Noah Glassman seeks to preserve and protect Amata – a beloved community

Walking around Amata, a property just west of the Lake Claire Community Land Trust along Nelms Avenue, feels as though one is stepping back in time to a place where people lived communally — in harmony with the environment and with each other.

In truth, Amata embodies all the attributes the late husband-and-wife team, Norman Glassman and Marilyn Rosenberg, brought to the community for decades. 

They helped co-found the Lake Claire Community Land Trust, formed in 1983, which acquired about 1.5 acres of surplus MARTA land in 1986 in east Atlanta. About two dozen years later, the couple sold a third of an acre to the Land Trust.

The couple also developed a unique cluster of living spaces with communal kitchens and affordable rents nestled in green spaces protected by conservation easements.

Today, their 46-year-old son, Noah Glassman, hopes to find a like-minded person or entity to buy the property and protect it in perpetuity. 

“At this point I want to sell it,” Glassman said of the land that’s just under an acre. “I want to preserve my parents’ legacy and honor the conservation of the green space. I would like for this land to continue serving as a community center.”

And then Glassman quickly adds that he doesn’t need to sell the land, so he can afford to wait until the right buyer is found.

Sonya Hooks, who started renting a room in the AMATA community three years ago, has become enamored with the history of the property, the Glassman-Rosenberg family and the potential for its next chapter.

“For nearly 50 years, Marilyn and Norman’s home served as an urban intentional community — a haven for artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, university students and individuals working toward new beginnings,” Hooks wrote in an email.

“By maintaining affordable rents, they empowered residents to purchase homes, start businesses, pursue higher education and engage in creative or nonprofit work,” Hooks continued. “Amata was also a refuge for those navigating personal challenges and stood as a model of inclusivity — welcoming people of all races, religions, sexual orientations and genders during a time when that openness was rare.”

Hooks, who has used her “fellowship” at Amata to transition into a new career as a freelance creative project manager, has immersed herself in the origins of the place. She has spent countless hours at the Atlanta History Center researching countless articles that have been written about Amata.

“I believe Amata could continue Norman and Marilyn’s legacy by becoming a living-learning environment that nurtures purpose-driven ventures, providing affordable housing, mentorship and community engagement opportunities,” Hooks said.

Noah Glassman, who currently lives next door to Amata, is open to ideas and proposals.

“There is a conservation easement to protect the green space,” he said. “There are three houses here. You can enlarge the houses, but you can’t build more houses without rezoning it.”

Perhaps the community would support rezoning the property to build another dwelling on what is now a gravel parking lot, especially if it included a permanent public pathway to the Land Trust. Ideally, a new residential building would be accessible to people with disabilities.

“It would be great if the Land Trust or a sister organization took it over,” Glassman said. “I could donate or sell more of the land to the Land Trust.”

There is no hard boundary between Amata and the Land Trust. Take Noah, who wanted a pet Emu. Big Lou lived on the land until he died in 2022. At one time, there were chickens, goats and even a horse-and-buggy to transport an Amish family who lived on the property.

Noah was actually born in the upstairs of the main house, and he was home-schooled by his parents. Many notable artists and creative people lived at Amata over the years, including the granddaughter of former President Jimmy Carter.

Norman Glassman was born in Chicago, and he actually worked in a glass factory. He moved to Atlanta, renting an apartment on Adolphus Street in Lake Claire in 1974.

“He looked over his back fence and saw this property,” Noah said of his father. “It was totally covered in kudzu.”

He was intrigued by the one house on the land that had been developed by a former Georgia Tech professor, Alexander Felix Samuels, who called it Amata as an expression of love to his wife. The name is carved in stone on top of what used to be the building’s front entrance.

Norman decided to buy the property, but he needed to get financing from the BOND Credit Union because traditional banks would not loan him money to acquire land in a transitional community.

Once they became property owners, Norman and Marilyn (who was born in Statesboro) began adding to the original home. They collaborated with George Ramsey, an architectural designer, to create a “cluster village” with two other homes and guest cottages. Renters have their own rooms, but share spaces with other residents.

Today, the community has about two dozen people paying rents significantly cheaper than market rates. They share three common kitchens and a community space.

“I don’t believe rents should be high,” Noah said on a recent tour of Amata. “These are not luxury apartments.”

Providing affordable housing continues the intent of Noah’s parents. At first glance, one could describe Marilyn and Norman as part of the hippie culture in the 1970s.

Marilyn died in 2018 at the age of 73; Norman died in November 2020.

His younger brother, Jeff Glassman, wrote a tribute in the Lake Claire community newspaper, the Clarion, in early 2021, calling Norman one of the complex persons he had ever known.

“As a kid, he was an enigma to me,” Jeff wrote. “He was a National Merit semi-finalist in high school and went through college with top grades and a full scholarship, then carried on insisting that no one should waste their time going to college; a hippie without hip; a radical who embraced libertarianism without the “ism”; a Jew without a religion; a Southerner from the north; and someone who insisted that everyone see the other side, whether or not there was one side to begin with.”

The tribute went on to say that people told Norman he could make a personal fortune by developing the property. 

“They convinced him of the truth of that statement. Therefore, he put the land into a conservation easement so that it can never be developed for personal gain, ever,” Jeff continued. “He was rich and poor at the same time. Accordingly, Amata developed in the way of a Medieval village, or so I fantasize. It grew, adding structures organically year-by-year, centered on a broad, irregular, and rocky pathway ascending a slope near a pond surrounded by animals, in the center of Atlanta.”

Note to readers: Sonya Hooks approached Britton Edwards and me after attending Atlanta Way Day in September. She thought our nonprofit, Atlanta Way 2.0, could help realize her vision to keep Amata as a purpose-driven, live-work community. We toured the property with Sonya and Noah Glassman on Nov. 7. I asked them if I could write my next column about Amata and their dreams. Fortunately they said yes. This column shows how civic journalism and civic engagement can complement each other as we strive to make the Atlanta region as strong as it can be.

Click here to view the full gallery of Jerry Jam at Lake Claire, Photo Gallery by Kelly Jordan, 2019.