Visiting the Wren's Nest

by Hal Jacobs

If Atlanta ever begins to appreciate Harris again, it means acknowledging The Wren's Nest, the historic home in Atlanta's West End and the city's oldest house museum.

Since 1987, when Carole Mumford was hired as executive director, the museum has benefited from a $500,000 historic restoration on the house and furnishings (its authentic wallpaper was featured in Bob Vila's Jan/Feb '98 American Home), as well as an open-door policy that reflects Mumford's past experience: five years with the National Urban League and ten years with the Atlanta Urban League, as well as a brief stint at the Cyclorama.

Tourist traffic is slow at The Wren's Nest these days, despite being named by National Public Radio's Savvy Traveler as one of Atlanta's Top 5 tourist sites.

For one thing, the museum is tucked off I-20, near West End strip centers, and is far off the large tour bus route that zooms down Peachtree Street from The World of Coca Cola to the spanking new Margaret Mitchell House.

For another, as a center for weekly storytelling, The Wren's Nest must now compete with story hour at upscale, mall bookstores. And the little museum has a miniscule operating budget.

But unlike the Margaret Mitchell House, which contains only a few authentic objects from that author's life, the Wren's Nest is stuffed with furniture, memorabilia, photographs, books and all sorts of other odds and ends accumulated by Harris during the more than 20 years he lived there and during the 90 years it has been a tourist destination.

Mumford admits that for years the house carried a stigma of racism. As late as the 1970s, African-Americans were denied entrance to the museum.

But Mumford, a veteran of previous stints at the National Urban League and the Atlanta Urban League, has brought a new sensitivity to the organization. She believes Harris' work makes The Wren's Nest a natural mecca for storytellers and story listeners of all races.

Creative Loafing, November 7, 1998