By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Fayetteville leaders are scrambling to put together a plan to save the historic Dorsey home place from the wrecking ball, but time is running out.

The house, once occupied by a wounded Civil War veteran and later the subject of work by famed architect Neel Reid, is in the way of planned construction of a new Fayette County jail and courthouse complex.

County historian Carolyn Cary has recommended that the house be preserved if possible, and so has Janet Mack, president of the Fayette County Historical Society. But the Historical Society doesn't have funds to save the house.

Fayetteville city manager Mike Bryant said this week the city's Main Street program is working to come up with a plan to move the house to the old City Hall site, next to the city's historic train depot, but the city doesn't really have the funds either.

“We've got the Hollingsworth House and the Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House in various phases of construction or reconstruction,” he said, “and we don't have the resources to do another one.”

But city leaders are working with the state Department of Community Affairs to see if any grant funds might be available, and are hoping to come up with a plan that involves public-private partnership.

“We would invite anybody who is interested in preserving the house and restoring it for some use to give us a call and we'll sit down and talk to them,” Bryant said.

The city's phone number is 770-461-6029.

One idea, he said, is to use the depot are to develop a historic village. “But we would have to have uses for the houses,” he said. “We're working on that.”

Meanwhile, the County Commission last Thursday voted to give the city 30 days to come up with a plan that would persuade them not to demolish the house along with three others on Long Avenue.

Construction is not imminent, but the county can't wait long, said Commissioner Greg Dunn. “We can't let it sit there another year,” he said. “We have to move forward.”

The house is the former home of John Manson Dorsey, son of one of the former owners of the Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House.

John Dorsey served as a private in the Fayette County Rifles, 107 local men who joined the Civil War from Fayette. He was wounded at Gettysburg.

During the early 1900s, famed architect Neil Reed performed some redesign work on the house, adding to its historical value.