East Lake Golf Club Atlanta Roofing Project

Preserving a Historic Tile Roof at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta

For those who are avid PGA golf fans and followers of The Tour Championship–the final event of the FedEx Cup–the historic East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, GA is a well-known course. The golf club is the oldest golf course in Atlanta, recently celebrating over 100 years of history. The course has additional prominence as the home course of legendary golfer Bobby Jones.

In the spring of 2008, KTM Roofing was contracted for a tile roof installation at the East Lake Golf Club’s historic clubhouse. The project was time-sensitive and highly visible because the golf course would host the final event of the FedEx Cup in just a few short months. Various aerial shots of the historic clubhouse would be seen on television.

The Tile Roof Challenge - Preservation and Color Matching:

The original roof was created by B. Mifflin Hood. The company went out of business in the 1950’s and since then former B. Mifflin Hood competitor, Ludowici Roof Tile has been called upon multiple times for historic tile roofing projects. Ludowici is well known for its ability to match colors created by B. Mifflin Hood.

The historic roof preservation began with Ludowici tile experts working to mimic the new roof’s appearance to the old roof. This presented several challenges. From a weathering perspective, a roof’s north side will wear and appear different over time. Rob Wehr of Ludowici Roof Tile explains, "Matching the color and preserving the rich heritage of East Lake was essential for Ludowici. For the first four months of the project, our ceramic engineers worked closely to provide an exact match of roofing tiles for East Lake to review."

Tile Roofing Materials Used:

• Clay Tile
• 14 Custom Colors
• Custom Sized Tiles
• Custom Textured Surface

Recognizing the challenge multiple decades worth of weathering creates, Ludowici developed 14 unique tile colors and created an algorithm for the proper color combination.

Preservation through Implementation - KTM Illustrates Expert Tile Roof Installation:

The algorithm created by Ludowici was so precise it created additional implementation challenges around translating the tile combination into an inventory list. For tile roof installations, like other roofing installations, a 10’ x 10’ area on the roof is referenced. Called a ‘roof square,’ the size of this space is the area that KTM would focus its calculations on.

Expert roofing specialists individually sorted and arranged each 10’ x 10’ roof square with the correct mixture of roof tile colors as created in Ludowici’s equation. Thus, when it came time to install the new tile roof , the 14 color tiles would be distributed correctly.

The total time to complete the tile roof installation was about two months. To accomplish this KTM deployed a dedicated team of 15 roofers, working 13 hours shifts for 6 days a week. "A seasoned team of KTM's Atlanta roofers were highly dedicated to completing this project,” explains Tim McLoughlin, President of KTM Roofing. “Many of the roofers on this project have over ten years of experience with KTM."

Recycling and Reusing Historic Roof Tiles:

East Lake Golf Club is dedicated to preserving its history. One of their main concerns was preserving the original roof material from the existing clubhouse roof. KTM was able to delicately preserve and archive the existing tiles during the new roof installation. The original roof tiles will be recycled by East Lake on other buildings on the grounds when possible.

To visit Ludowici Roof Tile’s website - www.ludowici.com 

To visit East Lake Golf Club’s website - www.eastlakegolfclub.com