The Tate House: Georgia’s pink marble mansion and its one public season

The Tate House in Tate, Georgia, is Colonel Sam Tate’s pink marble mansion, and for most of the year you can’t go in. It is a privately owned, adult-only wedding venue that doesn’t take drop-in visitors. The exception is coming up: the Christmas Open House, its one public season. In 2026, tour-only tickets are $25 for adults and $5 for children 10 and under, Monday through Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., sold December 1 to 23, according to the Tate House.

The 2026 Christmas Open House, in plain numbers

If you want lunch, call early in the season rather than late. The tour-only ticket needs no booking, which makes it the easier choice for a spur-of-the-moment drive. The house also does luncheon tours for groups of 50 or more, Monday to Thursday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., with a deposit (Tate House).

The rest of the year, it’s a wedding venue

Outside December the house runs as a wedding venue, and it is busy: it says it is booked for 2027 and is taking weddings only for 2028 and later (Tate House). The property has a 19,000-square-foot mansion and a 4,000-square-foot ballroom. Its contact page is plain about access: it is privately owned and open to the public only for the Christmas Open House. Please don’t pull into the drive in July expecting a tour.

One wrinkle. The Chamber’s Tate Day Festival listing mentions tours of the Tate House as part of that day, but the listing gives no date, and the house’s own site names only the Christmas Open House. Don’t plan around Tate Day until both the date and the house confirm it.

Who built it, and when (the sources disagree)

The 1974 National Register nomination calls it the “Pink Palace” and says it was built in 1923 by Sam Tate, a two-story neoclassical mansion of pink and white marble. The Tate House’s own history page says building began in 1921, to a design by the Cleveland firm of Walker and Weeks, and that Colonel Sam was living there by 1926. So we say it was built in the 1920s and show you both sources.

The stone came from the quarry out back. Per the house’s history, “In 1920-21, Colonel Sam began watching the rare Etowah Pink Marble that came from the quarry just behind the house,” and he set it aside for the mansion. The New Georgia Encyclopedia says the Etowah quarry opened in 1890 and produced the first truly pink marble. The Chamber goes further, calling Pickens County one of the few places in the world where rare pink marble is found (Visit Pickens). We repeat that one with the Chamber’s name on it.

Colonel Sam Tate was president of the Georgia Marble Company from 1905 until his death in 1938, per the Georgia Historical Society. He did not found it; the Tate family started the company in 1884. Our piece on Tate, the company town covers that history.

What Etowah pink looks like

That specimen is a geology-collection piece of pink Murphy marble from near Tate, the stone sold as Etowah pink. The National Register nomination for the Tate historic district calls Etowah pink the prized one among the 30 kinds of marble the Tate quarries yield, and Polycor still lists an Etowah variety. In our photo at the top of this page, the pink walls sit behind a portico of four tall white columns, which squares with the 1974 nomination’s “pink and white marble mansion.”

Columns and fountains, per the Chamber

The Chamber’s VisitPickensGA.com says the house has four 22-foot marble columns, marble balustrades, and fountains designed by Georgia Marble Company architect J. B. Hill (Visit Pickens). That doesn’t conflict with the Walker and Weeks credit, since one describes the house and the other the fountains. We haven’t measured the columns.

Empty for 19 years, then restored

The house sat empty from 1955 until 1974. In the house’s own words, it “remained unoccupied and neglected until 1974, when Ms. Ann Laird of Arizona discovered it. She purchased the house and began a 10-year restoration project.” It went on the National Register the same year. In January 2001, Holbrook Properties bought the estate. The Chamber adds that the Tate House is the fifth site on The Chieftain Trail, which the governor dedicated on August 1, 1988 (Visit Pickens).

Making a December trip of it

The house is at 61 Marble Mansion Ln in Tate. Tate is about 6 road miles from Lee Newton Park in Jasper by our routing estimate, and the venue describes itself as about 45 minutes north of Atlanta. The rest of Tate is close by: the Georgia Historical Society marker in Tate Cemetery on GA 53 and the old depot, home to a model railroad club with its own open houses. Our Tate marble trail puts the stops in order. For what else is on the county calendar in late fall, see Pickens County events, and for a meal or a walk afterward, things to do in Jasper.

Prices and dates above are for the 2026 season as the Tate House published them. Check its site before you drive; a venue that books weddings two years out can change its holiday schedule.

Questions people ask

Written by the Jasper Marble Festival Guide Editorial Team. AI tools help us draft; people check every fact before it publishes.