Built in 1870, now a City of Dunwoody park that is managed by Dunwoody Preservation Trust.
The house was built after William James (WJ) Donaldson returned from fighting in the Civil War. He was a prisoner of war in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and was released 12 days after capture and after signing a form that he would not take up arms again against the United States of America. However, WJ worked in 1864 as a shoemaker for the Confederacy and received $1.00 per pair of shoes.
After his death in 1900, Millie ran the home until she died in the 1930s. The home was purchased by Lois Bannister who also ran the house and farm alone until she sold it in 1942. One of the reasons the home was put on the historic registry was because two women, independently, owned and operated the property.
Lois Bannister hired architect Francis Palmer Smith, an architecture professor at Georgia Technical University, to alter the home so that it would be in the colonial revival style. The home changed hands a few times before the final private owners, David and Linda Chesnut, purchased the property in 1975. The home was severely damaged during a tornado in 1998 and the Chesnuts restored the property after the storm.
Currently, the home sites on 3.2 acres of land and has several outbuildings including a commissary, barn, and a blacksmith shop. There are also two gardens, vegetable and flower, on the property and the Donaldson family cemetery. There are estimated to be 27 graves in the cemetery including those of the original owners, W.J. and Millie and several of their relatives.
