Some buildings survive because a community refuses to let them go, and Ponce Presbyterian Church used faith in Historic Preservation to restore one of them.

Architect Charles H. Hopson (1865-1941) designed this Gothic-Revival building in 1916 for Ponce de Leon Methodist Episcopal Church. Many Atlantans will remember the years it spent as The Abbey Restaurant, before the Ponce Presbyterian congregation made it home 18 years ago. When the building started showing its age, the Congregation decided they wanted it standing and serving Midtown for another hundred years. There was no grant or outside firm behind this restoration. Just the congregation, restoring their own building one campaign at a time. We toured the church with Pastor Tolivar Wills and David Huggins, who walked us through the work up close. Much of it has been about recognizing what makes the building special and restoring it with care. When a wall added decades ago came down, the original entrance was waiting behind it, and they left it exposed, old and new side by side. The stained glass was restored by the same family that first installed it, years later. The original floors stayed. Even the decorative organ pipes on the facade were kept, because they belong to the room. Pastor Wills is the first to say the work may never be finished, and that’s often how some preservation goes. It rarely happens all at once. It happens when a community decides a place holds too much of their history to give up on, and starts doing the work themselves. #preserveatl #midtownatl #atlantahistory #exploreatl #thisplacematters