The Lawrenceville Country Club, aka, Gunter’s Barbeque
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
DEC. 4, 2020 | In this space recently we wrote about Hometown Barbeque closing. Its forerunner was called Gunter’s Barbeque.
I have a framed 16×20 painting of Gunter’s, by the late George Keener, in my home hallway that I pass each day. When writing about Hometown Barbeque, I was wanting to have a photo of its predecessor, the old Gunter’s. It never came to mind that I had that painting.
Keener’s painting is entitled Vanishing Gwinnett: Gunter’s Barbeque. I have other paintings of older Gwinnett buildings, all 16×20 and beautifully framed, grouped together near our foyer. They are:
-
Kidd’s Courthouse
Johnson’s Grocery, by Bob Miller (1987);
- Elisha Winn House by Bob Miller (1988) and
- Ted’s Fruit Stand, by Ann Odum (1990).
Our living room also has another notable local painting, of the Historic Gwinnett Courthouse, done about 1987 by David Kidd. It shows the courthouse when it was stucco white, before the red-brick restoration.
While only one of our paintings is named officially “Vanishing Gwinnett,” in effect all four of the five are historic renderings of the way they previously looked. The Elisha Winn House, Gwinnett’s birthplace, remains restored by the Gwinnett Historical Society, much as Miller painted it in 1988,
Johnson’s Grocery
Johnson’s Grocery has since been demolished, and was on Georgia Highway 120 between Duluth and Lawrenceville, and run by Vera Huff. “She was a character,” Ann Odum remembers, “A step back in time.”
Ted’s Fruit Stand
Ted’s Fruit Stand was at the northeastern corner of Buford Highway and Georgia Highway 120 in Duluth. It was a landmark selling fresh produce, fruit, etc., operating out of an old gas station by Ted Hambrick. It is part of many, many nearly 100 different paintings that Ann Odum has done in her hometown. The list is exhaustive. Ann put reproductions of 97 of her paintings of Duluth in a beautiful book, Duluth: Through the Eyes of One of Its Own, in 2011. She has a few remaining copies for sale.
Elisha Winn House
David Kidd of Loganville was an artist working at the Gwinnett Daily News when he painted the old courthouse. I think he is still around, but I have lost contact with him.
The term Vanishing Gwinnett is the title of two books published by the Gwinnett Historical Society. These were coffee-table sized editions showing old photos of many Gwinnett places. Dorsey Stancil of Buford edited each book. The first was published in 1984, while Vanishing Gwinnett II came out in 2001.
It’s time to see someone publish more old images of latter day activities in a new Vanishing Gwinnett III book. Volunteers: step forward!
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With Gwinnett growing so quickly, and buildings being disrupted, this leads me to wonder: why can’t we get the several Gwinnett artists associations to come together and capture in paint some of the remaining old and endangered buildings of Gwinnett? It needs to be a coordinated effort, and not approached in a willy-nilly fashion. Perhaps some group will step forward to propel this idea forward, and preserve on canvas these historic older buildings, some of which need photos to paint from.
Here’s a suggestion of some scenes that needs to be remembered in a new series of “Vanishing Gwinnett” paintings:
- Old two story high schools in Grayson, Dacula and Norcross.
- The original Joan Glancy Hospital.
- The Twin Towers on I-85, with “Gwinnett Is Great,” and “Success Lives Here.”
- George Pearce’s Store in Suwanee.
- Mechanicsville school in Peachtree Corners.
- George Williams House in Lawrenceville.
- The old tannery in Buford.
And no doubt, old-time Gwinnettians can come up with other buildings that need to be memorialized. Who will step forward to preserve these older buildings in paintings?
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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