AT A GLANCE
Why go?
On a quiet residential street in Atlanta's historic West End, the Hammonds House Museum turns a charming 19th-century home into an intimate encounter with the art of the African diaspora. Housed in the former residence of Dr. Otis Thrash Hammonds, a prominent Atlanta physician and devoted arts patron, the museum has since 1988 preserved, exhibited and interpreted the contributions that visual artists of African descent have made to world culture.↗↗↗
What makes it special is the way architecture, history and collection interweave: an Eastlake-style Victorian believed to be among the oldest houses in the West End, a story rooted in one family's love of art and education, and a permanent collection of more than 450 works spanning North America, Africa and the Caribbean. Add the John Rhoden Sculpture Garden, the only public garden devoted entirely to that sculptor's bronze work, and you have a small museum that consistently punches above its weight.↗↗
A house with memory
The building itself is part of the experience. The Victorian house at 503 Peeples Street is believed to have been built in 1857 and is considered one of the three oldest homes in the West End, an exquisite example of the Eastlake style. Long before Dr. Hammonds made it his home, it belonged to Madge A. Bingham, a beloved children's author and a leader in Atlanta's Free Kindergarten Movement. When the neighborhood's demographics shifted, she responded by founding the area's first integrated free kindergarten in a specially built addition to the house.
