“People did the
old-fashioned kind of thing of bringing brownies when we moved in,”
Kathy Adams-Carter said about her neighborhood, Dunwoody North. She and her husband wanted to move from
their smaller house on Dresden Drive since 2003, when they married, but
they didn’t settle on a home until they found the right one in August
2012, Adams-Carter said. She said they wanted a sense of community and a
place that was not isolated. “We are at heart an intowner, not a suburbanite,” she said. [Any guess who brought the brownies?
Answer]
Tucked away and shaded by trees, Dunwoody
North provides cool cover and accessibility to nearby shopping and
parks, including Brook Run Park, which Adams-Carter said she and her
husband can walk to. “We looked at Smoke Rise [in eastern DeKalb
County] and farther out, and it, along with Avondale Estates, felt too
isolated,” she said, noting the intown houses were older and more
expensive than the house they found in Dunwoody. “It’s outside the Perimeter, but it’s
almost intown,” she said. “I actually grew up about a mile on the other
side, and I remember riding the school bus into Dunwoody when it was
gravel roads and it really seemed far out.” When not entertaining their granddaughter,
Adams-Carter said she enjoys watching the younger kids skateboarding and
riding bikes in the neighborhood. “We’re still in a diverse neighborhood age-wise,” she said.
Gerri Penn, president of the
Dunwoody North Civic Association, said the 1,000-home community is a mature
neighborhood with an active civic association, swim and tennis teams,
proximity to two schools and Brook Run Park, and a neighborhood watch.
“We have a good mix of seniors, middle age and young,” she said.
During the summer, swim team photographer
and dad Rob Maxwell says the kids out of school “
live at the pool.” He
describes the swim meets as “controlled chaos.” His background in art
and design allows him to take the pictures the parents can’t get with
their iPhones, he said. When his youngest daughter, Avery, was 5
years old, she climbed the high dive and teetered on the edge of the
board, launching into the water before dad could say “No!” Maxwell said.
“She’s just a little daredevil. I think she likes the feeling of flying
off the board.” The pool is “what summer is to them,”
Maxwell said about his three children, ages 11, 13 and 15, and the 100
children in the swim team organization. “It’s very wholesome and
Mayberry-esque,” he said.
Lisa Dierks-Unkefer said some of her
fondest memories involved playing with her friends at the pool, which
she said was built in 1966-67. In 1999, she said she bought
the home her parents purchased in 1965, the home where she grew up. “We were drawn back to this wonderful
neighborhood not just because of the location, but because a few of my
best friends had also come back,” she said, calling the moving back, “a
testament that people who live here love it, and truly care about each
other.”
John Heneghan, a member of Dunwoody City Council, said he started
a blog as an alternative to a printed
newsletter when he was the president of the neighborhood’s homeowner’s
association in the early 2000s. When citizens started seriously considering
starting the city of Dunwoody, Heneghan said he worked to keep the
Dunwoody North neighborhood united. “Some wanted to set the limit at
Tilly Mill Road, which would have meant half the residents would be
outside the city limits,” he said. “So, I got involved to help convince
the powers that be to move the city to the county line.”
Sam Verniero also involves himself with
neighborhood affairs, and though he has only been a resident for five
years, he said he has been elected first vice president to the Dunwoody
North Civic Association for the past four years, and appointed as a
board member to the Dunwoody Community Council, the DeKalb Community
Service Board and the Brighter DeKalb Foundation Board.
He said he moved to Dunwoody North for the love of people, neighbors,
accessibility, community, civic responsibility, partnership, education,
leadership and safety tied to affordability. “The American Dream can be
found in the Dunwoody North neighborhood,” Verniero said.
