A posting on the OakhurstGA Yahoo! message board by Suzanne Miller points out that Oakhurst was recently featured in the October issue of Town & Country as a “Community with Charm”. Though you can’t read T&C online, Suzanne was nice enough to transcribe it for the message board.
Read the article in the continuation… > “Not long ago, the close-knit community of Oakhurst, within the City
> of Decatur, a suburb inside the Atlanta perimiter, was known more for
> car theft than for the storybook charm it has today. After the
> historic Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital, which had been the
> neighborhood’s life blood since 1918, relocated to north Atlanta, in
> 1976, Oakhurst was just about abandoned. Then, in the late 1990’s, a
> new wave of urban pioneers moved in, renovating the area’s 1,000 or so
> Craftsman bungalows (a bargain at $150,000 or less at the time).
>
> By 2001, Oakhurst was in the misdst of a full-blown renaissance. As a
> result, homes aren’t nearly as inexpensive these days, with an
> increasing number of large Craftsman-style infills and renovated
> bungalows selling from $400,000 to almost $1 million. Buyers can find
> teardowns for less than $200,000, but renovation guidelines may
> tighten considerably if a section of Oakhurst is granted local
> historic-district status this fall. Today residents enjoy walking to
> dinner at one of almost a dozen restaurants in the always-lively
> village center, packing a picnic for jazz concerts on the lawn of the
> former children’s hospital (which now houses a community center,
> sotres and art galleries) or attending one of the many yearly
> neighborhood festivals, including this month’s Arts & Music Festival,
> February’s Winter Wine Crawl,(both at oakhurstga.org) and the popular
> BBQ, Blues & Bluegrass Festival (decaturbbqfestival.com), in August.
>
> The community has more than 5,000 residents among them professors,
> artists, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists and
> emply nesters. But the overwhelming majority here are young families
> eager to enroll their children in the top-ranked Decatur public
> schools. Some of them will go on to Agnes Scott College, just outside
> Oakhurst’s borders.
>
> For most Oakhurst residents, however, the attraction is more about
> community pride than schooling – a fact that’s evident in the oak-tree
> emblazoned neighborhood banners that can be seen waving from just
> above every front door.”