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“Landscape Plan, A. H. Woodward, Esq., House,” Charles Wellford Leavitt, 1919. Historic American Building Survey AL-160 or 180?.
The First World War halted residential construction. George Miller, who also designed Kaulton, a finely planned industrial town near Tuscaloosa for Kaul Lumber, would return in 1920 to design the Kauls’ estate grounds. Ore min- ing resumed at the Helen-Bess and Kewanee Mines, the latter on the grounds of the Woodward estate. New York landscape architect Charles Wellford Leavitt, who had adroitly con- toured plans beginning in 1913 for Milner Heights on sev- eral Red Mountain knolls east of Altamont and Redmont, provided the plans for the drives, gardens, and outbuildings
on the Woodward estate during 1919 and 1920. California architect Reginald Johnson’s 22-room Italian Revival–style residence for Mrs. A. H. Woodward was completed in 1924. To protect their views on the Shades Valley side, in 1925 the Woodwards acquired 16.85 acres of the former Kewanee Mine property, and in 1927 they acquired Robert Jemison’s 6.84-acre knoll, making the Woodward homeplace Birming- ham’s most fully realized grand estate. The provision for the parkway with its natural area below (today’s Altamont Park) protects the views on the north side of the property.
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