Tour Stop Three: 622 Grant Street
Matt, Erin, Baikal, Rybolt, and Garvin Miller
Celebrating more than 150 years as Grant Park’s signature home, the Burns Mansion once again opens its doors to welcome friends and guests to celebrate the holiday season.
Built in 1868, the home was the vision of Captain James Austin Burns, a Union officer who settled in Atlanta after the Civil War to oversee the re-establishment of the railroads to the city. His headstone, along with two of his fellow Union soldiers, can be found in the sideyard (although they are not buried here).
After his death in 1902, his close friend Colonel Scott, also of the Union Army, purchased the home.
When Scott died in 1928, the home became a boarding house and began a multi-decade decline until 1976, when the first of many attempts to restore the home began.
On display in the elegant but also quite comfortable, family-friendly home are photos of the house through the different decades of repair and paint colors.
Since 1976, each owner has taken the time and effort to lovingly help restore the Burns Mansion to its former grandeur.
The house is a nearly restored Queen Anne Victorian with 33 rooms, including six bedrooms and six bathrooms, three stairwells, a home gym, a library, 63 windows, 11 fireplaces, seven porches, and a well in the middle of the kitchen.
The Bradbury & Bradbury period wallpaper throughout the home is reminiscent of what originally would have been in the house. Remarkably, all the woodwork in the front of the house and most of the bedrooms is original to the home.
The yard was recently re-landscaped after the Millers had to say goodbye to a century-old oak tree that had become sick, enabling them to add a vegetable garden while leaving plenty of play area for the kids and their neighborhood friends.