Savannah

A visit to Savannah.

On Saturday we took a trip into Savannah. There is a farmer's market in Forsyth Park on Saturday morning and it looked interesting. After parking at the visitor center on the edge of the historic district we all strolled through the district (including Nina the dog), going from square to square until we reached the park and its signature fountain, which was spraying green water. It turns out that it was for St. Patrick's Day which they take very seriously in Savannah. It is more like St. Patrick's Week. All of the fountains we passed in town had green water.

The farmer's market was a real farmer's market. There were a maximum of vendors of vegetables and meats and other foodstuffs and a minimum of trinkets. There were several local farms represented with large displays of early season produce, several meat producing farms with local beef, lamb and pork, a farm from South Carolina with real Carolina rice, a couple of bakeries, beekeepers with honey and even two local coffee roasters.

Unfortunately, the roasters only had whole bean coffee, but we made a stop at the Sentient Bean a purveyor of good coffee at the south edge of the park. We didn't buy any vegetables or meats as we expected to be out all day and Harry & Sally's Roadtrek was far away at this point. Time to do a bit more historic district wandering.

The Savannah historic district has a number of old restored historic homes. Ellen and I decided to visit one, the Mercer-Willams House. We had walked by it on our previous trip to Savannah, but didn't have the time to stop in. It is a private home, but open for tours. It has a bit of notoriety as the location for the book and film, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but it is also one of the best restored homes in Savannah.

They have several tours a day and normally need to be reserved a few hours in advance, so we stopped in to reserve a place later in the day. The earliest later time was mid-afternoon, but they still had a couple of places in the tour starting in five minutes. We took it. Harry and Sally were not as interested, so we arranged to call when we finished and catch up with them.

The house was designed for General Hugh Mercer in the late 1850's and building started in 1860, but was stopped during the Civil War. After the war Mercer was disillusioned by the state of the house and sold it, never having finished it or lived in it. It was completed by the new owner in 1868. The house, gardens and carriage house take up an entire city block. The carriage house alone is 3,000 sq. ft. (It is now the gift shop and where the tour starts.). It managed to survive through the 19th Century until the mid-20th Century because it became the local Shriner's Temple, but was vacant by the late 1950's. This was the time of "urban renewal", when cities started destroying their history to erect modern buildings. The Historic Savannah Foundation came into being to at this time to save Savannah's historic district. They were mostly successful.

One of the most active private restorers of old homes at this time was Jim Williams, who had a hand in restoring around 50 homes in the area. He bought the Mercer House in 1969 as his own home and restored it to perfection over the next few years. It became a center of Savannah society. Williams died in 1990 after being finally acquitted of a murder charge after four trials (see the book for the details).

The tour went through the main floor of the house, the upper floors are occupied by Williams' sister, who is the current owner. The rooms are filled with art and antiques, from the mahogany dining table with Chippendale chairs to the original Gilbert Stuart paintings to original Audubon prints. It was worth the time.

We caught up with Harry & Sally at the Savannah College of Art and Design store and from there headed to the waterfront for lunch. We found a dog-friendly restaurant, Vic's, with outdoor seating along the Bay St side of the waterfront block of buildings. It was a good, if somewhat pricey, meal. Ellen and I had oysters, which seems to have become our go to meal on this trip. They were excellent.

After lunch we walked along the waterfront and had some excellent pralines. They were the perfect mixture of butter, sugar and pecans. One was enough...even though you finish it craving for more.

We stopped to gawk at a large modern sailing yacht, Hyperion, moored along the bulkhead on the riverfront. At 155', with a 194' five-spreader mast, it was the largest sloop ever built wen it was launched in 1998. We could have chartered it for a mere $15,000 per day (plus expenses), but there wasn't enough time. There was a description of the boat posted along the wall above it. The notice was bit off-putting with its admonition not to ask about the owner or bother the crew, since they were working. The only crew we saw were lounging on deck reading.

From there we came upon an Irish festival at the adjoining riverfront park. They had live music, lots of Irish dancers and lots of food (although I could find no corned beef and cabbage, or any soda bread, among the offerings). I did say they take St. Patrick's day seriously. One of the festival staff we asked said that the celebrations are basically Savannah's version of Mardi Gras. Not only was there this festival, but we passed a group of revelers when we were walking back to the van. They were all dressed in green sequins and boas...and these were the men.

After the festival we strolled back to the visitor center and the van via the historic district, once again stopping for coffee, this time at Galley Espresso on Bull St. It was also excellent coffee—a good way to cap off the day.

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