Lafayette Square (Savannah, Georgia)

The Hamilton–Turner Inn (also known as the Hamilton–Turner House and the Samuel P. Hamilton House) is a historic mansion in Savannah, Georgia, United States. Built in 1873, it is located at 330 Abercorn Street in the southeastern trust/civic lot of Lafayette Square. It is now a luxury inn. Virginia native Samuel Pugh Hamilton (1837–1899), colloquially known as the Lord of Lafayette Square, had the mansion built for his family. He and his wife, Sarah Virginia (née Stillings) (1836–1920), "created a social center for the city's elite" with their home.Sarah, his deceased brother's widow, was Hamilton's second wife, whom he married on June 10 1866; his first, Emma Sprigg, died around 1862, after having two children with Hamilton.Due to Hamilton's work with the Brush Electric Light & Power Company, the Hamilton's mansion was the first home in Savannah with electricity, for in 1883, lights were installed in its salon. The rest of the house was fitted with lights by 1886.The mansion survived Savannah's fire of 1898 that nearly destroyed the nearby Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. This was, in part, due to the Connecticut limestone roof, which prevented it from being engulfed by the flames.Hamilton died in 1899, in his early sixties. He and his wife, who survived him by 21 years, are buried in Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery. In 1915, Dr. Francis Turner (1884–1961) purchased the mansion from the Hamiltons, and lived there with his family until 1926.The home was then opened for boarding and became a home for the nurses of the Marine Hospital in 1928, before the Turner family moved back in during the 1940s.The Turners sold the property to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in 1965. The latter wanted to demolish the structure to make a playground for their nearby school, but the Historic Savannah Foundation stepped in, and the mansion was saved.The home is featured in John Berendt's 1994 book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil as the scene of raucous parties held by its resident Joe Odom. Nancy Hillis, on whom the book's character Mandy Nichols was based, later owned the property.Three years after the book's release, around the time of the film adaptation, Charles and Sue Strickland converted the mansion into luxury suites.

The Andrew Low House is a home in Savannah, Georgia, United States. Located at 329 Abercorn Street, in Lafayette Square, it was built by John S. Norris in 1849 and is part of the Savannah Historic District and of the Juliette Gordon Low Historic District. It is the oldest building on Lafayette Square. Andrew Low was the father-in-law of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA, and he inherited the house when his uncle died. He and his wife, Mary Cowper Stiles, maintained it as their American residence. Its adjacent (to the west) carriage house, at 330 Drayton Street, served as the headquarters for the Girl Scouts until 1913.

The Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist is a Roman Catholic cathedral and minor basilica in Lafayette Square at 222 East Harris Street, Savannah, Georgia, in the United States. It is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Savannah.

St. Vincent's Academy (SVA) is a private, Catholic, all-girls high school located next to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in downtown Savannah, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1845 when Father Jeremiah Francis O’Neill brought six Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy from Charleston, South Carolina, the school operates within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Savannah and enrolls about 350 girls in grades 9-12.

330 Drayton Street (also known as the Andrew Low Carriage House) is a building in Savannah, Georgia, United States. Located on Drayton Street, in Lafayette Square, it was built around 1849 and is part of the Savannah Historic District and of the Juliette Gordon Low Historic District. Andrew Low was the father-in-law of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girls Scouts of the USA, and he inherited the adjacent house at 329 Abercorn Street when his uncle died. The house served as the headquarters for the Girl Scouts until 1913. Low left the carriage house to the Savannah Area Girl Scout Council when she died in 1927; the Girl Scouts used the building until 1986. The building was purchased by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in Georgia in 1928, after Low died. The society uses it as its state headquarters.

The David Cohen House is a home in Savannah, Georgia, United States. It is located at 108 East Jones Street and was constructed in 1853.The building is part of the Savannah Historic District, and in a survey for the Historic Savannah Foundation, Mary Lane Morrison found the building to be of significant status.It was built for David Lopez Cohen (1820–1893), a successful ship builder from Charleston, South Carolina, and the nephew of David L. Lopez. He also built the Shearith Israel Synagogue at 34 Wentworth Street in Charleston. He is interred in Laurel Grove Cemetery.

The Augustus Barié Property is a home in Savannah, Georgia, United States. It is located at 222 East Jones Street.The building is part of the Savannah Historic District, and in a survey for the Historic Savannah Foundation, Mary Lane Morrison found the building to be of significant status.It was built for Augustus Montfort Barié in (1815–1904) in 1857, and sold to George Dillon at year's end for $5,500. By 1859, Dillon had sold the property to John Cunningham, who kept it until 1873.

The Savannah Historic District is a large urban U.S. historic district that roughly corresponds to the pre-civil war city limits of Savannah, Georgia. The area was declared a National Historic Landmark District in 1966, and is one of the largest urban, community-wide historic preservation districts in the United States. The district was made in recognition of the Oglethorpe Plan, a unique sort of urban planning begun by James Oglethorpe at the city's founding and propagated for the first century of its growth.The plan of the historic portions of Savannah is based on the concept of a ward, as defined by James Oglethorpe. Each ward had a central square, around which were arrayed four trust lots and four tythings. Each trust lot was to be used for a civic purpose, such as a school, government building, church, museum, or other public venue, while the tythings were each subdivided into ten lots for residential use. The wards were oriented in a rectilinear grid with north–south and east–west alignment. In a typical ward, the trust lots were set east and west of the square, and the residential lots of the tythings were extended north and south of the trust lots and the square, each tything divided into two rows of five lots, separated by alleys. In the early years of the Province of Georgia, the ward organization was in part military, with each ward's inhabitants organized into militia units, and the central squares acting as a gathering point for refugees from outside the city walls.Each year, the Savannah Historic District attracts millions of visitors, who enjoy its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century architecture and green spaces. The district includes the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low (founder of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, see Juliette Gordon Low Historic District), the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (one of the South's first public museums), the First African Baptist Church (the oldest African American Baptist congregation in the United States), Temple Mickve Israel (the third-oldest synagogue in America), the Central of Georgia Railway roundhouse complex (the oldest standing antebellum rail facility in America), Christ Church (the Mother Church of Georgia), the old Colonial Cemetery, Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Old Harbor Light, and Factors Row, a line of former cotton warehouses, along its waterfront, some built from ships' ballast stones.Other buildings in the district include the Isaiah Davenport House, the Green-Meldrim House, the Owens–Thomas House, the William Scarbrough House, the Sorrel–Weed House, and the United States Customhouse. Notable green spaces in the district include Savannah's 22 squares, the 30-acre Forsyth Park (at the southern limit of the district), and Emmet Park, part of The Strand, near the city's riverfront, in what was known as the Old Fort neighborhood.

115 East Jones Street is a home in Savannah, Georgia, United States. It is located on historic Jones Street and was constructed in 1853.The building is part of the Savannah Historic District, and in a survey by the Historic Savannah Foundation, it was found to be of significant status.Built as part of the three-unit Eliza Ann Jewett Row House, number 115 featured in the 1997 movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil as the venue for the party hosted by Joe Odom. He was house-sitting for its owner, who was in New York.

The John Schwarz House is a home in Savannah, Georgia, United States. Built in 1890, it is located at 302–306 East Jones Street.The building is part of the Savannah Historic District.The home was built for John Schwarz, the 41st mayor of Savannah.

The DeSoto is a historic hotel at 15 East Liberty Street on Madison Square in Savannah, Georgia, constructed in 1968. It is within the area of the Savannah Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in November 1966, although it is not specifically mentioned in the nomination form, because the current structure had not been built yet.

The Unitarian Universalist Church is a historic church at 325 Habersham Street in Savannah, Georgia, United States. It is located in the northwestern civic block of Troup Square. It was designed by noted architect John S. Norris in 1851 and built with funds left in his will by Moses Eastman, a local silversmith and councillor.The Christmas carol "Jingle Bells" was written by the church's music director James Lord Pierpont (1822–1893), supposedly while living in Savannah. The city of Medford, Massachusetts, also claims that the song was written there in 1850, but it has been proven that Pierpont had moved to the west coast to partake in the California Gold Rush at that point. What is known is that he copyrighted the song, with the name "The One Horse Open Sleigh", on September 16, 1857, while he was living in Savannah.The church was physically moved from Oglethorpe Square to the western side of Troup Square, a distance of a third of a mile, in 1860.