Welcome to the Old Lilly Schoolhouse 

 

Circa 1912, the Lilly Schoolhouse was built by Perry Green Busbee, Sr., the father of Georgia's 77th Governor, George Busbee.   (George Busbee was Governor from 1975-1983)   The Lilly Schoolhouse is one of the few surviving wood-framed school buildings in the State of Georgia with a second floor auditorium.  The auditorium seats approximately 150 and has been restored to an art-deco theater/auditorium of the period.   The downstairs floor has a large banquet room and two period classrooms with original chalkboards.    

 

Saved from impending demolition, the Lilly Schoolhouse in Lilly, Georgia has been a labor of love.  The loving restoration has been a several year long, project.   In January 2017, a natural disaster of tornadoes almost destroyed three years of painstaking, historic restoration.

 

Extensive rain damage from the January 2017 tornadoes was not covered by the insurance policy, as rain was excluded.   Disaster assistance with FEMA and SBA, while promised by both bureaucracies never materialized, since Lilly, Georgia was 30 miles outside of the disaster declaration.   Local and State Officials pleaded to have the disaster declaration amended by FEMA, only to be told that such an amendment could only come from the President of the United States.  To add insult to injury, then Hurricane Michael came through the following October to undo the repairs from the natural disaster in 2017!  So even Mother Nature became a never ending bureaucracy!

 

Undeterred, the labor of love continued.  Repairs, repainting and reworking areas already restored began again.   Historic restoration is a slow process, as it is not enough just to make an old building look new.  Original colors of surviving paint are matched, as well as original stain colors from surviving baseboard and trim.  Period lighting, curtains, and appropriate historic era furnishings are just some of the details that make an old building go back in time.

 

This is not the first time the Lilly Schoolhouse was almost destroyed by water damage, as the school was in danger of being lost completely by catastrophic roof damage due to water and rain damage in the 1980's. 

 

Early in restorations, the entire front classrooms were almost completely lost due to massive termite damage that obliviated supporting beams,  So as not to destroy the integrity of the original heart pine classroom flooring, termite repair was done by crawling under the school, and slowly taking up individual heart pine boards to save and relay them after new supporting beams were constructed underneath.  At all times, the goal has been to save the integrity of the building and to maintain its character and charm.

 

The Lilly Schoolhouse is not perfect, because construction in 1912 was not perfect.  Defects and imperfections have been lovingly preserved, including the glass opening in an interior door that was once an exterior door.  The original craftsman built the door by hand and squared out the opening by sight.  The original out of square opening, visible if you look close remains, to be true to the character and charm of the building.

 

That door was built with love for the Lilly Schoolhouse some 100 years ago, 

and love should not be changed to fit in a square.

 

                                                                             We hope you love this schoolhouse as much as we do.