Reviving Sandy Springs’ spring

A short distance from busy Roswell Road and the frenetic construction of City Springs, there’s an oasis of quiet and green in the center of Sandy Springs: Down a flight of wooden steps, across a manicured lawn bordered by flowers and trees, sheltered by a simple wooden canopy. There it is. The sandy spring. The source of cool, fresh water, 10 gallons a minute all year round, that sustained generations of Native Americans, where travelers stopped to water their horses, where Methodist camp meetings were held in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Yet visitors to the spring today can’t be blamed if they’re, well, underwhelmed. Surrounded by concrete, covered by a steel grate and 30 inches down, the spring – it’s said there originally were five in the vicinity — pools silently in a dark subterranean tub.

Carol Thompson believes the city deserves better.

“We’re trying to take something that’s historically significant but in recent years got little recognition, and shine a spotlight on it,” said Thompson, executive director of Heritage Sandy Springs. The nonprofit manages the 4-acre Heritage Green at 6110 Blue Stone Road, home to the spring and the historic Williams Payne House.

A fundraising drive launches next month to raise $400,000 for the project (cost estimates have risen by $50,000 since the effort was announced in February). Construction is to start in November or December and be finished by next spring.

Heritage Sandy Springs was founded in 1985 to oversee and manage the land after residents rallied to rescue the site from development and Fulton County acquired it. The spring was saved. The park, with its flower gardens and big gazebo, is a popular venue for weddings.

Now, it’s time for a makeover. The land will be re-graded to make it flatter, the better to accommodate folding chairs for events. Excavated dirt will go into terraced plots of native plants familiar to Native Americans and early European settlers. Flower beds that have gotten overgrown will be redone, and invasive plants like privet, nandina and canna lilies will be pulled out. The gazebo stays.

Most spectacularly, the spring will get a new shelter. Tentative plans by the husband-and-wife architectural team of Lane and Linda Duncan call for a multiroofed structure of wood or metal. Visitors will look down, over a glass railing, into a lighted spring with a sandy-type bottom and stones. They’ll see and – thanks to a recirculating pump – hear the water.

The aim of it all is “to reconstitute and revitalize the authenticity of the place,” Lane Duncan said. “The spring in the woods is why culture after culture has been here for hundreds of years – the Creek Indians, then the Cherokee Indians, then the (European) settlers. Without that source of water, none of us would be here.”