In the North Springs neighborhood, a corner lot welcomes children with a tire swing. After the bus takes the kids to school, the parents who meet there hang around and plan events such as Easter egg hunts and Halloween parades.
Both adults and kids love hanging out at the “bus stop house,” Tracy Ellet says.
Ellet said she knew the owners of the North Springs “bus stop house” when she and her husband started looking to move out of the Georgetown area of Dunwoody and into a bigger house. Ellet’s daughter went to pre-school with a girl living in the corner house.
“I knew she’d have an automatic friend,” Ellet said about choosing to move to North Springs. Keeping her children connected to their playgroup friends was a priority when the family was moving, she said. “Our kids have friends that are six days apart [in age]; they’ve grown up together,” Ellet said.
City Councilwoman Lynn Deutsch moved to North Springs in 1992, just after her first child was born, because the neighborhood is beautiful and heavily treed, she said. In addition, it offered easy access to I-285, Perimeter Center and MARTA.
“North Spring’s community is terrific,” Deutsch said. “I can’t imagine there is a neighborhood with better neighbors. We have a really active Women’s Club that puts on great programs, welcomes new neighbors and supports families with new babies.”
Emily Ceo, who grew up in West Virginia, said she and her family moved just a few miles from Chamblee to North Springs in 2004. Like Ellet’s family, Ceo wanted a bigger home without breaking ties to the friends they’d made through the Women’s Club.
“I met my husband at college in West Virginia,” Ceo said, adding that they put a West Virginia University flag up outside the home when they moved into North Springs.
That led to meeting Dan and Dal Hicks. “We put a flag out and I had brownies at my door within 12 hours of moving in,” Ceo said.
The Hicks were original homeowners who were in their 70s when Ceo and her young family moved in, Ceo said. “They were so excited to have a neighbor from West Virginia.”
Ceo said Dal Hicks raised four boys on the same street and would now watch Ceo’s family doing many of the same things she and her family had done. “We have original owners, and then we have brand new families, so it makes it a neat community where it’s not all one age group,” Ceo said.
Dan Hicks passed away in 2014 and his wife moved into an assisted living facility recently. That makes Ceo sad. Their house will go up for sale soon, she said.
The Women’s Club ties together friends who organize community events, and those who joined the club while living in other parts of Dunwoody, drifted together because of those friendships.
Ceo met Ellet and Deutsch through the Women’s Club, she said. Her neighbors value their families and they value their homes, so they’re involved in community activities.
Ceo took up planning a Halloween parade and party in 2006, she said, where the kids parade around the neighborhood and the older neighbors come out and give treats.
“North Springs is a friendly and warm place to live,” Deutsch said. “We feel fortunate to have been part of the community for so many years.”
