Circa 1941: Unknown
When the Berry Collins Company developed the Shadow Lawn subdivision in the 1920s, it called Shadow Lawn “an aristocrat among the high class north side subdivisions.”
Shadow Lawn lies about five and one-half miles from the center of the city, just beyond Buckhead, and is traversed by Peachtree road, which splits the parcel into two almost equal parts. There are 100 beautiful lots. Each of them has been improved with every civic convenience and the streets have been paved. It is a choice section and it has been developed in keeping with its surroundings.
The Berry Collins Company insisted on selling homes in Shadow Lawn “to people who take pride in their homes, their neighborhood and the city in which they live,” an employee later told the Constitution. The Company—founded by Berry H. Collins of Gallion, Alabama—also developed a neighborhood originally called Collins Park, but later called Westover. The Shadow Lawn subdivision is now part of the Alberta Drive-Mathieson Drive-West Shadowlawn Avenue Historic District (also known as Buckhead Forest).
Built in 1941, the home at 3210 Shadowlawn Avenue was first occupied by the Roy Karshner family in 1942.
Karshner was a Crawfordsville, Indiana native and 1917 graduate of Wabash College. He served as a second lieutenant in the Quartermaster Corps in World War I, and he married May Virginia Bartleson in 1919 shortly after his discharge. He was a high-school principal in Indiana, then moved to Florida before settling in Atlanta where he was became a Certified Public Accountant in 1925. May (Bartleson) Karshner was a Florida native and the daughter of John F. Bartleson, an early mayor of Gainesville, Florida. She was a member of the Little Garden Club, and the family attended nearby Peachtree Presbyterian Church. The Karshner family stayed in the house well into the 1960s.
The Karshner House last sold in 2018 for $535,000.
Select Bibliography
Atlanta Constitution. “’Shadow Lawn’ To Be Highly Developed Residence District on Atlanta’s North Side.” Oct. 26, 1924.
———. “Shadow Lawn Becomes Popular Residence Section.” June 28, 1925.
Georgia Society of Certified Public Accountants, Inc.: History, 1888-1948. Atlanta: 1949.
Wabash College: 1917 Annual Catalogue. Crawfordsville, IN: Wabash College, 1917.
Atlanta & Environs 