Rockby

Rockby is a two-story frame house northeast of Sparta, Georgia, built in the Gothic style and believed to date from shortly after 1854. Its exterior features pointed gingerbread moulding, a five-arched front porch, a decorative center gable with bargeboard, and dormer windows lighting a full attic. Inside, the four-room central-hall plan has restrained Greek Revival detail, including a marbelized wood mantel in the southwest parlor and grained pine doors. Granite pillars support the house, and a granite milkshed, root cellar, well and wooden smokehouse stand behind it. The property matters for its architecture and for Richard Malcolm Johnston, who bought the land in 1854 and opened a boys' boarding school here in January 1862. He named it Rockby for the large granite boulders on the hillside. Johnston used an honor system, allowed students freedom of movement and made recreation part of school life, and the upper rooms served as dormitories. He later became a writer, author of the Dukesborough Tales.