bj,
Look under Antiques - Architectural & Garden and then search for "iron".

Here is a link that might be useful: Architectural & Garden

bj,
Look for architectural salvage places - they often have some really nice pieces. Here is one in Alabama, but I am sure you can find places near Atlanta.

Here is a link that might be useful: Southern Accents Architectural Antiques

woodswell: thanks a lot. I've bookmarked the link so I can watch for things. And we do have a good arch. salvage place here; I'll go there.

I bought some cast iron brackets from this place. Prices are very reasonable.

Here is a link that might be useful: ironaccents.com

Will your house be brick? If so, have you considered using brick detailing to break up the area? An example could be a "faux" window with herringbone brick inside the frame.

dixiedoodle: Yes, brick. I did think about something like what you said. Pulled pages out of plan books and took them to our architect. Was told it looked "contrived."

Well, it IS contrived; it's faux, after all. But I thought it looked pretty good. I just kept quiet, not wanting to show my inferior taste/poorly developed sense of aesthetics. I will bring it up again if their next proposal doesn't look any better to me. Or if I can't come up with something else meanwhile.

So far, their suggestion is to put a low brick wall ending in partial brick column about half the distance across the entry area and put a cast concrete planter atop the column. I told them I don't think that fills in the UPPER half of the blank wall beside the door, which is where visual balance is actually more needed.

So, I said I would opt for their other idea of the full-height metal grille "or something similar, TBD."