Mansions on wooded lots on one side of Peachtree Road, glass office and hotel towers on the other.
What Buckhead looks like
Buckhead is Atlanta's wealthiest district. West of Peachtree Road, houses sit on large wooded lots behind long driveways and iron gates. Along Peachtree Road itself and around , the buildings are glass office and hotel towers. Among them is 10 Terminus Place, part of a cluster of more than fifty high-rises.
Henry Irby bought about 202 acres near where Peachtree, Roswell and West Paces Ferry roads meet. In 1838 he opened a tavern there and hung the head of a buck he had shot over the door. The settlement took its name from it, and the tavern site is now , a few steps from the .
Wealthy Atlantans began building on these wooded hills after World War I. , an Anglo-Palladian mansion finished in 1928 for Edward and Emily Inman, is one of them. It is now part of the Atlanta History Center. Location scouts used it as President Snow's mansion in Catching Fire, the second Hunger Games film, redressing the Morning Room as his office and building sets on the lawn. The production returned to the same house for the next sequel, Mockingjay, Part 2. In 2023, its garden was used again for a fencing scene in The Rise of Red, the fourth Descendants movie. Another Buckhead mansion, the Calhoun Estate on Pinestream Road, played Ella's house in the same film.
Toward , the stone tower of the now stands in front of a glass condominium tower. Garden Hills, on the residential side, still has its brick elementary school and a diner on Peachtree Road that advertises serving Buckhead since 1948.
Films shot in Buckhead
played President Snow's residence in two Hunger Games films. Its garden turned up again in The Rise of Red, the fourth Descendants movie.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, 2013
Location scouts chose because its classical style and original antiques looked, in their words, like it had been there forever. The production spent about three weeks on the property, with five days of actual filming, redressing the Morning Room as President Snow's office and building new sets on the front lawn and in the gardens for the Capitol's victory party scene.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2, 2015
The production returned to for the sequel, using it again as Snow's residence.
Descendants: The Rise of Red, 2024
In 2023, the garden behind was used for a fencing practice scene between the character Chloe and her father. Another Buckhead mansion, the Calhoun Estate on Pinestream Road, played Ella's house in the same film.
What Buckhead can double for
Architectural comparison · 1930 to 1931
Santa Barbara, California, State Street, near the Arlington Theatre
The opened in June 1930, its ornamental cream terra cotta cast in a Spanish Baroque style. Santa Barbara's State Street was rebuilt in the Spanish Colonial Revival style after the 1925 earthquake destroyed much of downtown. The Arlington Theatre opened there in May 1931, a year after the Buckhead. Both buildings use the arched openings and molded ornament of the same architectural movement from the same two years.
The current marquee advertises concerts, and the ground floor storefronts have changed since 1930. A period shot needs to stay tight on the upper facade and its terra cotta ornament, not the street level. Parked cars along the curb would need the same control.
Architectural comparison · the 1970s and 1980s
Houston, Texas, Post Oak Boulevard, the Galleria area
Buckhead's office and hotel towers grew up around , an enclosed mall that opened in 1959. Houston's Galleria area grew up the same way, its towers built around a mall that opened in 1970. Architect Philip Johnson designed the Galleria area's earliest glass office towers on Post Oak Boulevard through the 1970s and into the 1980s, including the three towers of Post Oak Central and the 64 story Williams Tower. The district remains a mall-anchored cluster of office and hotel towers along a single boulevard, the same layout Buckhead has along Peachtree Road.
10 Terminus Place is a curved glass condominium from the 2000s. It is the tower actually photographed for this page. Post Oak Boulevard's own towers are an earlier generation, boxier and built mostly in the 1970s and 1980s. The comparison works at the level of the district, a boulevard of towers between a shopping mall and a residential neighborhood, more than for this specific building matched against a specific Houston one.
