595 Hill Street

Historical Research and Compilation by Meghan Mundy

Photos by Matt Brewster, Marigold Solutions

House Instructions:

Master bedroom/bath upstairs is off-limits. Downstairs restroom available.

House History:

Built in 1895, this Queen Anne Revival Style home stands strikingly at the corner of Hill and Franklin. The guest house located on the property does not have a sure date of construction, but it is assumed to be approximately 100 years old. The guest house was renovated by the current owner. This tastefully renovated home offers four bedrooms and three full bathrooms.

The house was converted to apartments before the Great Depression (For Rent Ad below), but then was converted back to a single family home in the 80s. According to the 1978 Cobbham National Register Nomination Form, the property was owned by Billups Phinizy Spalding, a professor of history at the University of Georgia. Spalding emerged as the nation’s leading scholar on James Oglethorpe, and he was also an influential leader in historic preservation efforts in Athens and across Georgia. Margie and Phinizy Spaulding bought the house in 1971 in an effort to save the neighborhood from hospital expansion.  The property was sold by Spalding in 1981 to John Knowlton and his former wife Julie Knowlton who converted the house back to a single family home. In 1990, Frances Thomas, an original member, and chair of the Athens Historic Preservation Commission, bought the home and resided there until 2005. In Thomas’ period of inhabitance at 595 Hill, she would add the library in the once center hall of the home. In her study, which now serves as a walk-in closet at the front of the home, Thomas would write and publish her book “A Portrait of Historic Athens and Clarke County.”  595 Hill St was purchased by Byrne Family in 2019 who conducted the reservations on the back guest house (392 Franklin St). The guest house has served as a rental property for decades.