How Wesleyan School Found Its Peachtree Corners Home

Wesleyan School has come a long way since its humble beginnings in the Sandy Springs United Methodist Church on Mt. Vernon Highway. Now occupying 85 beautiful acres in the heart of Peachtree Corners, Wesleyan consists of approximately a dozen buildings, a beautifully manicured courtyard, and a plethora of sports fields, courts and stadiums.

The early years

Founded in 1963 by the name Wesleyan Day School, the institution began as a preschool dedicated to providing a nurturing, Christian environment for children. In the following 24 years, the school continued to expand its offerings, and by the time they began to offer high school classes in 1994, it was apparent that the school was rapidly outgrowing its home at the church. Thus, the search commenced to find a new location in earnest.

From 1988 until her retirement, the school had been under the leadership of Head of School Barbara Adler, a former Wesleyan parent, teacher and assistant head who envisioned Wesleyan’s future as a college-preparatory Christian school for children from kindergarten through 12th grade. To make this vision a reality, the organization would need to find a new home.

In January 1995, the school approached the leadership at the Sandy Springs United Methodist Church and proposed a radical idea: they would put all their efforts into finding a new home by January 1, 1996, or they would forget about the move entirely. The pressure was on.

During this time real estate in the area was at a premium due to the impending Olympics and land was hard to come by. Additionally, there was the issue of zoning, as the majority of properties would need to go through an extensive rezoning process to be suitable for a school, which could jeopardize their tenuous timeline.

Searching for new home

Local commercial real estate agent and Wesleyan parent Rob Binion joined the board in 1995 and began discussing the issue of finding a new home with Chairman Raymond Walker. Binion worked in Peachtree Corners and was regularly commuting to the area. One day while walking through a nearby parking lot, he ran into a friend of his, Dan Cowart.

Jim Cowart, Dan’s father, was a developer and philanthropist who is credited as the man who brought the vision of Peachtree Corners to life. He was responsible for establishing a number of neighborhoods in the late 1970s, including Chattahoochee Station, Spalding Corners, Peachtree Station, Revington, Linfield and Amberfield. Later, Dan continued that legacy by developing Riverfield and Wellington Lake.

In the mid 1990s, Dan had acquired a 53-acre undeveloped office park just off Spalding Drive. He had a vision: he wanted to build a school there. But without any students, teachers or concrete resources with which to make that a reality, it was only an idea. When Dan ran into Rob Binion in the parking lot that fateful day and the topic of finding a home for Wesleyan came up, the two began to seriously discuss the possibility of moving the school to Peachtree Corners.

“Back then, 25 or 30 years ago, they didn’t know where Peachtree Corners was,” Binion recalled discussing the idea with Wesleyan’s board. “I told Raymond Walker and he said ‘No, Rob, let’s not talk about it. That’s not going to happen.’”

However, despite his hesitation, the increasing pressure of their timeline began to worry Walker and the Wesleyan Board. As fate would have it, Walker’s son happened to play on the same football team as Cowart’s son, and Binion recalls that over the course of that August the two fathers would sit together and discuss this tract of land every week at practice. Eventually the idea began to solidify as a real possibility.

“Raymond was finally convinced that this was what God wanted Wesleyan to do,” said Binion.

“And so Wesleyan, the school over in Sandy Springs, had this plan about what we were going to do, and then God said no, you’re moving to Peachtree Corners and you’re going to make this work. We had no money, we had no idea how we were going to do it.”

Change in leadership

At the time, the board was also contending with the impending retirement of headmaster Barbara Adler, so they had to come up with a plan to make this move happen, find a replacement headmaster, establish some sort of facility at the new site and also convince all the parents that it would be worthwhile to commute to Peachtree Corners.

Fortune struck when they hired Zach Young as headmaster. Young, a graduate of the University of Virginia and Harvard University and the former Vice President and Assistant Headmaster at The Westminster Schools, was a master of fundraising. “He said ‘Y’all are a great group of real estate brokers, you’ve shown that, but how are you going to pay for it and how are you going to run it?’ We all looked at him and said ‘Well, that’s what we would hire you to do,’” Binion said.

The board brought him to Peachtree Corners to educate him on the area and show him all the development that was happening there. Young insightfully pointed out that this move would only be successful if the community bought into the school as much as the school bought into Peachtree Corners.

“He was convinced that it could happen, but he said, ‘It won’t happen unless God wants it to happen,’” Binion continued.

With the hard work of the dedicated board, the leadership of headmaster Young — and by the grace of God — Wesleyan officially broke ground at its new home in Peachtree Corners 25 years ago in the fall of 1996. That year, 556 students attended classes in 15 modular classrooms, one soccer field and the Marchman Gymnasium, Wesleyan’s first building.

Today, the school has developed into a beautiful campus with an enrollment of nearly 1,200 students. Current Head of School Chris Cleveland said that he hopes the school is a place that draws families and businesses to Peachtree Corners.

“It would be our desire that the Wesleyan School would be viewed as a business, a ministry that makes Peachtree Corners better, and that we are leaving Peachtree Corners better than it would be if we were not here,” he said. “We are all-in on the city of Peachtree Corners, it’s really a great place.