The scion of former three-term Georgia Gov. Eugene Talmadge and Sen. Herman Talmadge has sold a significant portion of the family's Clayton County estate to make way for a new housing development.
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Rockhaven Homes purchased 400 acres of Still Water Estate, a 900-acre wooded site surrounding the J.W. Smith County Reservoir, for $8.2M, SSG Realty Partners CEO David Branch told Bisnow.
Atlanta-based Rockhaven is planning to develop a single-family community on the site, the second portion of the Talmadge estate to be sold over the past two years.
Eugene Talmadge purchased the land for Still Water Estate in the 1930s and passed it down through the generations. Today, it is managed by Lyniece Talmadge, who was married to Herman Talmadge’s late son Robert, Branch said. Robert Talmadge drowned in 1975 in Lake Lanier.
Branch said the decision to sell the estate was a difficult one for the family because it was “part of their soul,” but it was necessary.
“Anytime you’ve owned this property for 100 years and you lived on it and fished on it and raised your kids on it … there are a lot of memories,” Branch said. “They knew the time had come. The timing was right, and it was an asset that needed to be monetized before it got eaten up in taxes.”
The property has been annexed into the city of Lovejoy in preparation for the Rockhaven development, Branch said. The entire estate sprawls across Henry and Clayton counties.
Geosam purchased 130 acres on the Henry County side last year with plans to develop a residential community called The Grove, Branch said.
SSG is also marketing 160 acres on the south side of the reservoir for the family and is in discussions with a potential buyer, Branch said.
“That’s going to be more commercial. Henry County wants to see something very different” from the Grove project, Branch said.
His firm is a subsidiary of Artisan Land Cos. and brokered the land sales that led to developments such as One Atlantic Center and Allen Plaza in Downtown Atlanta. Branch and SSG Regional Partner Peyton Stinson are working with the Talmadge family on the dispositions.
“To David and I, the most remarkable thing is the widower with two kids was able to safely manage this” property all those years without putting any debt on it, Stinson said.
“Lyniece is an incredibly savvy person.”
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