Briarcliff's Dark Legacy: Scandal, Secrets, and the Ghosts of a Coca-Cola Dynasty
by M.P. Pellicer | Noir Notebook
Behind Atlanta’s famed Briarcliff Mansion lies a tangled history of scandal, forbidden romances, mysterious deaths, occult fascinations, and lingering ghost stories. Explore the dark legacy of the Candler family and the haunting legends that refuse to die.
Few families shaped Atlanta’s history more profoundly than the Candlers. Their fortune, built on Coca-Cola, transformed the city and created a dynasty synonymous with wealth, influence, and prestige.
Yet behind the lavish parties, sprawling estates, and carefully polished public image lurked a history filled with scandal, tragedy, obsession, and whispers of the supernatural.
At the center of it all stood Briarcliff Mansion.
Today, the crumbling estate and its neighboring psychiatric facilities sit abandoned, their empty halls attracting paranormal investigators, urban explorers, and ghost hunters. Whether the legends stem from the mansion’s turbulent past or decades of psychiatric treatment conducted on the grounds remains an open question.
Either way, Briarcliff has earned its reputation as one of Georgia’s most haunted locations.
The Creation of a Fairy-Tale Estate
The Candler family was exceptionally powerful in the American South, leveraging their wealth from Coca-Cola to dominate business, politics, and philanthropy in Atlanta and across the region.
Asa “Buddie” Candler Jr. studied at Emory University and then went to work for his father. In 1911, he purchased a tract of farmland north of Atlanta, near his brothers’ properties: Lullwater and Callanwolde.
With his sons running the business, Asa Candler Sr. stepped into public office. During the 1914 cotton market crash, he single-handedly stabilized the Southern economy by establishing a warehouse network that loaned farmers $30 million to prevent bankruptcy. He was elected mayor of Atlanta in 1916 and ended his day-to-day management of the Coca-Cola Company. As mayor, he balanced the city budget and coordinated rebuilding efforts after the Great Atlanta fire of 1917 destroyed 1,500 homes.
These were the years of WWI and the Spanish Influenza. In 1918, cases of the Flu were reported in Atlanta, and Candler Sr.’s own secretary became sick but survived.
In 1919, Asa Candler gave most of the stock in The Coca-Cola Company to his children, who later sold it to a group of investors led by Ernest Woodruff.
Using the money from the sale of the stock, Buddie Candler undertook the building of Briarcliff in Druid Hills. Completed between 1920 and 1921, the estate sprawled across more than forty acres and contained over forty rooms, elaborate gardens, terraces, a ballroom, a golf course, and even a private zoo.
Local newspapers soon nicknamed the property “Forty Acres of Fairyland.”
During the 1920s and 30s the mansion was the scene of lavish society parties hosted by Candler and his wife, Helen, and attended by Atlanta’s elite.
Yet while Buddie built his dream estate, controversy swirled around the family.
Scandal at Sea
In 1922, Buddie’s younger brother, Walter T. Candler, became embroiled in one of Atlanta’s most sensational scandals.
Walter traveled on the steampship Berengaria. Accompanying him were Mr. and Mrs. Byfield, a wealthy couple he knew from Atlanta. They had met through their shared passion for horses.
On the night in question, Mrs. Byfield retired to her stateroom accompanied by her husband. He returned to where the men were gathered, and moments later, Walter Candler absented himself and didn’t return. Whether by coincidence or because he suspected something, Mr. Byfield went to where his wife slumbered. He found his wife struggling against Candler, who was intoxicated. Byfield “flew into a rage, cursed his wife, and attacked Mr. Candler.” The men struggled in the room and even rolled down the passageway.
The noise attracted a crowd and the ship’s officers. This sobered Candler, and he offered Byfield a check of $25,000 for the mistake he had made. When they reached port, he negotiated a deal with Byfield, offering him a note for $20,000 if he wrote a letter exonerating him from culpability. It read: “withdrew the statement I made against you regarding my accusing you and being intimate with my wife, Sarah Byfield, on board the Steamer Berengaria.”
In a double cross, Candler then stopped the payment on the check.
Atlanta’s 400 were rocked by a sensational “blackmail suit filed against Clyde K. Byfield by Walter Candler, son of the Coca-Cola king.” Not only had Candler stopped payment, but he also accused the couple of blackmail.
The Byfields denied the blackmail claims and, in turn, sued Candler for $100,000.
Byfield, son of a deputy sheriff, owned an auto agency, a race track, and a stable of blooded horses. He was well off but definitely not in the league of the Candlers, who had very deep pockets and a powerful connection in government.
It seemed some newspapers were partially on the Candler’s payroll since they published pictures of Walter Candler as a very young man, and not his actual picture of a balding man of 37. This would have amplified the impression that he was a lecherous middle-aged man trying to attack a young bride who was only 20 years old.
Later, Byfield sued for alienation of affection from his wife. Rumors also swirled that the incident caused a separation between Walter Candler and his wife.
The Byfields eventually divorced, and they lost their lawsuit based on the letter Mr. Byfield foolishly wrote releasing Walter Candler from culpability when on the Berengaria.
The scandal exposed cracks beneath the polished image of one of Atlanta’s most influential families.
It would not be the last time.
Secret Passages and Strange Obsessions
Between 1923 and 1925, Asa Candler Jr. ordered revisions to the north side of the house, removing the large window from the north wall of the dining room and replacing it with a hidden doorway, and removing the windows. He also ordered unusual modifications to Briarcliff Mansion. and created oddly designed passageways that seemed impractical from an architectural standpoint.
One concealed entrance reportedly led to a private balcony accessible only through a secret door.
The alterations fueled speculation for decades. Were they simply eccentric design choices? Or did they serve a more private purpose?
Unwilling to have his life disrupted by the huge construction project, Buddie Candler and his wife and kids boarded a steamliner and headed to Asia. One of their stops was the Philippines, which at the time was under U.S. control and quite fashionable for vacationing wealthy Americans.
During these travels, he studied sleight-of-hand techniques and collected magical artifacts. Buddie developed an obsession with stage magic and mysticism.
Asa Jr. claimed he had already been introduced to magic by Harry Houdini, who leased space in the New York Candler Building for his Houdini Picture Corporation starting in 1921. Years later, Buddie claimed to have been taught a card trick by Houdini, but it’s impossible to verify whether that story was true or just a Buddie-ism.
In 1928, Buddie’s 14-year-old son, Samuel, performed in a private show barred from the public, with an audience only of magicians. Samuel was given an ovation. He had been instructed in magic since he was five years old.
In an age fascinated by séances, spiritualism, and the occult, Briarcliff became a center for both entertainment and mystery, but by Asa Jr.’s own personal account, he truly discovered magic during trips to Asia in the 1920s.
Upon returning home, Candler Jr. transformed the mansion’s upper floor into a vast collection of magical curiosities. Each spring, he hosted elaborate performances featuring some of the era’s most famous illusionists.
Visitors spoke of secret rooms, strange objects, and mysterious gatherings held long after midnight.
In 1927, Helen Arabella Magill Candler, mother of Asa Candler Jr.’s six children, died at the age of 47 from bronchial pneumonia. Within ten months, he wed Florence Adeline Stephenson Candler, a woman 15 years younger than him, amid another scandal that proved infidelity and secret passions.
What might have precipitated Asa Candler Jr.’s hasty marriage to his secretary after becoming a widower was an event involving his father and his one-time fiancée and mistress, Onezime de Bouchel.
Candler Sr. was sued for slander by de Bouchel, a New Orleans beauty, when Asa Jr. broke their engagement, supposedly after information his father gave him about his intended bride. The report claimed she had invited two men to visit her hotel room. De Bouchel said this was a lie and wanted the names of the two men. She also sued Asa Candler Jr. for $500.000 for breach of promise.
Candler’s defense charged that she was still married to Adolphe Lucien Rocquet in 1921, when she filed for a divorce in Reno, Nevada. Since she was not a legal resident of the state, the divorce was not valid.
De Bouchel lost the suit based on this technicality. Ironically, her husband, Adolph Rocquet, a member of one of the city’s oldest Creole families, passed away in 1924, thereby making her a widow only months after she lost the suit.
During the trial, several letters between De Bouchel and Candler Jr. were read into the record. Her divorce from her husband was precipitated by their relationship. This proved Candler Jr. was involved with her years before his wife’s death.
De Bouchel was a colorful character in her own right. After her defeat in court, she spent the remainder of her life in California, traveling extensively. On September 21, 1929, she left San Francisco for a 90-day cruise of the Pacific aboard the S. S. Malolo.
In 1960, she traveled to France and listed her address as 1555 Broadway, San Francisco, the home of Dr. Cecil Evelyn Nixon, a dentist and noted San Francisco mystic, amateur magician, and inventor. Dr. Cecil E. Nixon was also a mentor of Anton S. LeVay, who founded the Church of Satan. Anton LeVay’s reminiscences of Onezima De Bouchel are included in the book The Secret Life of a Satanist by Blanche Barton.
What is that saying about the apple not falling far from the tree? In 1924, while Candler Sr. was involved in the de Bouchel lawsuit, he was in the midst of his own turmoil. In 1923, he married Mae Ragin, who was 34 years younger than him. She was a divorcee with two children, and they met when she worked as a public stenographer in one of his office buildings.
A few months later, Chief of Police J.L. Beaver announced Mrs. Candler and two Atlanta businessmen had been arrested in a raid on a fashionable apartment house in the north side residential section while they were sitting around a table on which reposed a bottle filled with liquor. The charges were dismissed, but this resulted in a separation from her elderly husband in February 1924.
Candler Sr. claimed in his divorce petition that she showed she had no love for him, never had loved him, and had married him “for other motives.” She would leave home early in the morning each day, remaining out until night. She “spent a large part of the day driving in an automobile in the country with a man whom she would meet at various times and places.”
During their separation in October 1924, Mae Candler was exonerated of blame in the connection wth the death of Mary Elizabeth Lunsford, five years old, who was killed by being run over by Mrs. Candler’s auto. The child died from a massive brain injury and a fractured skull. Mae Candler said the accident was unavoidable and that the child ran into the roadway so quickly that it was impossible to stop her car. Was alcohol involved?
Eventually, Candler Sr. dropped the divorce suit, and they reconciled. He suffered a stroke in 1926 and died in 1929.
The Murderous Obsession of José Cruz
Outside of Candler’s longtime right-hand man, Landrum Anderson, who started working for Buddie in 1901 and was with him up until the day he died, there is no mention of any of his household employees, but with one exception.
On April 7, 1925, 24-year-old José Cruz arrived from Manila in San Francisco aboard the SS President Taft. With him on the ship’s roster were his brothers Philemon Cruz and Vincenzio DeVera.
Asa Candler Jr. had met Cruz, an amateur magician, during a stop in the Philippines and subsequently asked him to move to Atlanta to work for him. Cruz became one of his closest employees. He worked as a butler and assistant magician. Little did he suspect Jose would be the catalyst for a horrible scandal involving the Candler family.
Friends described Cruz as intelligent and devoted. Others recalled an increasingly troubled man consumed by obsession.
On a cold January morning in 1931, James Stark, the florist on the Candler estate, came across Cruz’s auto on Briarcliff Road. He thought it was empty, but when the sun came up, he saw two people inside. The couple was sitting in the front seat. The girl was sitting on Cruz’s lap, and he had his arm around her waist. On the seat next to them was Candler’s pearl-handled firearm.
A note was left on Cruz’s body which read: “To Whom It May Concern: We, Gladys Frix and Jose Cruz, are taking our lives because we love each other, but due to objections of Louise Frix, sister of Gladys and Mrs. J.T. Clay (grandmother), we can’t find a way to be together in peace. We love each other, and we would rather die and be together always than be parted from each other, and goodbye to all, and may God forgive us.“
Police also found two school slates with another message from Cruz: “This is my last trick, and I hope you will enjoy the performance. Good night, Happy New Year, and Merry Christmas.”
A piece of soap was found by Sheriff Hall in the back of the car. A love message, in José’s handwriting, was on the outside of the soap wrapper. The content of the message was not published.
During the inquest, Gladys’ cousin Mae Adair said that she arranged a meeting between Cruz and Frix on Saturday night since the Frixs objected to the relationship.
“I went to her home just as she had asked me to, pretended to her relatives that we were going out with some friends of mine, and left the house. All the while, Jose was waiting at the corner of Frederica Street and Greenwood Avenue in his car. When we arrived there, Gladys went in with him, and I got in a car with my friends.”
Later, they all met at the Green Dragon Roadhouse in Hapeville, and laughed together and agreed to meet at the same corner when they went together.
“But when we arrived there after leaving Hapeville, they were not around. In a few minutes, we saw Jose’s car come racing up the street with Gladys trying to say something to us. Jose waved us on, so e we left, and that was the last we saw of them. That was at 11:15.”
Gladys’ sister Louise Frix said the couple had met about six months before. The family was bitterly opposed to her going with him.
“However, it was not long before he showed up at a party at our house. She couldn’t get away from him, though, and had to keep it up. One night, we refused him admission to our house.”
She said her sister Gladys had told her that she did not love Cruz but was afraid to stop going with him because he had threatened her life.
She mentioned a dirk that was found in the car. Cruz would use it for sleight-of-hand tricks, but also for self-defense since he always carried it in his pocket.
S. Heil, of 949 Greenwood Avenue, next door neighbor of the Frixes, told the Journal that José Cruz gave him a scrap-book during the early part of the week, told him of his love for the young woman, and added that he was “tired of this worldly strife to win her love.”
Ultimately, it was concluded that Cruz murdered Gladys Frix by shooting her in the abdomen, and then committed suicide by shooting himself in the temple. None of the notes found at the scene and Cruz’s apartment had Frix’s handwriting or signature.
Phil (Philemon) Cruz, 18, brother of Jose, arrived in Atlanta from San Francisco, unaware of his brother’s actions. Phil Cruz had been working on a ship on the West Coast. He had come to Atlanta trying to secure work. He found out the truth when he arrived at Briarcliff. He went to the cemetery, mumbled a few words over his brother’s grave, and left. He returned to the Philippines with his other brother, Vincenzio, after this incident.
Though not announced, Candler provided funds for Cruz to be buried in Westview Cemetery in an anonymous grave. Although Candler was not involved in the incident, he received bad press and ended up distancing himself from his hobby.
Did Candler Jr. know something about the tragedy? José was his right-hand man, always with him and involved in his personal life. José was clearly struggling with mental illness. Perhaps not that Cruz planned to kill Gladys, but he did suspect something was going on, which is why José left not one but two notes addressed to him. Was Candler surprised by the notes, and as ignorant of José’s possession of his pistol as he claimed?
A Mansion Filled with Wild Beasts
Perhaps to distract from the tragedy and scandals, in 1932, Asa Candler purchased 28 wild animals from the Benson Animal Farm. The menagerie was valued at $50,000.
Lions roared across the estate. Elephants trumpeted. Chimpanzees, baboons, leopards, mountain lions, zebras, bears, and llamas wandered the grounds.
Within a year of the opening of the zoo, Mary L. Smith, a neighbor, filed a suit for $25,000 claiming the zoo was a nuisance. She was located just opposite the zoo, and referred to them as “vicious, ferocious, and dirty animals.” She had been attacked by a baboon that escaped, which also ate $60 inside her purse. Soon, another neighbor sued for a total of $45,000. They claimed the zoo depreciated the value of their properties, and they lived in fear of the wild beasts.
In 1935, Buddie Candler donated the animals to Atlanta’s Grant Park Zoo. These animals would become part of the collection that started Zoo Atlanta.
The animals were gone, yet through the years, some locals claimed the eerie sounds never completely disappeared.
Long after the animals left, residents reported hearing strange roars and cries drifting through the darkness.
Decline, Ruin, and Madness
By the late 1930s, Buddie’s fortunes had begun to unravel. Bad investments, extravagant spending, alcoholism, and personal struggles drained his wealth. Eventually, he lost Briarcliff in 1948. It was sold to the General Services Administration (GSA), with plans to build a veterans’ hospital that was never constructed.
Candler moved to the top floor of the Briarcliff Hotel with his wife, Florence. He stayed living at the hotel until he died in 1953 from liver cancer due to alcohol addiction.
Love of alcohol ran in the family, and John, the eldest of his seven children, died in 1947 from an experimental treatment intended to cure alcoholism.
In 1965, the property became part of the Georgia Mental Health Institute. For decades, psychiatric patients occupied buildings throughout the estate. Patients reported seeing shadowy figures wandering empty hallways.
The asylum closed in 1997.
In 1998, it was purchased by Emory University. The building ended up abandoned and boarded up.
Underground tunnels reportedly connected treatment wards and cottages, allowing staff to move patients discreetly beneath the grounds. Stories soon emerged. Former employees spoke of unsettling sounds echoing through the tunnels. Others described unexplained voices calling their names from vacant rooms.
Whether these stories resulted from illness, imagination, or something else remains impossible to know.
Recently, it’s been used as a film location for Stranger Things and The Vampire Diaries.
The Graffiti That Fueled a Legend
After the facility closed, trespassers explored the abandoned structures.
One chilling message discovered on a fountain inside a former solarium became part of Briarcliff folklore:
“It ran with blood.”
Most likely, the phrase was graffiti left by adventurous teenagers. Yet it perfectly captured the atmosphere surrounding the abandoned property. Rumors spread quickly. Some claimed former patients still wandered the grounds. Others reported hearing phantom music drifting through empty rooms. A few insisted they had encountered elegant party guests dressed in clothing from the 1920s.
Ghosts of the Mansion
Today, paranormal investigators frequently visit Briarcliff’s ruins.
Witnesses describe:
- Footsteps in deserted corridors
- Shadow figures moving through abandoned rooms
- Disembodied laughter
- Phantom music
- Unexplained cold spots
- Voices emerging from empty hallways
- Apparitions dressed in vintage formal wear
Many believe the spirits belong to former psychiatric patients.
Others suspect the ghosts originate from Briarcliff’s glamorous past, when wealthy socialites danced beneath crystal chandeliers and hidden scandals unfolded behind closed doors.
Perhaps both theories hold some truth.
The Forgotten Cousins
Close to the Briarcliff estate lies the former Georgia Mental Health Institute. The Brutalist building was featured in Netflix’s Stranger Things.
Another abandoned estate tied to Coca-Cola wealth sits elsewhere in Atlanta.
Harrison Jones, who served as the company’s president in the 1920s, was a titan of industry—charismatic, ambitious, and determined to live in a glamorous mansion. Glenridge Hall was finished in the 1920s. The estate represented the height of Southern luxury with grand ballrooms, extensive gardens, hidden wine cellars, and lavish parties defined its early years.
With the Wall Street crash of 1929, Jones’ fortune, like others, took a nosedive. With the advent of the Great Depression, Jones dismissed the mansion’s staff, and the house became silent since the lavish parties were an extravagance that could not be afforded any longer. Jones moved to a smaller residence, and the grand estate was left to gather dust.
After decades of abandonment, locals began reporting ghostly activity. Visitors claimed to hear phantom piano music. Others reported seeing a well-dressed man staring from upper-story windows.
Some believed the figure was Jones himself, forever wandering the halls he once called home.
Whether those reports stem from folklore or genuine encounters remains a mystery.
The Ghosts That Remain
The scandals surrounding the Candler family reveal only part of the story.
Newspaper archives suggest a family whose influence often softened public scrutiny. Powerful relationships with civic leaders, law enforcement officials, and influential businessmen frequently helped control damaging narratives.
How many controversies disappeared from public view remains unknown.
What survives today are fragments. A tragic love affair. A magician’s final trick. Hidden doorways. Secret obsessions. Underground tunnels. Abandoned wards. And a mansion where whispers still echo through empty rooms.
As twilight settles over Briarcliff’s crumbling walls, visitors continue to wonder whether the estate’s ghosts belong to troubled patients, forgotten socialites, or members of a dynasty whose secrets never truly died.