Weekend trips to Flowerland and Fischer Mansion

“Dr. L. C. Fischer, according to his annual custom, invites the public to visit his country home, Flowerland, near Chamblee, to see his rose gardens which are among the most beautiful in the state and are now nearing full bloom. Dr. Fischer announces that the rhododendron and climbing roses are in full bloom, and that the bush roses, which are rapidly opening, will reach full bloom within the next ten or fifteen days.”

This invitation appeared in the May 14, 1939, Atlanta Constitution.

Dr. L. C. (Luther) Fischer and Dr. Edward Campbell Davis started the Davis-Fischer Sanitorium on Crew Street in 1908. Then they built Crawford Long Hospital on Linden Avenue in 1911, which is now Emory University Hospital Midtown. (“Caring for Atlanta, A History of Emory Crawford Long Hospital,” by Ren Davis)

Prior to Dr. Davis death in 1931, the two doctors changed the hospital from privately owned to a nonprofit operation to provide healthcare to all Atlantans. In 1940, Dr. Fischer gave the hospital to the Emory University School of Medicine, “to serve as an arm of its teaching and healing mission.”

Dr. Fischer bought 60 acres in Sandy Springs in the 1920s and started a dairy called Oak Terrace. In 1932, he sold the dairy farm and bought 138 acres in Chamblee. He and wife Lucy Hurt Fischer built a home with elaborate gardens, calling it Flowerland. The home was designed by Phillip Trammel Shutze.

The gardens included rock walls and ponds to make the best use of the terrain and Nancy Creek. People from all around Atlanta and farther away would drive to Flowerland, especially in the spring. Visitors often caused traffic to back up for more than a mile on Chamblee-Dunwoody Road.

Flowers from Flowerland were sold in a retail shop by the same name on Peachtree Road. They were also cut and placed around the hospital.

When Lucy Fischer became ill, Dr. Fischer continued having the gardens maintained for her to enjoy. After she died in 1937, Fischer sold the property to the John William Lee family, and Mrs. Lee later sold 48 acres to the Atlanta Diocese of the Catholic Church. The home became D’Youville Academy, a convent and school for girls. The name D’Youville came from the founder of the Sisters of Charity or Gray Nuns of Montreal, Marie Marguerite d’Youville.

In the 1970s, the school closed, and Fischer Mansion was sold to Atlanta Unity Church. The church used the mansion for church services, Sunday School, offices and a bookstore.

Fischer Mansion was in danger of being demolished in 2005, but it still stands as part of The Preserve at Fischer Mansion neighborhood on Chamblee Dunwoody Road. The home was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. Next door is D’Youville Condominiums, developed in the 1970s by Cousins Properties, built on land which was part of the gardens of Flowerland.

Of course, the history of the land does not begin with Dr. Fischer. This was land of the Creek Nation before the 1820s land lotteries. John Barrette of Hall County was granted the property after the land lottery but sold it soon after. William Wallace owned the land beginning in the 1880s, where he operated a sawmill and furniture shop.

Award-winning author Valerie Biggerstaff is a longtime columnist for Appen Media and the Dunwoody Crier. She lives in Sandy Springs. You can email Valerie at pasttensega@gmail.com or visit her website at pasttensega.com.