The Huffington Post | By Samantha Toscano
10/3/2014
Long before Peter Bonner created his "Historical And Hysterical Tours" in Jonesboro, Georgia, he was simply a guide sharing Civil War stories for tips. These days, those stories that he says "saved him" haven't just led him into a career -- they've led him to Tara.
Known more commonly as the house from "Gone With The Wind," Tara has become the reason that Bonner drops character for a few hours a week and hunkers down in a dairy barn about 30 miles outside of Atlanta, he told HuffPost Home via phone. The facade of the iconic plantation made its way from California's Selznick Studio Lot years ago, and is being restored by Bonner in the barn.
The tall window that stood in the background behind Scarlett and the Tarleton twins at the beginning of the movie.
Originally dissembled and moved from Hollywood in the late 1950s/early 1960s, Tara was sent to Atlanta where it was intended to become the centerpiece of a museum. Instead, it sat in a barn until the famous hostess Betty Talmadge opted to purchase it. She faced the same disappointing fate of the previous owner who tried to revive interest in Tara, though now in Bonner's hands through a deal with the family, things appear to be looking up.
"We came to an agreement and I'm doing it out of my pocket -- just me and my Home Depot credit card," he joked. "We started cleaning the place up, and now it's just a never-ending puzzle."