The Next Chapter

“I'm going to live there one day.”

Victor was just a young boy, but he said the same thing every time he passed the house on the way to Dr. McArthur’s office for his recurring tonsilitis. Even then, the house looked as if a good gust of wind would be the end of it. Victor’s father reminded him of his vow when he moved into the house in 1991. Even though he had forgotten the words he’d spoken as a child, he had never forgotten his love for the house with beautiful porches and nine ionic columns.

The house was built in 1910, only five years after Toombs County was incorporated. It was built for George Washington Lankford and his new bride, Agnes (McCauley). “Agnes was a milliner from Savannah,” said Victor. “She came to Lyons to take hat orders, which is how she and Mr. Lankford must have met. After they married, they spent their honeymoon in France.

“While there, they went for a ride in the countryside and came up on a house that someone was tearing down.” It’s not known if the Lankford’s had the origin of Lyon's namesake, Lyon, France, in mind when they purchased the wood and had it shipped back to Lyons. “The McCauley brothers from Savannah built the house for their sister, Agnes. Of course, they had no idea how the wood originally fit together. So, they designed the house around the pieces of wood,” said Victor.

Judge George Lankford was a cornerstone of Lyons and Toombs County. According to his obituary in The Macon Telegraph on June 9, 1941, he died “following a heart attack.” He was “long active in the development of his town and county” and “one of the best known attorneys in this section of the state.” Twenty of his brief fifty-nine years, he was the attorney for Toombs County and also chairman of the Toombs County Board of Education for twelve years, for which he was known as “Common Schools” Lankford. He served in both the Georgia House of Representatives (1917-1923) and the Georgia Senate (1923-

24, 1929-1930). (www.newspapers.com).

George and Agnes Lankford raised four children, George, Ralph, Joe Beatty, and Mary, in the Queen Anne-style house. Years later, Joe Beatty, and his wife, Willie Mae, moved from South Thompson Community to the Lankford house in Lyons to care for his widowed mother. However, by then, the house had already been in decline for many years.

“The front room of the house was made into a bedroom for Granny Lankford so she could see out the front window,” said Mary Edmonds, owner of Mary’s Interiors in downtown Vidalia. She was fourteen when she started going to the house to work for Willie Mae’s catering business. Many locals will undoubtedly remember Willie Mae as the woman who cooked, baked, and catered out of the old house. Mary affectionately keeps one of Willie Mae’s cookbooks still marked with food stains from years of use.

Year after year, the old house continued to decline. In 1982, Joe Beatty died at the age of sixty-seven. Agnes Lankford, his mother, passed one year later at one hundred years old. Following the death of the elderly Ms. Lankford, the house was sold to someone in Atlanta but never occupied.

Due to her failing health, Willie Mae moved into the Bethany Home. “She had raised four boys, taken care of her motherin-law for years, and worked seven days a week the whole time,” said Mary. “When she started having mini-strokes, she went into the nursing home.” Willie Mae died in 1992, a few days short of her sixty-sixth birthday.

As the house continued to sit vacant, it fell further and further into disrepair. Passersby felt certain they would one day wake up to find it had simply given up the ghost and collapsed into a pile of rubble. Finally, in 1991, the house was again for sale, and the news couldn’t have come at a worse time. That same year, Victor was diagnosed with colon cancer. While lying in a hospital bed, he and his family decided to buy the house, knowing the opportunity might never come again.

In the following months, Victor gave the house his heart and soul. He worked to resurrect and restore the house to its former beauty between chemotherapy treatments. “There were times when I would be sanding floors and just pass out,” said Victor. Thankfully, the treatments were successful, and the cancer went into remission. He and his family moved into the house on October 11, 1991.

Like the house, Victor had renewed hope. He had taught biology and chemistry in the Toombs County school system for many years. With more life to live, he wanted to do more with his life in a leadership position in the educational system. In 1994, Victor completed his specialist degree in education. The following year, he served as principal of Lyons Elementary School. And by 1996, he had completed his doctorate in educational administration and another in leadership and supervision.

After thirty years of his career in education devoted to the Toombs County School system, he took a position with the State Department of Education. Five years later, he left the State Department to start his own consulting company and work part-time with Brewton-Parker College as a liaison between schools and the college.

In early 2022, Victor retired from his service in education to begin a new chapter in the service of hospitality. “I’ve always been interested in bed and breakfast inns,” said Victor. “I love that each one is unique. Every place has its own style that reflects the history of the people and the place. I wanted to give people an experience from a time when silver and china were a normal part of hospitality and service.”

It had taken Victor three years to arrange and organize the antiques and furnishings he had amassed over the years with a vision for a bed and breakfast in mind. Then, midway through his big plans and preparations, Covid-19 hit, and the hospitality industry came to an abrupt halt. As places and businesses reopened, one thing was clear: people were done with isolation and ready for a vacation. In the aftermath of the pandemic, travel trends shifted more toward Boutique hotels, VRBOs, and Bed and Breakfast venues like Nine Columns.

Not only is Nine Columns a B&B, it also serves as an event venue. Victor has hosted bridal and baby showers, prom dinners and birthday parties.

OPPOSITE PAGE The well manicured grounds make Nine Columns a perfect location for weddings and outdoor receptions.

When Victor opened for business in January 2022, he wasn’t sure what to expect. By early 2023, guests from over ten countries had stayed at Nine Columns. “Guests have come from as far away as France, Denmark, Spain, Greece, and Japan,” said Victor. “I recently had a group here from the Netherlands.”

With its tall ceilings, grand staircase, stained glass windows, chandelier, and twelve-foot wood-paneled sliding doors moving seamlessly into place between the dining and sitting room, the 1910 Queen Anne-style house’s interior makes a stoic stand worthy of its nine columns. A beautiful sculpture by Humphrey Hopper called “the Maiden,” dated March 7th, 1815, looks out from the sitting room window. The dining room features a marble-topped sideboard from France, an antique rug bought from the Dupont House estate sale, and mirrors from an old pharmacy in Atlanta that date back to the early 1800s. On the more modern side, the inground pool is a perfect addition to a B&B in South Georgia.

Nine Columns is not only a B&B but also an event venue. This past Christmas, Nine Columns hosted thirty-two events over sixteen days. “I’ve had bridal and baby showers, bridesmaid’s luncheons, prom dinners, winter formals, and birthday parties,” said Victor. Nine Columns is also a wedding venue and has a beautiful garden for outdoor events.

Four bedrooms on the second floor are available for booking and provide both luxury and comfort. Each has unique features, such as antique painted screens (one of which came from China), balconies, and in-room private baths. One of Victor’s favorite pieces is a four-post bed he purchased from an estate sale in Boston while traveling. “This is President Garfield’s childhood bed. I’m waiting on the documentation to arrive,” he said. “There’s another one just like it in the White House.”

Instead of a “complimentary breakfast” of cold muffins and a small box of cereal, Victor provides his guests with an authentic Southern breakfast. A typical breakfast at Nine

Columns might include quiche, fried bacon, grits, French toast, fresh fruit, muffins, orange juice, and coffee. A coffee bar and wine bar make this B&B experience complete. And if a guest needs something ironed, all they have to do is ask the host, which is something he enjoys. (You’ve got to love a guy who likes to iron.)

Just like Judge Lankford, who served the city of Lyons and the county of Toombs in those early years of establishment, and his daughter-inlaw Willie Mae who cared and provided for family and the community with her catering and baking services, Victor continues the tradition with his Bed and Breakfast Nine Columns. “I think this was always in my heart for the house,” said Victor.

Nine Columns is more than a successful new business for our community. It is a memoir of the people, the place, and the time in which they lived. It took someone with a heart to serve others to see that the story of the house the Lankfords built was not over. While others saw a broken-down ruin, Victor saw a home and a place to serve. And for that reason, the next chapter in the memoir of Nine Columns is his to tell.

BY TERI R. WILLIAMS PHOTOS BY DAPHNE WALKER & DR. SUSANNA MEREDITH