Note: I'm including this obit because Jimmy Kluttz was a rather exceptional graduate of Granite Quarry High School. He was 6 years ahead of our class. -- Lavon Page
Jimmy Kluttz grew up in the stone house across Stokes Ferry Rd from the Mose Kluttz family home place. The next house on Jimmy’s side of the road toward Salisbury was where Nancy Kesler (GQHS 1957 lived).
Jimmy H. Kluttz, 79, of Atlanta Ga., died Aug. 14, 2016. “Jimmie”, son of Mattox and Mabel Kluttz, passed away after a long battle with Alzheimers.
He is survived by two daughters, Heather Barber (Jay) of Richmond Va., Ashley Jennings (Glenn) of Charleston S.C., and four grandchildren. He is also survived by a sister, Saundra Fesperman of Salisbury, and a brother, Richard Kluttz (Judy) of Granite Quarry; as well as nieces and nephews.
He attended Granite Quarry High School. He received a Bachelors degree in Design from North Carolina State University and a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University. Jimmy studied with Hideo Sasaki, worked for Edward Durrell Stone, and taught the inaugural classes of the School of Environmental Design at Louisiana State University. He moved to Atlanta to work with John Portman before founding his own practice in 1968.
Jim was a landscape architect by profession, but was also an artist, a builder, a horticulturalist and a farmer. Shiloh Tree Farm, the culmination of many years of hard work, was a true manifestation of these skills. At Shiloh, he cultivated and hybridized numerous plant specimens, designed and built his home, and pioneered ecologically sensitive landscape nursery practices. He has shared his passion for design through endowments to his alma maters.
Jim's family and friends considered him a lovable eccentric, but as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe noted, “people of uncommon abilities generally fall into eccentricities when their sphere of life is not adequate to their abilities.”
Service: A graveside service will be held Sept. 17, at 1 p.m., Christiana Lutheran Church, Salisbury NC. A celebration of his life will be held Oct. 22, 2016, Shiloh Tree Farm, Cumming GA.
