The Pine Lake Song (1999)

In the 1930s developer Carl Shaub created a resort in Dekalb County, ten miles from downtown Atlanta. It featured a small man-made lake which Shaub created by damming Snapfinger Creek. Citizens of the city could buy 20′ x 100′ plots for $69.50, and many did. They would bring tents and trailers and vacation during the summers– and, considering Atlanta’s mild weather, in spring and fall as well. Soon plot owners were building one-room cabins and Pine Lake was incorporated as a municipality.

As time went on residents began living year-round and consolidated lots so they could expand their cabins into cottages. By the 1950s most of the houses were rented by absentee landlords. Gentrification began in the late 1980s, with empty lots (there were lots of fires in the 40s, 50s, and 60s) getting new homes and older homes receiving makeovers.

Atlanta long ago grew around Pine Lake, making the once far-out community enviably close in. The lake and its wetlands are federally-protected wetlands and the lake, which was dredged in 2011, is healthy and beautiful. The land and wetlands are all public park land. The city retains its girl scout camp look and feel, and residents know and are friends with one another—a phenomenon unheard of in the surrounding suburbs. There are lots of musicians, artists, writers, and other creative people. The city itself is open and affirming and progressive.

I’m lucky to live in one of the original cabins, just feet from the man-made beach on the lake.

I wrote this song to celebrate my fascinating, beautiful, and welcoming home town.

A City of Small Houses

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