The Ghost Tours and House Updates

Tourism is felt all around this lovely town. It’s become a necessary part of the economy. The city tries to keep a balance between the people who work and live here and the Disneyland Affect. Most tours are guided trolley buses or guided walking tours and CAN be an excellent way to learn the history of Savannah. But one type of tour that is just about entertainment are the ghost tours. These tours visit our square every night. The house is in a mostly quiet residential part of town. There are no bars or restaurants on the square to lure tourists. Only at night do we see large groups walking in the area. Otherwise, we see people strolling by looking at the beautiful architecture. The Massie Heritage Center, the oldest remaining public school in Savannah is on the square and it brings tourists and the beautiful Wesley Monumental Church anchors the square across from our home. Now, on any given night, there might be as many as 15 different tour groups with up to 25 people that stand outside or drive by.

A hearse tour going by the house.

When you refurbish homes here, as in many areas around the world, the guidelines require any additions to NOT look like the original structure. The idea is to not create a fake façade – again the Disneyland Affect. They want historic structures to stand out against modern construction. That’s why you often see totally modern buildings in historic districts. We’ve walked around Savannah and said many times “how did they get away with building something that looks like that!” But if you’re building from the ground up, you can’t make it look like it was original to the area. We've seen some examples of modern architecture that fits so beautifully within an historic area and we've seen some awful examples of it in our travels. So our home will have an addition on the back of the main house that will look like a more modern addition but hopefully still blend well with the rest of the house and the surrounding area. We even had to leave a window in place on the third-floor back bedroom even though it will eventually be part of an interior wall and looking into a closet! More on that in another post.

On a bright note, we’re seeing progress! I’ve included some pictures with captions and comparisons. Most of the main house has now been studded out to delineate interior additions. Again, the idea is that if we had to, we could remove the additions and take the house back to it's original form.

In a previous post I showed a picture of the porch pickets originally chosen for the house. We decided they were too curvy for the Greek Revival design of the house and changed to this bolder, more masculine look. You can see the original on the left side. The wood is beautiful but sorry to say, they will be painted, probably white, as will all the woodwork throughout the house, again to stay with the period of the time.

This shows the original garden level (viewed from the front of the house to the back) and then a slightly left angle with a new wall studded in. The wall will have closets and shelving to separate the space into a bedroom (front of the house) and living space. The doorway on the back wall will be re-bricked closed and the room beyond will be an art studio. In the second picture you can also see through the art studio to what will be the entrance to the garage. Another thing you'll notice is the old cobblestone and rubble floor has been covered in cement. I know a lot of people thought we should cover it with Plexiglas so it was view-able but it is going to be a home, not a museum, so we're going with a stone floor over this concrete. If you want to view a cobblestone floor through Plexiglas, the Owens Thomas House has a great example of it.

At one time, the stairs from the main parlor level down to the lower garden level (yes, the levels are actually always labeled that way), were removed. You can see the shadow of the building materials on the wall in the two right-hand views where the stairs originally were. Hopefully this isn’t too confusing but the top right view is taken from the front of the house. The window is on the Wayne Street side. The bottom right picture is taken facing Abercorn Street or the front of the house. So the new construction photo on the left matches up with the upper right photo. Notice also that the wall on the right of the new stairs is studded out. There will be a galley kitchen along that wall when it is completed giving us the option of a guest suite on that level. In the view bottom right, that section with the brighter brick will be a bathroom. The door to the left will be the bedroom.

Lastly, we found a gem hidden in the front bedroom wall! Look at these pocket doors!

Next time, we'll talk the new addition and the kitchen!