A long-simmering dispute within the Coca-Cola family has exploded into open conflict, setting cousin against cousin over a secluded seven-home coastal retreat that has served for generations as one branch of the dynasty’s cherished private haven.
Known as High Point, the weathered family compound sits on the northern end of Cumberland Island, just off Georgia’s coast, where descendants of the Candler family have gathered since the 1920s.
But the once-peaceful getaway has become the center of a bitter inheritance-style power struggle after one side of the family reached an agreement with the National Park Service that could hand them effective control of the property while shutting out their relatives.
The rift has grown so hostile that one furious family member has threatened to tear down his own mother’s house rather than allow it to pass into the hands of his cousins.
Now, the tensions behind the family rupture are coming into sharper focus, after an insider from within the clan broke ranks to describe the personalities, resentments and suspicions driving the feud.
John Ball, 41, who spent his childhood summers at High Point and continues to visit the island retreat, offered Our News Outlet a candid account from inside the dispute, saying wounded pride and long-held grievances are pulling the family apart.
According to Ball, the beloved compound has descended into a “chaotic mess,” with relatives increasingly worried that other family members have been making decisions “behind the backs” of their own kin.
At the center of the resistance is David Ball, 71, a nonprofit leader from Statesboro who has cast himself as a protector of the family legacy and is accusing his cousins of quietly maneuvering to take control without him.
John Ball and his wife Lauren with their kids during summer vacation
The northern end of Cumberland Island features Gilded Age family mansions, including Plum Orchard Mansion (above) built by the Carnegie family. The family’s property is partly based around the historic High Point Hotel (not pictured)
He fears his branch of the family will be frozen out entirely once a controversial land deal goes through, stripping his children and grandchildren of the only home their ancestors ever built for them there.
‘If they get this thing, they’ll find a way to kick us off or drive us off,’ Ball told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He did not stop there, delivering a heartfelt threat about the house his own mother built decades earlier.
‘I’ll take a bulldozer to my mother’s house before I let them get full control of it,’ he said.
On the other side of the divide stands Sam Candler, a composed Episcopal priest whose calm exterior belies the storm swirling around him.
Candler has spearheaded Lumar LLC, a family entity quietly built to negotiate a land swap that could hand High Point back into private hands after decades in federal custody.
Critics say the secrecy behind that maneuver, allegedly kept hidden from the Ball side of the family for two decades, is precisely what poisoned trust between the cousins in the first place.
A meatpacking businessman living outside Atlanta, John offered Our News Outlet a rare, unguarded window into the fractured family psychology driving the standoff.
He described High Point sliding into turmoil as an ever-expanding web of distant relatives jockey for a shrinking number of weeks at the compound each year.
Unlike his uncle, John refuses to cast the Lumar side as villains, insisting they simply moved first to protect their own interests.
‘I don’t know if it’s fair game or not, but it’s just a situation we’re already in… it is what it is,’ John said, summing up his weary resignation toward a dispute he wishes would simply resolve itself.
He was careful, though, not to dismiss his uncle’s fury outright, acknowledging the sting behind David’s very public grievance against the Candler side of the family.
‘I think David is hurt by the fact that… they kind of went behind his back,’ John explained, offering insight into the wounded pride fueling the rift.
Still, John did not spare his uncle from gentle criticism, suggesting the older man’s fiery rhetoric sometimes outpaces the reality of the situation at hand.
Cumberland Island off the Georgia coast has been a sun-soaked sanctuary for members of the Coca-Cola dynasty since the Roaring Twenties
The island became famous as the secret wedding location of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette in September 1996
The tiny Cumberland Island church where John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette got married
He called David ‘extravagant’ and said his uncle ‘shoots from the hip’ whenever the emotionally charged topic of High Point comes up in conversation.
Toward Sam Candler personally, John struck a notably different tone, admitting only mild friction rather than the seething resentment consuming his uncle.
‘There’s a lot of stuff I disagree with on some levels,’ he said, without elaborating.
The origins of High Point trace back to Asa Candler, the founder of Coca-Cola, whose fortune transformed his family into major Georgia landowners over a century ago.
His son Howard Candler purchased the shuttered High Point Hotel in 1930, converting the old Gilded Age resort into a private family compound.
Successive generations added homes of their own, including the house built by David Ball’s mother, cementing the site’s deep emotional resonance for his line of the family.
Cumberland Island itself carries a storied past, having once hosted wealthy Gilded Age families like the Carnegies alongside the Candlers on its wild, undeveloped shores.
It later became famous as the secret wedding location of John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette in September 1996, adding Hollywood-style mystique to its rugged beauty.
In 1982, the Candlers sold High Point to the federal government for roughly $9 million as part of a push to preserve the island as a national seashore, while retaining rights allowing family members to keep living there until their deaths.
More than 15 Candler descendants who were alive at the time of that agreement remain living today, with the youngest now in her forties, according to the AJC.
That looming expiration date is what pushed Sam Candler and his allies to pursue the Lumar swap, trading roughly 85 acres near the island’s public visitor area for the far more coveted High Point land.
But conservationists warn the arrangement could pave the way for sprawling new construction on land Congress specifically ordered to be kept in its untouched, primitive condition.
Draft deeds reportedly permit structures totaling up to 15,000sq ft under roof, with a maximum height of 35 feet, alarming environmental groups.
Sam Candler has insisted any development would be ‘unobtrusive,’ casting his family as devoted stewards rather than opportunistic developers eyeing prime coastal real estate.
David Ball, 71, right, vowed to bulldoze his own mother’s house rather than surrender it to his kin
Conservationists say the land swaps could pave the way for sprawling new construction on land Congress specifically ordered kept in its untouched, primitive condition
Sam Candler, an Episcopal priest, has a plan to return High Point to private ownership for his family
Asa Candler founded the Coca Cola company in 1892 in Atlanta
Carol Ruckdeschel, 84, the celebrated self-taught biologist known as the ‘Jane Goodall of sea turtles,’ strongly disagrees, accusing the family of hypocrisy.
‘You can’t have it both ways… don’t try to tell people you saved the island,’ said Ruckdeschel, who has lived nearby for decades.
The National Park Service cannot finalize any swap without first publishing an Environmental Assessment, a process almost certain to trigger fierce public backlash.
Conservation groups are already preparing lawsuits to block the deal, while the Ball brothers themselves may separately sue to halt any future construction at High Point.
David Ball, Sam Candler, Lumar and others did not answer our requests for comment.
As for John, he says he would happily see the entire saga fade into history, admitting he would be content to pay to visit Cumberland Island like any ordinary tourist.
‘I view life as [being about] what I’m trying to do and accomplish in life, and not what somebody else accomplished years ago,’ he said, signaling he is ready to let this Gilded Age dynasty drama finally rest.
