Saved farmhouse on major Dunwoody intersection dates to early 1900s

Q: How old is the Dunwoody Farmhouse? Who lived there when it was first built? A: The Dunwoody Farmhouse, also called the Cheek- Spruill House, was built about 1907 by Joberry Cheek, a local farmer and sawmill owner. Cheek built the home, which sits at what is now the inter- section of Chamblee Dunwoody and Mount Vernon roads, for his son, Bunyan. Bunyan had just mar- ried and, with a baby on the way, he needed a place large enough famfor his new ily, according to the farm- house’s National Register of Historic Places registration form. Joberry spent $550 to buy and develop the 2.5-acre property, which included a pasture, cornfields, a barn and even a chicken coop. Valerie Biggerstaff, the director of historic records for the Dunwoody Preserva- tion Trust, which maintains the property, said Joberry followed up the project by purchasing his own lot across

the patriarch street. built The Cheek a new family home for both himself and his business ventures, setting up a corn mill and a cotton gin. Bunyan’s family soon left the farmhouse, though, and in 1912, Joberry transferred its ownership to his daughter, Myra and her husband, John Crook. The Crook family lived there until 1933. The house had a hand- ful of owners over the next decade, but this period of flux ended in 1945, when Carey Spruill bought the prop- erty for $3,000. Spruill used

the land to grow vegetables that he often sold at a gas station near the home, according to the Dunwoody Preservation Trust’s website. Big- gerstaff said the farmer and his mule — which he named Shorty — earned notoriety around town for their unusual field-plowing habits. “When Carey needed to turn the plow around, he would just pull out onto Mount Vernon Road, stop all of the traffic and turn around with his mule,” Big- gerstaff said. Spruill died in 1983, but his wife, Florence, lived in the house for another 11 years, until her own death in 1994. Mrs. Spruill’s absence meant the property would be sold again, and Biggerstaff said some in the community feared a new owner might destroy the historic building. This led to the creation of the Dunwoody Preservation Trust, which launched with a campaign to purchase the farmhouse from the Spruill estate before another owner could. The group raised $200,000, but it wasn’t enough. Instead, the building was saved in 1997, when a Houston-based bank bought the property. Biggerstaff said two of the preservation trust’s founders, Lynne Byrd and Joyce Amacher, convinced the company to donate a small portion of the lot — as well as the home — to their organization. The trust oversaw restorations, and in 2000, the farmhouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The organization maintains control the of building, which it leases to a local law firm.