Lois Pattillo Bannister would end up being the only private owner of the Farmhouse to not operate a working farm on the property as the next four owners of the property would do just that over the next 60-plus years. The first of those being the Roberts family who traded their home in Buckhead to Lois Pattillo Bannister for the farmhouse in 1942. The Roberts family would live here only for a short period of time, selling the farm to Henry Ogden in 1946. Henry and Leila Ogden moved into the farm after Henry returned home from serving during World War 2. Henry wanted to experience farm and country life after his time in the war. Leila was skeptical about the endeavor. The couple had two children, Hank and Merideth. This was an active farm during their time here, however, the Ogden’s experiment with farm life only lasted a decade as they sold the farm to Frank and Hortense Smith.
The Smiths, Frank, his wife Hortense along with their children lived here from 1956 to 1975. Frank owned and operated a nursery business in Atlanta. When they lived in Dunwoody, the business moved to Roswell Road where the Pike Nursery is today. While they lived here, the Smiths would discover multiple quirks about the house. Bonnie, one of the Smith children, recalled her mother taking a sledgehammer to one of the walls in the kitchen because they suspected a fireplace was hidden behind it. They did in fact, find a fireplace behind the wall. They also found a button on one of the floors in the kitchen that apparently did nothing. This button was likely installed by Lois Pattillo Bannister, which when pressed would alert the servant staff that she needed their help.
The Smiths would go on to sell the farmhouse to a real estate developer by the name of Jim Cowart in 1975. Mr. Cowart would proceed to sell the property to what would be the last private owners of the farm: David and Linda Chesnut. The Chesnuts moved into the house with their daughter Caroline in 1976. The Chesnuts would go on to extend the barn, the blacksmith shop, and added fretwork to the porch on the main house. They would also install a wood-burning range oven as they felt it fit in with the house’s history. That range is still in the house today.
One of the more harrowing events in Dunwoody’s history, the 1998 tornado, did not spare the Chesnut’s farmhouse. As the tornado-ravaged its way through the city, it caused a tree to come crashing down into Caroline’s bedroom. Caroline was not in the bedroom at the time. The Chesnuts would go on to restore the home after the damage the tornado caused and would live on the property for another 7 years. In 2005, recognizing the historic nature of their home, the Chesnuts sold the historic property to Dekalb County. When Dunwoody became a city in 2008, what many people called the Chesnut farmhouse became property of the newly formed city government, who now, along with the Dunwoody Preservation Trust help take care of the property and manage the home. The names of the first two owners, the Donaldsons and the Bannisters were combined to give the property its modern name, the Donaldson-Bannister Farmhouse. Today, the Farmhouse sits on 2.89 acres of land and is host to a wide variety of private events throughout the year. It is also home to an ever-growing repository of historical archival documents that help us at the Dunwoody Preservation Trust preserve the history of Dunwoody and the north Atlanta area.