***** One of many of Julie's paintings that I covet - intensely.*****

*************************Jimmy and Frank********************

Me, Jimmy, Julie, Frank Haralson, Barbara Holder, Pat Holder, Janet Jared, (Easy)Ed Jared

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Unable to sleep tonight (maybe it's the full moon), I decided to get up and write. While trying to go to sleep, I had started thinking about Highlands, and then started thinking about the Haralsons.

Frank and Julie Ballard Haralson are longtime friends from Newnan, and are an unusually accomplished and interesting couple. Frank is retired, but was a big-time developer of resorts and vacation properties around the world. Julie's passions are raising world class thoroughbred horses, and collecting art, but for her day job, she still works as a surgeon. She does not look the part. Julie, who is a few years younger than I am, is a very pretty petite blond with a big personality and a lot of energy and enthusiasm. She looks a lot more like a head high school cheerleader than a trauma surgeon.

Last year Frank and Julie bought an unremarkable looking older home on a beautiful Cobb Road lot, overlooking the Highlands Country Club golf course. They have been renovating it, and have suffered through the full Highlands construction experience (get three bids, add them together and you'll get the final cost). It was a major headache getting it done, but it was well worth it. The house is fabulous, and I love everything about it.

Some structural improvements have been made: ceilings heights altered, walls moved, kitchen and bathrooms renovated, and the jewel in the crown, a spacious screened porch with a large stone fireplace overlooking the gardens and the golf course.

The house is now just so Frank and Julie: unique and exciting and very personal. Its wood floors and stone fireplaces and custom made wrought iron windows and doors give it a textural and organic feeling, and the dusky neutrals that wash the walls are the perfect backdrop for Julie's incredible collection of art and antiques. I share Julie's passion for old paintings, and I didn't see a single one that I didn't want to grab off the wall, and run with out the door, screaming," Mine! Mine!'