A land swap has brought a 1.4-acre tract that was the site of a pilot streambank restoration into the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area’s Orrs Ferry unit and enabled a local resident to own a historic home.
Leigh Lambert Goff approached the National Park Service in 2019 about buying
the 1.3-acre parcel of the Palisades unit property off Riverview Road in Sandy Springs so she could restore and renovate the Collins-Yardum House as her home. But the NPS can’t sell land. It would take either an Act of Congress or a land swap for her to get the parcel, she said.
So Goff started looking for a comparable piece of land within the CRNRA’s legislative boundary to swap. The pandemic slowed things down.
“I knocked on a lot of doors and talked to a lot of people before I found something that just money-wise and size-wise was best for a swap,” she said.
The previous owner had bought the Gwinnett County property from foreclosure for
a lower price, but his plans had changed. Goff said he was happy the property
would be going to the National Park Service.
Acquisition of the Orrs Ferry parcel will enable immediate access to interpret the Crayfish Creek site, according to the Chattahoochee National River Recreation Area (CNRRA) press release. The Crayfish Creek was the site of a pilot streambank restoration in 2020 made possible in partnership with Upper Chattahoochee Trout Unlimited, the City of Sugar Hill, Gwinnett Soil and Water Conservation District, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Chattahoochee National Park Conservancy, and the University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.
Goff said that in the years before the land swap was completed, she gave the
stream restoration collaborators access to the creek that is at the back of the
property.
The Orrs Ferry Unit is just south of Highway 20 near Sugar Hill, is the second land unit of the park as you head downstream from Bowmans Island, CRNRA Superintendent Ann Honious said. The unit is on the east side of the river from river mile 345.5 downstream to river mile 344.6. The upstream boundary is with private land while the downstream boundary is with Georgia Department of Natural Resources land. The land is in unincorporated Gwinnett County.
Site-specific planning for Orrs Ferry will begin in the spring of 2024. NPS will use previous planning to develop appropriate facilities and recreation, according to the press release. Implementation of the park’s Comprehensive Trails Management Plan will aid in providing access and connections to this parcel.
History and future plans
The Collins-Yardum house was a two-bedroom, one-bath home. Preservation
easements were conveyed with the land swap. Goff said that as a stone cottage,
all the windows and doors will have to stay where they are.
“I don’t have restrictions on what can happen with the interior of the house,
but I have hired a preservation architect and look forward to just sensibly
upgrading it and living in it,” she said.
The Craftsman-style bungalow makes the Collins-Yardum House representative of historical houses constructed throughout Georgia in the early 20th century, according to the NPS. The stone masonry makes it rare, distinctive, and possibly unique.
Goff said the home was built in the 1930s for a downtown Atlanta family that used it as their place to get out of town and along the Chattahoochee River at a time when the property was in the middle of nowhere.
When Jimmy Carter was Georgia’s governor, a big push was made to conserve and preserve the Chattahoochee River, she said. An executor of the estate owning the home conveyed several hundred acres to the National Park Service. A park ranger lived in the home until 1999 or 2000 when they stopped providing housing. Since then the house has been vacant.
