Taylor-Brawner Park in Smyrna, Georgia, combines public green space, including a playground, gazebo, walking trails, a pavilion and open green space, with two of the city’s most important historic buildings. Brawner Hall and the Taylor-Brawner House, two structures that help connect the property to Smyrna’s earlier history.
The roughly 11-acre property was once part of the Brawner Hospital campus, which the city of Smyrna acquired in 2001 with plans to rehabilitate the historic hospital building for office and meeting space while turning the surrounding grounds into a passive park. Funded through a voter-approved $24 million parks bond referendum, work on the site began in 2007 and was completed in April 2009.
The Taylor-Brawner House, a Folk Victorian home dating to about 1890, was preserved after local citizens organized a fundraising effort and created the Taylor-Brawner House Foundation. The house now serves as a small events venue, while the broader park remains one of Smyrna’s best-known civic and historic spaces.