Thomas Grady Cousins

Thomas Grady Cousins, husband of Ann Draughon Cousins, father of three children, grandfather to five, and great-grandfather to two, died at the age of 93 on July 29, 2025 in Jupiter, Florida.

While Tom was a legendary developer who helped shape Atlanta from the 1960's through today, he most wanted to be defined by his marriage, his family, his faith, his friendships, and his work in underserved communities in Atlanta and beyond.

Tom was a devoted husband and a proud father and grandfather. He was an old-fashioned gentleman, unfailingly polite and kind. He was humble about all of his accomplishments and down to earth with everyone he met. His perpetual positivity helped make him a visionary: he could see possibilities where others could not. Few things were more important than keeping his word. He was a Sunday school teacher (in his younger years) and a daily reader of the Bible (throughout his life). He was an enthusiastic storyteller, and an afficionado of good cigars and 1950's TV Westerns (in his later years often consuming both at the same time). He was an avid pilot, a sportsman, and a quiet philanthropist.

Tom was born December 7, 1931, the second of four children, to Isaac William (Ike) and Lillian Wurm Cousins. He grew up in Rome and Atlanta and attended the University of Georgia (starting college at 16), where he starred as a long distance swimmer on the swim team. He graduated in 1952 and considered himself a lifelong Dawg. After graduation he served as a second lieutenant in the Air Force during the Korean War, assigned to the 98th Bombardment Wing stationed at the Yokota Air Base in Japan.

Tom and Ann married in 1956 on March 17 (both St. Patrick's Day and Bobby Jones birthday), and for the next 69 years they were Atlanta's most fun and gracious couple. They loved welcoming friends and family into their home. It's appropriate that they met on a dance floor on New Year's Eve 1954 in Rome, Georgia: as Tom and his date danced past Ann and her date, he managed to shout to Ann, "Are you pinned, engaged or married?" and their first words became family legend.

One of his enduring legacies is that his passions and his commitment to service live on through his children and grandchildren. His children, Grady and Lillian, have continued Tom's focus on investing in the arts and community organizations dedicated to breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty. At a young age, his grandchildren had the chance to fly in planes piloted by their grandfather, witness his founding of Atlanta's first charter school and the personal pride he took in its students' accomplishments, and join him on visits to nonprofits serving those most in need. These experiences had a direct impact on their future careers. And his 69-year partnership with his wife, Ann, has served as a model for his grandchildren's own marriages.

Of course, Tom was most known for his many business and civic accomplishments, including the development of some of Atlanta's most iconic buildings, but Tom's career in real estate began very much on the ground floor. His first job was selling prefabricated homes for Knox Realty. He soon started his own business under the banner Brand Name Homes, building ranch houses for the Baby Boom generation, with Ann in charge of decorating their model homes. Early sales strategies included giving away a free goat with every home purchase (two of those goats ended up coming home with him, and Goofus and Doodle caused quite the stir on Andrews Drive). He loved telling stories of those early years when the company was very much a family effort. By 1961 he was Georgia's largest home builder, and he took the company public as Cousins Properties.

Cousins Properties soon expanded beyond home building, and in addition to many office buildings, the company went on to develop the Omni arena and hotel (now the CNN Center and the site of State Farm Arena). In addition, the company donated adjacent land to the state to build the Georgia World Congress Center. To fill the arena, he bought the St. Louis Hawks in 1968 and brought hockey to Atlanta with the Atlanta Flames in 1972. His daughter Lillian has vivid memories of listening to her father negotiate the Pete Maravich rookie contract while the family was on Spring Break in New York City.

Tom loved Atlanta, and he wanted his buildings to express the same boldness and optimism that he felt was part of the city's DNA. In the 1980's and 1990's he worked with renowned architects I.M. Pei (Wildwood), Kevin Roche (Bank of America Plaza), and Phillip Johnson (191 Peachtree) on buildings that defined Atlanta's skyline. As chair of the High Museum, he led the effort to hire Richard Meier to design the museum's acclaimed Peachtree Street-facing wing.

Through it all, Tom kept his family as a priority. He insisted - not always to his children's delight - that they eat breakfast every day as a family. His children recall waking up each morning to Tom's loud voice singing "Oh what a beautiful morning." And at the breakfast table he would always proclaim, "This is the day the Lord has made - let us rejoice and be glad in it!"

Tom's inner faith manifested itself in numerous ways. Dr. Vernon Broyles of North Avenue Presbyterian Church was his lifelong mentor and friend. He considered bringing Billy Graham to Atlanta in 1973 and 1994 as one of his most significant accomplishments. He took seriously Jesus' teaching that "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me," and that is the stated mission of his family foundation. His own trips to the Holy Land were critical to his spiritual development, and for decades he sponsored inter-denominational and inter-faith trips to Israel. He later formed the Macedonian Ministry Foundation to support pastors in becoming more effective leaders in their communities.

One of Tom and Ann's passions was creating beautiful places, filled with art, where his family and friends gathered - including homes over the years at Lake Martin, Madison, Linville, and Jupiter Island. But perhaps his greatest joy was creating, with Ann, one of Georgia's signature hunting farms, Nonami, in Albany, Georgia. From November to March each year, he loved nothing more than leading a morning hunt on his favorite horse, Chief, with a big group of friends, while always keeping careful track of the number of quail covey rises.

You can't tell Tom's story without golf. He grew up playing against his first cousin and best friend, Charlie Harrison (who later became a decorated amateur golfer and who just passed away last week). One of his first jobs was as a caddie and lifeguard at the Atlanta Athletic Club's East Lake course, and one of his favorite stories was watching Bobby Jones play the 4th hole at East Lake when he was 12 years old. As a teenager he shot even par at East Lake - barefoot in the rain. He was a low-single digit handicap and widely known as one of the best putters anywhere. For decades his most prized possession was his first generation Ping putter, which he painted white and named "Fang." He claimed that Fang won him more money than he ever earned in business. His best friendships were made and enjoyed on the golf course.

Tom was humble to his core, but he never tired of telling the stories about how he beat three of the greatest golfers of all time - Gene Sarazen, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer - in pro-am events or friendly games. He beat Nicklaus (Jack shot 71 and Tom shot a 67) at the Atlanta Country Club in 1969, and throughout his life Tom kept on his desk a $3 personal check from Gene Sarazen as payment on a friendly bet. (He never cashed the check.)

His connection to East Lake and his love of the game came full circle in 1994, when he bought and redeveloped the East Lake Country Club, using it as an engine to revitalize the surrounding, underserved East Lake neighborhood. Explaining his passion for what became the "East Lake revitalization," he told of driving through East Lake Meadows, the public housing project across the street from the golf course, and realizing that it was only random chance that had allowed him to grow up differently than the children living there. He believed with all his heart in the potential of the children growing up in East Lake and that they deserved the same opportunities he had. With the help of many, including Eva Davis and Renee Glover, Tom established the East Lake Foundation, Charles R. Drew Charter School, and Purpose Built Communities, and dedicated his last 30 years to creating those opportunities.

He was passionate about the game of golf and truly believed that golf can change the world. He won the USGA's prestigious Bobby Jones Award in 2001 for his many contributions to the game. But his most significant achievement in golf was not anything he did on the course, but rather the formation of the East Lake Junior Golf Academy in 1995. One of his proudest moments was when the Drew Charter School golf team became the first all-Black team to win a Georgia high school golf championship in 2019.

Tom was the epitome of what has been called "the Atlanta Way," and he believed his success meant he had to give back to the city he loved. At various times he chaired the High Museum, and served on the boards of Emory University, University of Georgia, Central Atlanta Progress, the Carter Center, and many others. He believed in the power of partnerships, and he was proud to help form the Georgia Research Alliance, a partnership of Georgia's major college and universities that led to hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in the State of Georgia. He also co-chaired the mayoral election campaign of Shirley Franklin in 2002, and he was thrilled with Franklin's many accomplishments as Mayor. The success of the East Lake revitalization led him to create Purpose Built Communities, a non-profit that works with neighborhood groups across the country to implement similar holistic revitalization efforts.

Tom's innate positivity and joy for life survived to the end. In his later years in Florida, even as his health deteriorated and he became more and more immobile, when asked how he was doing, he would invariably respond with a big smile: "better than I deserve."

Tom is survived by his wife Ann Draughon Cousins, children and their spouses, Lillian and Greg Giornelli and Grady Cousins and Rachel Garceau, grandchildren and their spouses, Adelaide Giornelli, Ann and Noah Woodward, Jill Giornelli and Nick Evert, Thomas Giornelli, and Ren Cousins, great-grandchildren Ruth Evert and James Woodward, and sister Louise Dodd. He was preceded in death by his daughter, Caroline "Little Raven" Cousins, who passed away in 1999.

In the last 15 years of his life Tom was blessed to have many people who cared for him and loved him. In particular, Brenda Brown, Mark Munson, Tom McCabe, Gary Aills, Dennis Gallagher, Mike Ponga, Fran Griffin, and Shauna Booth meant to world to Tom and his family.

Friends and family are invited to a celebration of life for Thomas Grady Cousins at noon on Thursday, August 28, 2025 at North Avenue Presbyterian Church in downtown Atlanta, which can be livestreamed through this link: https://youtube.com/live/obb3Yg4T0dA?feature=share. The service will be followed by a reception at East Lake Golf Club from 2-4 pm.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the East Lake Foundation to support the Tom and Ann Cousins Scholarship Fund, 2606 Alston Dr, Atlanta, GA, 30317, or https://bit.ly/TomCousinsLegacy.