[3] Enough money was raised to rent a ground floor room in the Atlanta Biltmore Hotel in the mid-1930s,[2] and after that was outgrown,[3] a space in the Erlanger Theater Building in 1937.

[2] In an attempt to fulfill longstanding plans of a permanent home, the society purchased an empty lot on a street corner in 1940, but all construction soon halted because of World War II.

[3] After the war ended, with construction still at a halt, the organization used its increasingly full coffers in 1946 to purchase the Willis B. Jones home, which they rechristened the McElreath hall.

[3] When Walter McElreath died in 1965, his estate provided the society with a large influx of money (about $5,000,000[3]) and it began to publish its bulletin regularly.

[3] In 1967, Mills B Lane arranged with the society to pay to move the Tullie Smith House from its original location on to the property, replacing the Inmann barn.

The Kenan Research Center library was later expanded and the gardens reorganized, with a fourth permanent exhibition added, Down the Fairway with Bobby Jones.