 Edward C. Peters was the son of Richard Peters, a pivotal figure in Atlanta’s earliest history. Richard Peters was the scion of a distinguished and prominent Philadelphia family. He was instrumental in the building and naming of Atlanta, having arrived in the city when it was known simply as Terminus. He briefly renamed it Marthasville after his daughter. His son Edward followed in his father’s footsteps and placed his stamp on the city as well. The Peters family was responsible not only for the shaping of midtown Atlanta but also for the creation of the Peters Park area, a 200-acre tract that Edward Peters eventually donated and sold for the campus of what would become the Georgia Institute of Technology. Peters served on the city council for decades and also served as a county commissioner and alderman. He supported the extension of Atlanta’s city limits in 1904 from Sixth to 15th streets and was instrumental in the city’s purchase of Piedmont Park. Upon Peters’s death in 1937, the house became the property of his only son, Wimberly. Wimberly’s wife, Lucille, inherited the home upon her husband’s death in 1948, and she continued to live in the house until her death in 1970. The house was nearly demolished in 1971 but was saved through its designation on the National Register of Historic Places. Ponce de Leon Investors Ltd. bought the property in 1971 and converted it into The Mansion restaurant. |