With all the new construction on St. Simons it’s easy to miss places like this, but they represent the first major wave of construction and development on the island and they’re important historic resources. Most are located on Ocean Boulevard and nearby. This English Vernacular cottage was built sometime between 1935-1939.
Filed under -GLYNN COUNTY, St. Simons Island GA
Though it’s been modified, this bungalow is one of numerous historic dwellings on Ocean Boulevard.
Filed under -GLYNN COUNTY, St. Simons Island GA
A 1914 photograph of this house (not posted here) indicates that the present portico is a later addition, replacing a lower porch roof.
Filed under -LIBERTY COUNTY, Dorchester GA
Dates on these ruins range from circa 1736 to 1742. Built by Major William Horton, General James Oglethorpe’s second-in-command, the structure employed the preferred building material of Coastal Georgia, tabby. While Oglethorpe was at Fort Frederica, Horton kept a small military outpost on Jekyll. The vast fields around the house were planted with rye, barley and hops for use in Horton’s brewery, and the area around the house was originally known as Rye Patch. Beer was the only alcoholic beverage allowed in the colony at the time and Horton’s brewery supplied the soldiers at Fort Frederica. In 1742, after the Battle of Bloody Marsh on nearby St. Simons, Spanish troops burned the house. Upon Oglethorpe’s return to England in 1743, Horton became commander of military forces in the colony. He died in Savannah in 1748.
Fleeing the French Revolution in 1791, Le Sieur Christophe Poulain de la Houssaye duBignon and family purchased Jekyll Island and restored this house, adding wooden wings. The duBignons raised Sea Island cotton and indigo, but the Civil War brought their economic model to an end. Union soldiers destroyed most of the house, as well.
Upon their purchase of the island in 1888, the Jekyll Island Club reinforced the ruins of the Horton-duBignon House and placed a wall around the old duBignon Cemetery. Taylor Davis notes that a 2004 stabilization has resulted in the “splotchy” appearance of the structure. Like many of Georgia’s tabby ruins, the Horton-duBignon House has had multiple identities over time. As late as the 1940s, tourist postcards were identifying it as the site of an “old Spanish mission”. This was apparently a widely held belief about most such ruins on the coast until modern scholarship confirmed historic identities in the last half of the 20th century.
National Register of Historic Places
Filed under -GLYNN COUNTY, Jekyll Island GA
The history of the so-called Pirate’s House is as colorful as the history of Savannah itself, and like many landmarks in the city, its origins and history are often the subject of debate. I’ll open the proverbial can of worms here and note that though it often appears on superlative lists as the “oldest building in Georgia”, this claim is spurious at best. The Herb House, built in 1734 in General Oglethorpe’s Trustee’s Garden, has been absorbed into the structure you see today. Because its historic integrity has been almost completely lost by centuries of remodeling and expansion, though, the ‘oldest in Georgia’ qualifier is dubious to many, particularly architectural historians. I concur completely. This is not an attack on the present institution housed here but rather an attempt to consolidate disparate histories. Scores of websites, especially ‘ghost’-related sites, are driven by myth and therefore confusing to say the least.
The Pirate’s House Restaurant has been a leading tourist attraction in Savannah for decades, and though their website claims that it was built in 1753, the city’s own tourism website dates it to circa 1794. It’s clear that it had its origins as a tavern, frequented by sailors for its liberal atmosphere and proximity to the Savannah River. Tunnels were actually dug beneath the property in its early days with the purpose of smuggling rum and kidnapped sailors to the riverfront. The site gained literary immortality in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, as the scene of Captain Flint’s death. The character of Long John Silver noted that he was with Captain Flint when he died in Savannah. Of course this is a fiction, based loosely on stories a young Stevenson heard as a guest here in the early 19th century. The stories are harmless as long as they’re not posited as fact. And they are, often.
The house was purchased by the Savannah Gas Company in 1948 and subsequently restored and expanded to accommodate its present-day purpose.
Savannah Historic District, National Historic Landmark
Filed under -CHATHAM COUNTY, Savannah GA
Built between 1822-23 and remodeled in 1883, the Gwathney House is the residential gem of Broughton Street, known as Savannah’s “main street”. It was restored by the Beehive Foundation in 1994-95. The nonprofit Beehive Foundation is one of Savannah’s greatest assets, publishing fine books about the history and culture of Georgia and the South. Founded by Mills Bee Lane IV as the Beehive Press in 1970, Beehive has been at the forefront of historic preservation for nearly five decades. Lane’s monumental 11-volume series, The Architecture of the Old South, has done more to bring attention to Southern architecture than any other source. And Lane wasn’t just a cultural observer, he was actively involved in saving and preserving landmarks throughout his life.
Savannah Historic District, National Historic Landmark
Filed under -CHATHAM COUNTY, Savannah GA
