Missing Entry #1 - The Truth Is Out There
In 1973, my father briefly stepped outside the hotel world and into something unexpected, he became the manager of a brand-new apartment complex carved out of the red clay at the corner of Powers Ferry Road and Delk Road in Marietta, Georgia. A sprawling, ambitious project with more square footage than sense, dreamed up by a developer named Ken Partiss who believed, sincerely and perhaps naïvely, that East Cobb was ready for its own self-contained village.
At the time, the place didn’t have the polished name it carries today, “The Villas of East Cobb” came much later. Back then it was simply the project, or the complex, or whatever the adults called it when they thought the kids weren’t listening. It had fresh concrete, empty sidewalks, and a sense of big plans still swirling in the air. Families moved in while bulldozers were still rumbling in the distance. My father worked for Partiss & Associates then, managing the property during its earliest days, when anything felt possible.
But underneath the bright new paint, something else was happening.
Mystery Solved?
When I found the cache of my father’s resumes, I didn’t just have a history of his professional life, I finally had the details of where and when we lived during my childhood. I had long resorted to breaking down my childhood timeline by grades, not age, but 1973 - 1974 was especially muddied by our multiple relocations.
After watching Goodfellas for the fourth time I started to wonder if we were in some kind of witness protection program.
It turns out Dad’s resumes were not the help I had hoped for, as he had decided to leave Georgia off his resume altogether. But not only was the job missing, he had virtually erased it by changing the end/start dates for the previous/post positions (don’t be judgy) and added the time to The Cherry Hill Inn and our next stop, The Scotsland Resort.
Mystery Solved!
Finally a date of Dad’s departure from the Cherry Hill Inn and our relocation from New Jersey to Georgia, just in time for summer break.
I wonder if he ever spoke to Mr. Mori again, but one part of my Dad’s personality was clear, once he was done - he was done. Person, place or thing, he taught me that the past was meant to teach the future, never dwell in “what ifs”, only in “what’s better”.
It wasn’t until my research uncovered Murray v. Chulak, a 1983 Georgia Supreme Court case that not only outlined the project, but also gave me many more hints of why my dad turned in his chips to move to Georgia, and why we quickly departed.
Partiss had purchased the land in late 1972 and announced a grand plan: over four hundred apartments, a clubhouse with a restaurant, a motel, even an office complex.
I have no doubt that he signed on NOT to run a housing development, but to design and develop the entertainment end of the project. It also explains his name on the letterhead, as he may have signed on to manage the housing development to retain a salary, but he would have additional duties as the project grew.
Aerial photos of the project as it stands today. The pool was bigger, but much the same as I remember.
A Quick Exit
Partiss had purchased the land in late 1972 and announced a grand plan: over four hundred apartments, a clubhouse with a restaurant, a motel, even an office complex. It was a mini-city in the making. But by 1974, the money ran out, the bills piled up, and Partiss & Associates fell into bankruptcy.
It wasn’t Disney World, but..
Looking back, Marietta may have been the closest thing to a summer vacation we ever had. The complex was enormous, a mix of condominiums and apartments. I learned to swim in that pool and even jumped from the high dive, something I absolutely would not do today.
This may have been where another one of our traditions started, as Dad would take me on his walks, greeting tenants and owners by name, telling me his job was “making sure everyone feels at home.” That was always his version of management—hospitality as daily practice, not title.
Bye, Y’all!
I was visiting my grandmother in Canarsie when the call came that we were moving from Georgia to… Wisconsin. (We’ll cover that adventure in another time zone.) However short our stay in Georgia was, it left an imprint on me. When kids made fun of my accent, I suddenly developed a Southern lilt. This occasionally uncontrollable side effect still has me lapsing into various American regional accents when one from my childhood pops up.
Georgia taught me early that it isn’t just language, but accent, that can mark you as an outsider. For years, I didn’t even realize I was doing it, and though I consciously try not to mimic others, I sometimes have to explain the gradual slide into a Southern drawl, an Upper Midwestern shift, or even Pittsburghese. Full disclosure: if the Canarsie comes out, it’s usually because I’m making a joke… or about to rant.
General Manager Dad
Even in the middle of a collapsing development deal, surrounded by financial trouble and corporate reshuffling, my father created stability. He created home. For us, that’s all that mattered.
And that, I suppose, is what hospitality really is — not the building, not the business plan, not the fancy amenities that may or may not get built. It’s the people who manage to make you feel anchored when everything around you is in flux.
He did that everywhere we lived… even in a half-finished dream at the corner of Powers Ferry and Delk Road.