"They made me a really good offer to take this space because they believed in my vision," Kristen Eber told Rough Draft Atlanta this summer, describing how she landed the corner storefront at Clifton and McLendon for her new shop, Lucille's. The "they" in that sentence are Clay Harper and Mike Nelson, the two men who own the entire commercial block in question. If you've walked past the 1600 block of McLendon this year and wondered why the turnover feels less like vacancy and more like casting, that's because it is. Two people are choosing every tenant on that strip, on purpose, one storefront at a time.
This matters if you live here, because it explains something that a simple "new business alert" post never will: why the businesses landing on McLendon lately complement each other instead of competing for the same customer. A gift shop, a bakery, a sandwich counter. Not three coffee shops fighting over the same nine tables.
The Name You Already Know
Clay Harper isn't a new landlord experimenting with real estate. He's the musician who founded Fellini's Pizza, a name most Candler Park residents have some history with whether they remember it or not. A past Fall Fest Tour of Homes once featured a concrete-and-steel structure on three wooded acres near the dry bed of Lake Ponceana that was originally built for Harper and designed by architect Carlos Tardio, who also designed the "Berne Street Treehouse" on the Beltline. That's the kind of detail that tells you Harper's relationship to this neighborhood didn't start with a real estate acquisition. He's been shaping what Candler Park feels like for decades. The retail strip is simply his current project.
That context reframes the last two years on McLendon. The Flying Biscuit Cafe, open on that block for 30 years, relocated to DeKalb Avenue in 2024. Dr. Bombay's Underwater Tea Party moved to Grant Park. Kelly's Closet didn't leave the neighborhood at all. It closed its original storefront and reopened in a different unit toward the building's eastern corner, staying on the same block under the same ownership. None of that reads like a strip losing tenants. It reads like a landlord rearranging furniture he already owns.
What's Filling the Space
Eber's Lucille's is open now at the Clifton and McLendon corner, described on the shop's own materials as a "focus on luxury, sustainability, wellness, and pleasure." Eber isn't an outside operator either. She grew up intown and worked at the Flying Biscuit, at Mooncake boutique, and at Salon Red, all before opening Rosefinch Spa three blocks from where Lucille's now sits. Harper and Nelson didn't recruit a stranger. They picked someone whose work history is already woven into this same six-block radius.
The Little Tart Bakeshop team is next. Founder Sarah O'Brien is opening her fourth location this fall at 1643 McLendon, in the storefront most of us knew for years as Kelly's Closet. Alongside it, in the neighboring unit, O'Brien is debuting a sister concept called Midi, a sandwich shop inspired by a trip to Paris, serving bread-forward sandwiches, salads, and a wine and cocktail list, according to reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Both are expected to open this fall.
The neighborhood association had a hand in that timeline too. Candler Park Neighborhood Organization's zoning committee reviewed Little Tart's liquor license application at its August meeting and voted to support it. That's not a footnote. It means the same civic body that debates bulb-outs on McLendon and school donations also sat in the room and signed off on what's about to open two doors down from your house.
The Golf Course Nobody Is Renovating For You
While the retail strip gets the headlines, a quieter shift is happening at Candler Park Golf Course, the 9-hole course Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler donated to the city in 1927, reportedly so his daughter could play at a time when women were excluded from private clubs. For years, upkeep here has meant reactive fixes. A 2025 renovation added Bermuda grass to help with shade and drought tolerance. That was maintenance, not vision.
The Candler Park Golf Trust, a resident-led nonprofit, is trying to change that. Its stated first capital project is a roughly $100,000 renovation of the back clubhouse patio, done in partnership with the city, alongside plans for a much larger, longer-horizon campaign, an eventual $4 million push for a full course and facility renovation over a three to five year window. This is not the city deciding to spend money on a park amenity. It's neighbors organizing to raise it themselves, the same instinct that's driving the McLendon storefronts, just aimed at fairways instead of retail space.
The Next Three Weekends
If you're trying to figure out where to actually spend a Saturday between now and mid-October, the calendar is unusually stacked:
- Friday, September 18: Fall Ball, CPNO's evening fundraiser, running 7 to 11 p.m.
- Saturday, September 26: Tour of Homes, your one chance this year to walk through the interiors of neighbors' houses, from century-old bungalows to newer renovations, with proceeds going toward the park's upkeep.
- Sunday, September 27: The L5P Wellness Walk, running noon to 5 p.m., with local business stops, demos, and activities in the corridor connecting Candler Park to Little Five Points.
- Saturday and Sunday, October 3 and 4: Fall Fest itself, the neighborhood's largest annual event, drawing an estimated 20,000 people a day for live music, an artist market with more than 150 booths, food vendors, and a 5K road race, all free to attend and run entirely by volunteers through the Candler Park Neighborhood Organization.
That's four dated events in three weekends, all organized by the same volunteer network that's been quietly deciding what a golf course patio and a liquor license both look like this year.
The Pattern, Not the Headline
None of these threads are separate stories. The same instinct that has Clay Harper and Mike Nelson hand-picking tenants for a six-storefront block is the instinct behind a resident nonprofit setting a $4 million fundraising goal for a public golf course, and it's the same instinct behind a neighborhood association that still runs its biggest annual festival with volunteer labor instead of an events company. Candler Park doesn't outsource its own character. The people making decisions about what opens, what gets rebuilt, and what gets celebrated each fall are, for the most part, the same people who already live here.
That's worth knowing the next time a new storefront sign goes up on McLendon. It's not a chain testing the market. It's very likely someone Clay Harper already decided he wanted on that block, for reasons that have more to do with the neighborhood's next chapter than with anyone's rent roll.
If you're weighing what any of this means for your own plans in Candler Park, whether that's a project on your own block or a move within it, Lauren Bowling is always happy to talk through what's changing here and why it matters. Book a consultation whenever the time is right.
