Tuxedo Park is a wealthy residential district in Buckhead, introduced through a drive that turns its lavish houses, landscaped grounds, and unusually varied tree canopy into a portrait of Atlanta’s unequal geography. As Wes Jordan guides Roger White through the neighborhood, the setting also becomes political: its prominent residents are not merely sights to admire but people Jordan hopes to enlist.

Setting and Approach

The drive enters Tuxedo Park along Tuxedo Road after passing the Governor’s Mansion and a high wall screened by thick vegetation. Jordan presents the neighborhood as a place of exceptional status. Roger sees broad lawns, mansions rising above them, and dogwood blossoms beneath trees whose green-and-gold canopy reaches high over the road. The houses and grounds grow larger as the route curves east, making the passage through the district feel like a gradual ascent into concentrated wealth.

Landscape and Social Geography

Jordan draws Roger’s attention to the contrast between Buckhead and South Atlanta through their trees. Buckhead’s greater elevation and cooler conditions allow hardwoods such as maple, oak, locust, sycamore, beech, and chestnut to grow alongside pine; in South Atlanta, he says, pine predominates. His comparison turns local ecology into an account of unequal urban space, and he links the contrast to Niskey Lake, which Roger had regarded with pride. The tour therefore makes status visible not only in private estates but in the differing landscapes of Atlanta’s neighborhoods.

Houses and Their Owners

Jordan points out the former Courtney Danforth estate, recalling that Danforth once had the largest fortune south of Delaware. The enormous brick house stands on a rise behind four immense columns; its facade has quoins, groins, and pilasters, with ten second-story windows and nine windows plus a doorway on the ground floor. Dogwood blossoms spread across the lawn in front of it, softening but not diminishing the scale of the property.

The tour also connects the neighborhood to Inman Armholster and Charlie Croker. Jordan tells Roger that he wants to show him Inman’s house and describes it as a showplace. Later, he identifies a house marked by a stone wall and quail statues as Croker’s, just up the way from Armholster’s. He notes that Croker belongs to the Piedmont Driving Club, adding a social credential to the physical signs of wealth.

Narrative Significance

Tuxedo Park’s role in the scene is both visual and strategic. Its estates offer Roger a concentrated display of the power Jordan is discussing, while the homes of Armholster and Croker turn the drive into an introduction to potential political allies. The contrast between the district’s expansive grounds and the less tree-diverse South Atlanta described by Jordan makes the landscape itself part of his argument about who possesses Atlanta’s advantages.