Special Guest Post: Gone With the Wind But Found In A Barn It’s not every day that you walk into an old dairy barn on the back side of an 1835 plantation house and see the pieces of the most iconic movie set of all time, but that has been happening to me regularly for the last twelve months. You see, I’m the guy. The guy that was able to talk the owners of the Tara façade, who have seen it languishing in their barn since 1979, into letting me take a group of volunteers and sort it, clean it and display it as a tourist attraction. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Maybe I should start at the beginning of the story. When David O. Selznick wrapped the filming of Gone with the Wind (it was ALL shot in Hollywood, California) he left the iconic home of the O’Hara’s standing at the end of the mixed use movie town known as the “40 Acres”. For Tara, the home of Scarlett and her family was no more than a three sided front with no interior rooms and no second floor (Hattie McDaniel, as Mammy stood on a ladder to call to Scarlett from the second floor window in her opening scene) and so it, like the other sets was dressed and prepped for actors who would come and create a three dimensional world and then leave it to the elements when the work was done. Selznick himself said that “Tara was a façade, and in fact all of Hollywood was a façade” and that “nothing lasts more than 90 days on the back lot. However Tara did last. It stood nearby as Rory Calhoun road into town in the Texan and it watched as Ron Howard rode his bicycle in between his scenes on the Mayberry set just around the corner, but it was never more put under the hot lights or “dressed for filming”. And in 1959, after being on the set for twenty years, the present owners, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz decided that Tara should be taken down so that the barracks of Stalag 17 could be constructed for Hogan and his Heroes. And thus Tara was dismantled and her windows, doors and side porches, as well as her front porch roof were loaded on to trailers and shipped to Atlanta. Her remaining twenty-two foot real Her remaining twenty-two foot real brick columns were pushed into a pit and covered with dirt and the rest of her structure, made of 2x4 framing covered with plywood veneer and bricks that were made of adobe (California clay and straw) were pushed over and burned to the ground (an act that Sherman’s Army had never been able to accomplish). After arriving in Atlanta in 1959, to much celebration (a “Welcome Home Tara” banner hanging in front of the State Capital near the two long trailers and a host of dignitaries) her planned display in a Gone with the Wind Museum failed and she was packed off to a barn in north Georgia for the next twenty years. And there she remained until the late wife of Senator Herman Talmadge (Betty Talmadge) purchased it in 1979 and brought it to her home south of Atlanta for another attempt at the much sought after museum. However, after multiple attempts in which some metro Atlanta County or Historic Group would work out the details and take possession of the Tara façade, the plans would again hit a snag and “Ms. Betty” would be forced to move it back to her former dairy barn. And I guess the Tara façade would still be languishing under piles of dirt and assorted debris in that dairy barn if I hadn’t come into the picture. I had known the Talmadge family since the 1980’s and as a professional storyteller I had entertained for Miss Betty at some of her corporate events there at her home (a short distance from the Tara façade). My creation of the Gone with the Wind Tour in 1995 and home (a short distance from the Tara façade). My creation of the Gone with the Wind Tour in 1995 and a proclamation by the governor regarding its success in bringing millions of tourism dollars to the State only a few years later made me the logical one to try and put Tara back together and put her on display. So I suggested to the Talmadge family that they allow me to tell her (Tara facades) story via the web, bring in volunteers and begin the inventory and cleanup. After locating the pieces and putting them into flats (a 2x4 cradle that allows them to stand up) I have been giving tours of the site a few time per month as scheduling allows. At present there are no plans to “rebuild” Tara but to display her windows, doors and porches like the historic artifacts they are, next to photos of them during the filming and the completed work. My book titled the Official Guide to the Saving Tara Project has been out since the first of September and has sold over 500 copies. Her blog site is found at savingtara As the photos will show, the pieces are in the process of being cleaned and displayed and while there is no real time table or plan for a final outcome, my goal of bringing the Tara façade to the attention of the world and her fans that still seek her resting place, has come to fruition. Like so many of the forgotten structures and projects here presented at Abandoned, Old and Interesting Places, the Tara façade is simply wood with a story, and all it takes is someone with a desire and the gumption that Margaret Mitchell ascribed to Scarlett to tell that story and preserve that structure. Peter Bonner, Historical & Hysterical Tours, Inc. Copyright 2014 https://facebook/pages/Saving-Tara/420905184688430
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 10:30:00 +0000