John Wind
| John Wind | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 1819 Bristol, England |
| Died | May 18, 1863 Thomasville, Georgia |
| Nationality | English, American |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Buildings |
Greenwood Plantation (c. 1838) Susina Plantation (c. 1841) Pebble Hill Plantation (c. 1850) Oak Lawn Plantation (c. 1850) Eudora Plantation (c. 1850) Thomas County (GA) Court House (c. 1855) Fair Oaks Plantation (c. 1856) |
John Wind was an architect who worked in southwest Georgia in the United States from approximately 1838 until his death in 1863. He was born in Bristol, England, in 1819. John Wind designed the Greenwood, Susina, Oak Lawn, Pebble Hill, Eudora and Fair Oaks monumental plantation houses, the Thomas county courthouse and a few in-town cottages. William Warren Rogers writes "Some of Wind's work still exists and reveals him as one of the South's most talented but, unfortunately, least known architects." John Wind also worked as an inventor, jeweler, master mechanic and surveyor. He devised a clock that remained wound for one year and was awarded a patent for a cotton thresher and cleaner, Patent Number 5369. He was also the co-recipient of a corn husker and sheller patent in 1860. But it was his work as an architect that made him an enduring figure.
Circa 1838, merchant and planter Jackson J. Mash brought John Wind from New York city to Duncanville, Georgia, to design a large house for his plantation. Later, the area was identified as Mashes on railroad maps and as Susina from 1888 to 1906. It is now Beachton, or on a few maps, Moncrief slightly to the south. No known photographs exist for the Mash work. The house was brick, with four large columns supporting a portico with a small balcony under the portico and over the front door. The Southern Enterprise newspaper described it as a "fine mansion, where spacious apartments, gorgeous furniture (are housed)." The building cost between $12,000 and $15,000. This house burned in 1876.
The Greek Revival began waning in the United States circa 1840, but not in the South, where it remained a popular form. The Greek Revival style "was Wind's idiom and he utilized it to the point of near perfection." This idiom was a large portico supported by large two-story columns with Ionic capitals and a full entablature. The pediment included a decorative carving of a flower rosette. Under the portico was a cantilevered balcony with balusters of wheat and sheaf design. Under the balcony were double doors with sidelights and a fixed transom. Windows were nine over nine lights with triangular pediments. The basic plan is four over four with an enclosed breezeway the full length of the house. A 180 degree curved staircase rises from the right to the left on the second level. This form is common to Greenwood, Susina and Oak Lawn. Wind is known to have overseen construction and carved woodwork for at least some of his commissions.
John Wind was commissioned, circa 1838–1840, by one of the early settlers to Thomas county, Thomas Jones, to design a third house at Greenwood Plantation, just west of Thomasville, Georgia. Local stories often claim Greenwood was "completed during a nine-year period from 1835 to 1844." At Greenwood, the portico covers the full facade, producing a rather massive appearance. Sometime c. 1899, the owner Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne, commissioned noted architect Stanford White. White was the architect of Rosecliff and Madison Square Garden II among other notable buildings. White suggested few changes because of the existing "perfection" of Wind's Greek Revival design. He added two small, symmetric side wings and additional living and kitchen space in the rear. The evening of April 2, 1993, during a celebration of a just completed $2 million restoration, Greenwood caught fire and little except the exterior brick walls and two columns were saved. The exterior has been restored but the interior has not. Greenwood is held by the Greentree Foundation.
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