, a few small buildings and a windmill

testifying to its history. Where it stood, a new driveway bends back toward

dark pines clustered around a sizable pond.

Against the pines rises a brick

mansion with four double chimneys, arched windows and countless gables.

"Chateauesque" is the term applied by one guide to architectural styles,

and since this house resembles a rambling European country home, perhaps

chateauesque it is.

Owner and designer Patricia

Hamrick said she and her husband, Doug, "were in the house-building business

20 years ago in Clayton County," so she had an idea what she wanted when

she began work on her Brooks residence. For sure, she knew what she didn't

want, she said.

The Hamricks had traveled extensively

buying antiques for another of their enterprises, and liked what they

saw in European traditions. "I love the houses over there," Patricia Hamrick

said, noting especially the Tudor style she saw in England. She worked

closely with her architects to get what she wanted, and began to realize

her dream house was veering away from Tudor.

"But the more we drew, the

better I liked it. I'd say it's a European country-style home," she said.

Her architects Jim and Linda

Strickland of Historical Concepts in Peachtree City contributed immeasurably,

although the design and location of the garage was one detail on which

Hamrick said they disagreed. She wanted it to look as though the house

had grown organically, with add-ons like the garage appearing connected

"I wouldn't change that," she

said. "I wanted it to look European-style, where even the barns are connected

to the house. I wanted it to look like it been here a long time."

Hamrick is a Clayton County

native, having grown up on Mt. Zion Boulevard when it was a dirt road.

Morrow is no longer rural Tara-country; Home Depot's arrival clinched

that. The couple moved to south Fayette and "camped out" for seven years

in the old house on the curved driveway, while planning and building the

new one.

They also bought the property

across the road, and designed and built on it a home for Patricia Hamrick's

mother. It took about a year just to draw the plans for each house, Hamrick

said.

Her mother's is now for sale.

"We're getting older," said Hamrick, who is approaching 60, "and we enjoyed

coming down here. We like the peace and quiet [of south Fayette.]"

That "peace and quiet" occasionally

underscored by bird song and the distant lowing of cattle is what she

likes best about her home, Hamrick said, "and the house itself was everything

I wanted." But asked if there's a downside, she was frank: There's a lot

of upkeep to a house of just over 10,000 square feet on a little over

77 acres.

She and her husband know of

which they speak. They manage several commercial properties, including

two in Fayetteville and an office building in Peachtree City's Westpark.

"Been here and done this,"

she said. "I always thought I wanted a big house, but now I'm ready to

go back down [in size]. There's so much work to do."

A footnote to this story: Linda

Strickland, who with her husband, Jim, labored alongside Hamrick to bring

about this design, was effusive in her praise of the Hamricks, both as

visionaries and as clients. "They were absolutely delightful," she said,

"and the execution of the design was excellent. Everything was loved and

thought out and done perfectly."

Strickland said one of the

disappointments of her profession is to render plans for a beautifully

designed house, then have an interior decorator ruin it with "sometimes

dreadful decorating." The Hamricks' experience kept that from happening.

"This house is furnished so

well, in pieces of museum quality," Strickland said. "It's absolutely

exquisite. It's so rare to find in [a client] the taste and the money

and the enthusiasm they had. They reveled in it; they were hilarious,

happy, friendly, generous every person in our office loved working with

them."

The Brady home

"You want to know something

about our house?" Mike Brady asked disingenuously. "It's just a little

cottage. You wouldn't be interested."

Assured that interest was there,

Brady got serious. He declined to invite a reporter to see his red-brick

Georgian, politely asserting that he does not relish publicity and does

not care for sightseers. "We've had a lot of various organizations ask

to use it," he said, "and we have held some fund-raising events, but we've

also turned down a lot of requests. We've protected it; this is our retirement

home."

Michael and Carol Brady moved

to Peachtree City from Dix-Lee-On north of Fayetteville "across from Evander,"

he said and have lived in the county for 17 years. "We had been admiring

Peachtree City," he said, and although they were about to become empty-nesters,

made the move five years ago.

"The house is pretty big, and

quite different," he said in what may have been the understatement of

several interviews. While the house was under construction, Brady said

his son noticed people driving by to look at it, and was tempted "to sell

lemonade or charge admission."

That's just the point, Brady

said. To his family, a house and grounds that sprawl over three generous

lots and towers above a terraced front yard is not a curiosity. "There's

a lot of pride in this house," he said. "It was a year in design and a

year in construction. We worked closely with an Atlanta architect to design

it, and it has a lot of special meaning to us."

According to county records,

some of that special meaning is rendered in Roman columns, arched doorways,

built-in shelves throughout. At more than 8,000 square feet, Brady's description

of "pretty big" would seem apt. The property, surrounded by wrought iron

fencing, stretches from one street to the next. Visible from the rear

is a greenhouse which appears to double as a pool house.

"People ask what we'd change

now that we've been in it for five years," Brady said, and answered the

question firmly: "There's nothing we'd change after five years. The house

works, and we love our subdivision and our neighbors very much.

"The architect we worked with

worked very hard to make the house livable. The total size is quite large,

but we don't find it overpowering. My wife has made it very livable."

Brady is "retired from the

airline business." Their younger son is a freshman at Auburn; the older

son recently graduated from Duke University and "still comes home on occasion."

The Seals home

Invited to a company Christmas

party several years ago in the north Peachtree City mansion of Lamar "Lou"

Seals III, a visitor was told that the house was at the end of a cul de

sac. "Wrong," said the visitor. "It IS the cul de sac."

True enough. The house with

its low balustraded wall, cobblestone driveway and leonine fountain dominates

a neighborhood of houses which, elsewhere, would appear regal. The "French-Romanesque

hybrid" Seals' description has about 10,000 square feet of heated space,

a clay tennis court he calls "pretty neat," and a total of six garages.

Not bad for a local lad.

Seals, 40 and a bachelor, grew

up in Tyrone and was graduated from Fayette County High School, completing

his education at then-Clayton Junior College and Georgia State. He is

chairman and CEO of Seals Communications Corporation (Sealsco), the TV

production and electronic marketing company he founded in 1984.

Visitors report that the most

breath-taking interior feature of Seals' house is the extensive trompe

l'oiel artwork that Atlanta muralist Mike Shepard lavished throughout.

A downstairs game room is painted to look like a dungeon lined with stone

walls that have to be touched to determine that they are not real. There's

even a suit of armor painted on the wall and wisteria vines "growing"

on lattice work that isn't really there.

Above the front door, in a

living room with a vast fireplace and player-grand-piano, two staircases

lead to opposite ends of the house. At the landing of one, an archway

opens out upon a lovely garden or so thought a guest who actually walked

into the wall before discovering it was a painted illusion.

The rectangular first-floor

master bedroom has domed ceilings about 20 feet high, done all in sky

and clouds. Where the top of the walls begins, faux velvet drapes with

gold cords "hang" around the room.

Not even the bathrooms are

exempt from such whimsy: An open medicine cabinet, with a jar of Noxzema

and several razors in full view, must be touched to determine whether

actual or artifice.

Sculptures (they're real) surround

an outdoor pool (also real) in the style of a Roman bath. Mirrors so completely

cover the walls of the well-equipped downstairs workout room that even

the light switch plates are mirrors. Not surprisingly, there's also a

movie theater outfitted with popcorn machines and 20 luxurious theater

seats.

"The house is a work in progress,"

Seals says, "definitely something I enjoyed doing, designing and building

it. I think of it as a means to an end, but no one knows the end yet,

including myself.

His favorite characteristic

of the house is its privacy. "I like the overall openness of the house;

it's very open, very accommodating, yet with a good degree of privacy.

It's very visible from the street, has great curb appeal, but when you

get into the house on the terrace level, even in the backyard area, it's

very private, even in the wintertime when the foliage is gone."

To a reporter's favorite question

What would you do differently? Seals replied, "I would probably make it

larger."

Larger?

"There are areas I'd like to

add where I could do more corporate entertaining. I'd like to double the

home theater and I'd probably put in another guest suite I have about

five of those right now. I've got a full-time housekeeper and an estate

manager," he added.

Despite the fact that every

conversation The Citizen had with him was long-distance one from a Manhattan

traffic jam Seals says he works at home a lot, in a "fully-equipped office

connected to corporate headquarters" in Governor's Square, just east of

Peachtree City.

His Web site describes him

as "an expert at bringing specialized sports genres into the mainstream."

Seals and his staff provide more than 200 hours of programming annually

for ESPN, ESPN2, FOX Sports Net, Discovery Wings, and ABC, among others.

His news magazine series, the flagship show "MotoWorld," was the first

devoted exclusively to motorcycling.

Wal-mart's "Great Outdoors,"

on ESPN2 Saturday mornings, is a Sealsco production. Some of the activities

of Seals Communications Group Inc. and its affiliated companies, include

"the sale of network media time for ESPN and ESPN2, development of screenplays

and motion pictures, new media and distribution endeavors, and the direction

of a wide variety of special programming projects and partnerships amongst

Sealsco's Fortune 1000 client base," the Web site says.

Seals' Web site: www.sealsco.com .

The WCCI-Dollar home

The white stucco house all

11,000 square feet of it sits on more than 27 acres. A large pond separates

it from Sandy Creek Road. And a gate crosses the driveway, accessible

only with a code tapped into a keypad.

This is a $1.27 million parsonage.

The house was built by former Cleveland Cavaliers' basketball player John

Battle and his wife, R&B singer Regina Belle in 1994, but in 1998,

records show it reverted to Davies General Contractor.

According to data in the Fayette

County tax assessors office, the Rev. Creflo Dollar, renowned preacher,

televangelist and pastor to heavyweight boxing champ Evander Holyfield,

bought the house in 1999. On the same day, he deeded it to his mega-church,

World Changers Church International.

The church does not permit

access to its controversial founder, nor release information about him,

but it is supposed that he lives there with his wife, Taffi, also a "reverend,"

and their five children.

An article by John Blake in

the Atlanta Journal and Constitution last year, however, indicated that

the church bought the house, and that Dollar's family actually lives in

another million-dollar church-owned residence in the upscale Guilford

Forest subdivision in southwest Atlanta. In which case, the Fayette mansion

may be only one of about a dozen properties, most in College Park, owned

million, a black Rolls-Royce, and the 8,000-seat World Changers Dome built

off Old National Highway in 1996 for $6.5 million.

As a church, is a WCCI property

tax-exempt? According to Fayette County tax assessor Ellen Mills, the

fact that a church owns property does not make it exempt. First Baptist

Church in Fayetteville, for example, owns apartments and pays taxes on

them. "It depends on what the church uses the property for," Mills said.

"If it's for charitable purposes

or worship, it would be tax-exempt. If World Changers filed for exemption,

they'd have to go before the assessors' board. Use is the determining

factor.

"Of course, a church parsonage

is exempt," she added. Her office received a call asking how to apply

for tax-exemption on the Sandy Creek Road property, but no application

has been made. In fact, WCCI paid $16,872.20 in county property taxes

last year.

WCCI is a College Park mega-church

that has grown to more than 20,000 members since Dollar established it

with eight people in 1986. According to his Web site, Dollar is "an internationally

known author, teacher and conference speaker with a ministry that not

only reaches the local community, but also spans the globe. He can be

seen and heard throughout the world on the 'Changing Your World' broadcasts,

via television and radio."

The thrust of Dollar's message

detailed minutely in his Web site and explained in books and tapes conveniently

for sale on the same pages is that believers need not suffer through poverty

and debt in this life, hoping for a heavenly reward. Money and wealth

are given by God in this life to those who tithe faithfully, he says,

with the expectation that they will continue to share their burgeoning

wealth.

"Nothing comes without a price

tag," he cautions. "God's blessings always require a down payment."

Dollar's Prophetic Financial

Transfer Declaration begins with the instruction, "Repeat after me," and

continues: "I declare now that I am a distribution center; unexpected

and expected income, come my way. In the name of Jesus I am a money magnet.

Money cometh to me now, and in Jesus' name I submit to the Spirit of God.

... You have given us the power to get wealth. I ain't poor no more."

Blake wrote, "Supporters see

Dollar as a compassionate man who helps the needy and a spiritual visionary

whose message of prosperity is twisted out of context. Detractors characterize

him privately as 'Cash-Flow' Dollar, a high roller who often refuses to

let members touch him and whose church requests access to their W-2 forms."

He is often accompanied by

bodyguards in public, Blake said.

According to his WCCI biography,

"Dr." Creflo A. Dollar Jr. was born and raised in College Park, graduated

from Lakeshore High School, and obtained a bachelor of education degree

with a concentration in history from West Georgia College. He taught high

school in Fulton County, then became an educational therapist for the

Brawner Psychiatric Institute of Atlanta.

But even Dollar's detractors

have good things to say about him. According to a 1997 article by Rick

Sherrell in Creative Loafing, J.R. Hudson was a member of World Changers

who came to believe that Dollar's teachings are anti-scriptural and take

advantage of poor people, that the preacher is the only one prospering

under this philosophy.

Sherrell says Hudson sees Dollar

as "a very sincere, compassionate, strong-willed man who loves his family.

'If you knew him, you'd like him,' he says. 'I don't have anything bad

that I can say about him personally. ... He's very sincere. He thinks

he's right. There's a whole lot of people who think that, but the thing

is, you can be sincere and be sincerely wrong.'"

The Lenox home

This is the house that Debi

built.

Curb appeal? Hardly any. When

the leaves are on the trees, the house, set deep on its wooded lot, is

virtually invisible from the curb. The neighborhood upscale and attractive,

but restrained is not a neighborhood that brags on being the home of Peachtree

City's first family.

And that's exactly what sold

Bob and Debi Lenox on this lot. It's very private, slopes down to a small

lake, and the house appears to have grown on it. It takes a lot of planning

to get so unplanned a look.

This is the house that Debi

built. The search for adjectives bogs down. Welcoming. Unique. Eclectic.

All of these and one thing more. Loving.

The entrance is on an upper-level

foyer overlooking the great room where friends and family gather before

a panorama of woods and pond. But halfway down the curving open stairway,

a full-size grand piano seems to hover in space. "When I play it, the

sound is awesome," says its owner.

Her other favorite spot is

more hidden: her work room at the far end of the house, where she can

indulge her muse in stained glass and photography. Several of her glass

creations serve as windows, and her photos of family moments line every

available wall.

The Lenoxes live in a collection

of collections. Hand mirrors glitter in the powder room. Mannequins model

vintage clothes, including an old Girl Scout uniform. There are the mayor's

brass fire nozzles. And books! The library shelves extend to the ceiling,

and require a traveling ladder to reach.

Nearly every item in the house

has a story to tell. Debi Lenox, who was raised in the country, said she

loves the feeling of country-living combined with the advantages of living

in town. Asked if this was her dream house or just a stepping stone to

something else, she's very positive: "We're staying. When we get old,

they'll just wheel us out in a wheelchair and we can watch the sun go

down."

There's nothing she'd do differently

if she had it to do again. "Everything about it works so well. It's so

cozy," despite its being a large house, she said. "People are not afraid

to come in and walk around."

She admits, however, that she

hasn't run out of ideas, "but Bob won't let me do anything more."

This is the house that Debi

built. And built well. The county's property record cards (filed under

Exceptional Homes) contain a box where assessors make notations that don't

fit elsewhere on the form. Of the ten cards researched for this article,

only this one bears the note, "Excellent workmanship."

The Lenoxes' youngest daughter

is getting married soon, and a busy schedule made it difficult to work

in a visit but Debi Lenox was singularly cooperative with a reporter and

photographer who wanted to see the house. She seemed puzzled that other

owners of outstanding homes were not equally cordial. "I share," she said.

"This house is very personal to me, but I just love to have people here.

We do fund-raisers for good causes."

She said she is disinclined

to do a charity open-house "I do not want total strangers walking through"

because she does not feel comfortable being considered wealthy or elite.

"We moved here to start a business [Continuous Forms & Checks in 1982]

with $25,000 in our pocket. We earned every bit of what we have."

The things that matter most

to her are not what a lot of people would consider valuable, she said,

but "my grandparents' things, my great-grandfather's cameras, so many

memories. It's a fun house, not at all pretentious. I shop at flea markets.

I've always said if anyone wanted to rob us, they'd just find a lot of

old junk."

A visitor once wrote to the

mayor that the house provides a glimpse into the heart of a family. "What

a talented, imaginative, humorous, sensitive, unfettered lady [Debi] is.

At the risk of getting carried away, I thought I could feel pure joy in

what she has done with that house, as well as in her life with you and

Stacey. ... I felt as though I caught a dimension of you that most people

have not seen. Congratulations on what appears to be a life well-lived.

I suspect you are possessed of the grace to appreciate it."

This is the house that Debi

built.

The mayor said the same thing,

and put his acknowledgment in bronze on an exterior wall: "This home was

built by Debi Lenox. She did it with skill, determination and courage

along with hard work and her blood, sweat and tears. I am proud of this

home, but prouder of her. With love, admiration, pride and deep respect,

Bob 1994."