Hardman Farm Historic Site — Attraction in Cornelia

I love house tours and this place was great! It has an interesting history, characters, and location and it's beautifully preserved and presented. I think a Christmas tour would be super fun here.

You start at the red brick store/old post office to buy your ticket then go out back to start the guided tour. They give you an overview of the three owners and walk you down a preserved section of the original Unicoi Turnpike to the grand house and through each room of the house. We got there when it opened at 10 and it was just the two of us until another family joined before we entered the house.

The house itself is pretty awesome! Lots of little tidbits that they'll tell you about on the tour, I don't want to spoil it. The whole thing may have taken maybe an hour? Then you are free to roam the rest of the grounds, which aren't huge, but there are several outbuildings to check out--the spring house, the massive dairy barn, the two-level horse and animal barn, etc.

Across the modern turnpike is an Indian mound that pre-dates the Cherokees, which one of the owners leveled off and built a gazebo on. You can't walk over to it (it's in the middle of a cow pasture) but you can take pictures from the farm side, or there's a pull off of the road. Our guide told us that it's the 2nd most-photographed site in Georgia but I have my doubt. Nevertheless, I took many pictures of it!

The store has a great selection of local artisan goods, books, shirts and so forth, and there's a nice bathroom in here. Parking is adjacent up a set of stairs or a ramp, or you can walk in from Helen from the Hardman Heritage Trail which has more informational signs. There's even a scavenger hunt on the map of the farm that has to do with the trail. If you complete it, I think you get a...

Mansion tour guide (Lisa) was magnificent! Just the right pace to provide information, share stories and give the group time to see each room. The tour was well worth the price and time. She saved our visit, and we both loved it. Because I had shared a breathing issue, she even offered a golf cart to the house. Due to a health issue, I asked in the visitor center about walking, stairs, etc. The employee offered no advice or help for disability. The employee couldn’t answer most of our questions as though he had never toured the property. He suggested we tour the outside buildings since it was 55 minutes before next tour and assured us there were places to sit and rest. Several of the buildings were roped off due to a play that night. All tables were set up for the crowd so no place to rest. Buildings weren’t identified until you were on top of them so lots of extra walking. Definitely not disability friendly if they are setting up for an event. I was so tired that I almost left before the mansion tour but am so glad I waited.

They could enlarge the building inset on the map to make it more user friendly. Add signage to building to read from afar so you can see what you are missing especially when you have to look at buildings from afar. It caused a lot of unnecessary walking. If there is an event planned, I recommend they either stop the tours early or tell customers that they can’t see several of the buildings. It looks like they are trying to satisfy both tour and event people, but wasn’t the best option in our case as we didn’t even know which building we were missing.

There are a lot of stairs from the parking lot, so call ahead if you require special parking. While the building tour wasn’t much for us today, we loved the mansion tour and highly...

My wife and I took a guided tour yesterday. Michael the volunteer tourguider was so great he really made our day! We are from historic Roswell GA and we have lived in Suzhou China, Stamford CT, Weston MA, and Florence Italy. We are history nerds. We have seen houses much older than the Hardman Farm in China, Europe, New England, and even in Roswell. But we have never met a guider that was so dedicated and so knowledgeable. Not only was he familiar with every item on the property, but also every history detail or anecdote related the item! Not only knows he the invaluable art articles and antiques inside the houses, but also the functions and origins of the 19th century farming, dairy, utility, power, communication, and house equipments, as well as the stories of the decorations! He even knows the plants and vegetation outside the house and pointed to us the significances of the black walnut trees on the roadside and the resurrection fern grows on them. Not only he talked all three owners and their family members of the property and the items on the property, but also the Mississippi American native culture under it and the Native American artifacts from that period excavated from the property now exhibited in smithsonian museums, as well as the relationships between the main house on this property and a house in historic milledgeville ga, and a now nonexistent mental institution in milledgeville, as well as a 19th century tycoon...