Welcome to the Chadds Walk subdivision home page.
Chadds Walk is a community of 194 homes that includes 186 homeowner association members. Members enjoy our facilities including tennis, two swimming pools, community events and much more. Chadds Walk resides amidst the very best public schools in the state; including Timber Ridge Elementary, Dodgen Middle and Pope High School. This website is designed to improve the overall communication in the neighborhood, therefore please feel free to contact us with any suggestions/comments/news.
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A History of Chadds Walk
Provided by Craig Tibaldi
So who is “Chadd” anyway? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Since I have always been interested in history, I was driven to find an answer (even as historically insignificant as our neighborhood may be). Last summer a couple of volunteers from the neighborhood and I spent some time at one of our sister communities, Chadds Lake, and this question was raised yet again. After a couple of emails and brief conversations with a relative of one of the original founders of Cotton States (the builder of our neighborhood), I was able to shed some light on this 20 year old mystery.
Here is what I found out:All of the Chadds subdivisions in Cobb County were named for Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. For those of you not familiar with Chadds Ford, it is located in the historic Brandywine Valley of Pennsylvania (south of Philadelphia and north of Wilmington, Delaware). Route 1 runs through the heart of what I call “mushroom country.” It is a beautiful part of the country, not far from where my wife and I attended college. The area is full of early American history, quaint bed & breakfasts, and the Revolutionary War’s Brandywine River Battlefield.
Three famous American artists were originally from Chadds Ford: N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), Andrew Wyeth (1917), and Jamie Wyeth (1946). These three men are all related: a grandfather, father, and son. N.C. gained international fame for his popular illustrations in classic novels such as Kidnapped, Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer, and Robinson Crusoe. Wyeth Walk, one of the streets on the Oak Lane side of our neighborhood, was named after this family. The naming trend for the streets in our neighborhood continued. Apparently all the streets are named after the Wyeth family, their works of art, or areas around Chadds Ford, PA. N.C. Wyeth was the eldest of this clan, and two of the streets on the Bishop Lake side are named for him. The “N” stands for Newell (ergo Newell Drive), and the “C” stands for Convers(e) (ergo Converse Court). One of Andrew Wyeth’s most famous works of art is a piece called “Spindrift,” the street on which our larger pool resides.
Spindrift, by Andrew Wyeth
Other names are not so obvious. Fairville is town in the Brandywine Valley area (Fairville Court). Scribner’s Sons was a magazine/publisher that N.C. Wyeth illustrated for in early 20th century (Scribner Court). Joe Bancroft (Bancroft Court) built a studio in Wilmington, Delaware where N.C. Wyeth studied art in 1905 under Howard Pyle. The City of Haverhill (Haverhill Road) is a town in Massachusetts not far from where N.C. Wyeth was born. Some street names still remain a mystery to me, such as Sprucebough and Lamplight. I assume they were also named after one of the three categories outlined above, or they existed prior to the subdivision being built. If you know, drop me a line.
We also discovered why our neighborhood was divided in two. Cotton States did not separate Chadds Walk into two subdivisions for fear that it would become another Hedgerow (I, II, III, IV, etc.) which was too confusing. By keeping Chadds Walk one neighborhood, Cotton States was only required to provide one amenities package, another advantage to the builder.
I also learned that when the subdivision was being built twenty years ago, most of the first homeowners were transplants who were transferred to the Atlanta area by major employers such as IBM and Delta. As a result, our neighborhood was made up of folks from all over the country.
I hope that you have enjoyed this slice of our history. If you get a chance, take some time to check out the artworks of the Wyeth family.
