Above: Buddie, shown at the far right in the white suit, with a radio broadcasting crew at the incomplete West View Cemetery mausoleum.
Two life choices coincided to upend Asa Candler, Jr.’s last grasp at superlative greatness. The first was Briarcliff Laundry and the second was the West View Mausoleum and Abbey.
In 1933 Buddie took over hands-on management of West View Cemetery. He wanted to make it the most beautiful cemetery in Atlanta, possibly in all of America, and was confident that he could make the venture a profitable business. He had a vision, and that vision included completely revamping the landscaping, removing monuments and decorative shrubberies, and installing stone walls and fountains around the grounds. These decisions landed him in legal trouble when plot holders discovered that he’d revised the beautiful plots they’d purchased and disturbed their loved ones’ rest. That controversy alone was a storm he could have weathered with only minor financial impact. But the mausoleum, that was the project that ended it all.
“I am going to make West View Cemetery the most beautiful in the country. I have taken money from my own pocket for the beautification of the cemetery. I have sold tax-free bonds to pay for this beautification program. If the Lord lets me live long enough and if the people of Atlanta will co-operate, West View will be the most beautiful place in the world.”
The West View mausoleum, conceived in the early 1940s, was to be the largest of its kind under one roof in the entire United States. Superlative as always. It was intended to evoke a sense of the opulence of old Europe, and as a born-again Christian he hoped it would be a grand statement of faith and vision in tribute to God’s grandeur. It was an ambitious project, the details of which will be included in a future site update.
The mausoleum needed money, lots of money, and with the US’s involvement in WWII kicking off, construction materials were expensive and scarce. His new yacht that had replaced the immolated Amphitrite was seized by the U.S. Navy for troop transport, so he couldn’t sell it for cash. His real estate holdings were too valuable to his portfolio to sell off. And while West View was intended to eventually be self-sustaining, with an on-site morgue, casket sales and floral arrangements, it would take time to ramp up those departments and start generating sufficient revenue. He needed another source of income.
One resource that his Briarcliff property always had in abundance was water from his private artesian spring. As he had so many times before, he harnessed the water source and built a massive laundry and cold storage facility—the largest in the Southeast of course—and started selling services. Operated by his sons John and Samuel, the laundry would provide the income he needed to fund the mausoleum project.
Unfortunately, the laundry burned in 1943, landing him in tremendous legal trouble and financial straits, just as the West View plot holder lawsuits were picking up momentum. Fire insurance on the laundry was underfunded—unfunded, really—leaving him unable to cover the property loss charges pending against him, and injunctions slowed and even halted work on cemetery improvements. More on the laundry business and the controversy surrounding it will be shared in a future site update.
Following a dramatic trial, in 1944 he and his sons were acquitted of the laundry fire charges. Unfortunately, he’d hemorrhaged money in the fight. Meanwhile, cemetery plot holders were amassing a class action suit with more than 300 petitioners, and some were even quoted as intending to “drive Asa Candler out of town.” After a lifetime of shenanigans, Atlanta had had enough.
Later in life Buddie would reflect back on this period as the end of his struggle with alcoholism and the start of his religious devotion. Based on clues in his personal testimonial he likely gave it up for good between 1936 and 1941. He found God, gave up drinking, and connected with top leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention and the Methodist church such as Dr. Louie Newton and Bishop Arthur J. Moore. He personally flew key religious figures around the country and hosted them at his home, drawing them into his inner circle. He participated in fundraising and helped to break ground on new church construction. This intense affiliation with his rediscovered faith served to reinforce his vision of the grand mausoleum, so he redoubled his dedication to his plans for West View cemetery.
But born-again or not, the financial hits kept coming and didn’t let up. He sold off hotels and his father’s mansion on Ponce de Leon Ave. He sold Thunderbolt Yacht Basin, citing no need for it any longer, since the Navy had failed to return his ship. The signs of restructuring his finances are widely evident during this period, and running parallel with those measures were announcements of new and expensive features at West View.
Meanwhile, he continued to tighten his relationship with church leadership. But an odd moment in 1946 demonstrated that he was still the unpredictably imaginative truth-bender and showman that he’d always been. On November 22, 1946, he attended the Southern Baptist Convention and gave a keynote speech, wherein he claimed to believe that a soul detector could be built to verify true Christian faith.
“Candler, with a mechanical invention of his own design illustrated the Christian in his church. When the Christian went into his church with the spirit of God in his heart, the gadget worked. If the Christian entered alone, the machine would not operate.”
In a way this kind of rhetoric and his actions in the face of financial ruin demonstrate what’s known as “dry drunk” behavior. He could be at times as erratic and irrational as he was during his drinking days, even though he no longer consumed alcohol. The behavior is also evident in the way he doubled down on his mausoleum. It was an obsession, one that leaked into every decision and every press statement. He was determined to see it through to completion. Still, the project languished.
By the end of 1946 his finances had unraveled enough to bring him to a decision point: either give up his work at West View and refocus on better investments, or sell off more of his portfolio to prop up funding of the cemetery work. He chose the latter, and the largest casualty was Briarcliff Mansion. He began making preparations to sell in 1946, sold the property to the state in 1947, and completed the transfer 1948. He moved what he could to his new residence at Briarcliff Hotel and Apartments and left much of the home’s furnishings behind. More about Briarcliff Mansion’s journey since that sale can be found here.
On February 15, 1947, Buddie’s oldest surviving son, John, passed away from an experimental treatment that was intended to cure him of alcoholism. John entered a clinic that touted the effectiveness of administering large doses of insulin and inducing shock, then bringing the patient back to stability with alcoholism purged from the body. But John didn’t stabilize. He died of insulin shock and the unfathomable loss initiated a quiet period in Buddie’s life, when he stayed out of the public eye and leaned hard on his faith.
In 1948, as he and Florence settled into their new home and he grieved the loss of his son, his health took a turn that signaled the beginning of the end. It’s as if a part of Buddie died when he walked away from Briarcliff, and his health was never the same.
February 16, 1947, The Atlanta Constitution
In 1949, morbidly obese and aging rapidly, Buddie departed for a once-in-a-lifetime African safari with his grandson, Asa, V. They shot a massive bull elephant and traveled across the African continent, meeting with locals and bringing home outlandish stories. Buddie claimed to have been an inspiration to the African people, and said that he stunned them with magic tricks that he learned from Harry Houdini. He seemed to have some awareness that this was likely his last opportunity for a trip of that magnitude, and he was determined to make the most of it.
in 1950, Asa, Jr.’s first elephant, Coca, died at the Atlanta Zoo. The citizens of Atlanta were heartbroken over the loss of their beloved pachyderm, so he threw himself into a campaign to have her replaced. His efforts demonstrated that the good-hearted Buddie that had charmed the community for years was still in there, behind all of the eccentric behavior, egotism, and greed. He was still capable of big ideas and still wanted to please his community. While he wasn’t willing to fund the replacement, undoubtedly due to his finances being entirely dominated by the mausoleum project, he rallied and campaigned and devised a fundraising program to have Atlanta’s children raise dimes to purchase a new elephant. He personally hosted a fundraiser at the trophy room at West View, where he and his grandson shared stories, photos and film footage of their African safari.
“I gave Coca [the elephant] to Atlanta’s zoo several years ago, and it pleases me very much to see the interest people are showing in replacing her. ...Coca’s death has shown what an interest there is in Atlanta’s Zoo. And I sincerely hope that the people throughout the city will not only help the children to subscribe the money to replace Coca but I also hope they will give their unstinted support to our officials in a general zoo improvement program.”
When the community reached the fundraising goal, he flew two children to an exotic animal farm to hand-pick the new elephant. When Coca II arrived in Atlanta she was greeted by a ticker tape parade. Shortly thereafter Buddie went into the hospital and stayed for more than a month. His son Samuel gave statements, saying he was comfortable and improving, but his decisions following his release make it clear that he knew his remaining time was limited.
He petitioned to the court to be permitted to sell his remaining holdings and protect his assets from the pending West View court case. An injunction had previously stopped him, citing concerns that he would be unable to pay restitutions if the case were successful. The decision went all the way up to the state Supreme Court, which affirmed his right to sell.
“[Asa Candler, Jr., is] 70 years old, in bad health and intends to give the proceeds to his children and render himself insolvent.”
In 1951 Buddie put new people in charge at West View Cemetery and stepped away from day-to-day management. In 1952 he sold out of his West View stock completely, finally severing all management ties. The mausoleum was still incomplete, but he maintained a belief that the new owners would see it through. The sale price was rumored to be around $2mm, a fraction of the money he’d fed into the property in the hopes of transforming it into something transcendent. This would be his final transaction.
The Declining Years Gallery
Buddie at Briarcliff around the time of the mansion’s sale, estimated 1947.
