Leila Ross Wilburn, Atlanta Architect
By TK
Monday, March 30, 2009
Ms. Leila Ross Wilburn was Georgia's first registered female architect (Registered Architect #29)
"What we most need in America," she writes in Brick and Colonial Homes: A Collection of the Latest Designs, Featuring the Most Modern in Domestic Architecture, "is a better class of small domestic architecture, one which shall provide us with homes more wholesome in their exterior appearance and more satisfying in their internal arrangement and finish."
"the only woman whose published plan books can be documented"
Leila Ross Wilburn Homes in MAK
AJC A tour of Leila Ross Wilburn homes
New Georgia Encyclopedia: Leila Ross Wilburn (1885-1967)
Architect Leila Ross Wilburn was an active designer of pattern-book houses, published in booklets through which she was able, at low cost, to make available to developers and builders hundreds of house plans. As a result there are countless unidentified Wilburn houses, which for decades were built by anonymous contractors, located throughout Atlanta, where she practiced architecture, and likely elsewhere in the region.
History or Midtown by by Tommy Jones and Bamby Ray
In her early period, Wilburn designed at least eighty single-family houses, photographs of which were included in her first plan book. Her practice coincided with Atlanta’s residential expansion and examples of her work can be found in Inman Park, Ansley Park as well as Midtown. She also designed at least six apartment buildings. Beginning in 1914, Wilburn expanded into the mail-order plan business. Her first of seven plan books was called Southern Homes and Bungalows, and contained seventy-nine buildings. Examples of her houses in Midtown can be seen at 826 Penn and 315 Tenth Street. The Chatham Court apartment building at 690 Piedmont Avenue was also designed by Wilburn. She remained active through the 1950s.
Georgia Women of Acheivement Leila Ross Wilburn
"...she joined the only other Georgia woman, Henrietta C. Dozier,"
"...They are still prized by their owners and praised by architects and scholars today."
Prominent architect Leila Ross Wilburn designed homes on Avery Street in Winona Park
From City of Decatur MAK is first residential subdivision
Leila Ross Wilburn, who attended Agnes Scott, was one of only two women registered as an architect in Atlanta in 1920
The architecture of Leila Ross Wilburn : an investigation into the plan book process and ideology in Atlanta from 1910-1940 Authors: Ramsey, David Clifton
Leila Ross Wilburn: Plan-Book Architect, by Jan Jennings © 1989 Woman's Art, Inc.. excerpt
"the only woman whose published plan books can be documented"
Wilburn House 266 11th St NE, Atlanta, GA 30309
Decatur Metro Blog
