Sweet Sultry Savannah
Some 13 years past ‘Midnight,’ it’s a more wonderful place to live than ever.
For founder James Oglethorpe, 18th-century Savannah seemed ripe to turn into a New World utopia. For Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, it was a city to be spared in his march to the sea. For native-son composer Johnny Mercer, it was a lilting, lyrical muse. Quietly quirky, Savannah has been quite the history-book page-turner.
How ironic, then, that it was a modern-day story that really put it on the map. The explosive popularity of John Berendt’s 1994 best seller “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” caught Savannah by surprise. Berendt’s version of the murder trials of antique dealer Jim Williams, with a “cast” that included some pretty eccentric cronies, captured the nation’s imagination. The exotic tale soon had millions of fans heading to Savannah in search of the book’s central locales, such as Bonaventure Cemetery and Mercer House, Williams’ home on Monterey Square.
As the hullabaloo intensified, long-time Savannahians waited to see what would happen to their genteel way of life. And here’s what happened: Many of the visitors who circled their way through Savannah’s everyday life in trolleys wound up falling in love with the city which contains coastal communities with boating, fishing, oceanfront real estate, oceanfront communities, coastal vacation home rentals, and coastal golf course real estate returning to make it their home.
Yes, there’s a little more traffic and a little more diversity now. But 13 years past “Midnight,” the authentic heartbeat of Savannah – an intriguing mix of Southern hospitality, timeless traditions and a hint of mystery behind every doorway – remains appropriately strong and steady.
Those Famous Squares
Oglethorpe’s city plan, a warp and weft of streets linking open, parklike squares (21 of which still exist), created the intimate, sought-after neighborhoods featuring coastal golf communities, coastal retirement communities, and more in the historic district. Elegant row houses and cotton factors’ estates – now private homes, restaurants and galleries – look out onto landscaped squares, each with a statue or monument at its center, along with clusters of brilliant azaleas and the ancient canopies of live oaks draped in Spanish moss.
The shaded cobblestone streets connect the bustling riverfront to the open air cafés and galleries of City Market, and southward to shops on Broughton Street. Here sophisticated boutiques offer calfskin handbags, Vera Wang gowns and Parisian textiles. Pause for energy at Leopold’s ice cream store, a Savannah institution since 1919, and chat with owner Stratton Leopold, who has produced many Hollywood films – most notably “Mission: Impossible III.”
Bull Street, an idyllic walking thoroughfare, links five distinctive squares – Johnson, Wright, Chippewa, Madison and Montgomery – to the gem of Savannah, Forsyth Park. A favorite jaunt, it takes pedestrians past the sweeping arched windows of the ShopSCAD gallery and the Gryphon Tea Room. Overlooking Madison Square, both structures represent the efforts of the Savannah College of Art and Design to protect the city’s architectural heritage and way of life.
Arts and Culture
Recently Savannah’s cultural scene has broadened its appeal to reach a more diverse community.
For 18 days in the early spring the Savannah Music Festival brings together a cross section of renowned artists from all genres. More than 100 performances of jazz, classical, blues, bluegrass, gospel and Latin music are staged at 20 intimate venues across the historic district, and tickets to premieres and commissioned works sell quickly. Celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2008, the festival hopes to exceed the current record attendance of 55,000 concertgoers and eventually rival the success of Spoleto in Charleston, S.C.
The Jepson Center for the Arts, opened in 2006, is writing a new page in Savannah’s history with its world-class traveling exhibitions and a multilevel, hands-on children’s gallery. Across the square at the Telfair Center for the Arts, the hottest ticket in town is the Telfair Ball. But quickly gaining in popularity is the “The Artful Table,” an annual exhibit of table-setting masterpieces from Savannah’s most accomplished hosts.
Savannahians appreciate good parties, and Southern homes are delightful venues for entertaining. Known for her elegant soirées, Savannah caterer Susan Mason is in demand from Hollywood to New York City to Savannah.
“What sets parties in Savannah apart is that the food is served in beautiful surroundings,” she says. “Indoors, the rooms are wonderfully intimate. Outside, we entertain on big verandahs, breezy porches and courtyard gardens.”
Gardens More Good than Evil
Behind the ornamented gates and brick walls thick with ivy are the hidden gardens of Savannah. The temperate climate of the coast has allowed generations of gardeners to cultivate trimmed boxwood, camellias, azaleas and ferns beneath trickling fountains. When azalea blossoms are at their peak, gardeners open their creaky wrought iron gates for the Savannah Tour of Homes and Gardens, a four-day stroll through more than 20 private gardens and homes in the historic district and Savannah’s first suburb, Ardsley Park.
Edged with seasonal blossoms and white picket fences, the plantation homes and gilded-age summer cottages of Isle of Hope, Dutch Island and Beaulieu are tucked in the bend of small rivers feeding to Ossabaw Sound. A 10-minute drive from downtown Savannah, Georgia, they provide coastal intimacy via silent kayak rides along shallow, grassy marshes; fresh-from-the-dock blue crab dinners; and evening sunset cruises on Johnny Mercer’s Moon River, still wider than a mile.
Dining in the Best of Places
With Savannah’s proximity to the sea and saltwater marshes, restaurant seafood abounds – oysters, shrimp, blue crab, grouper and mackerel.
Request a second floor, Reynolds Square-view table at The Olde Pink House, a 1771 mansion built by James Habersham, and begin your meal with a bowl of the she crab bisque. Follow this with the pan-seared crab cakes and a side of whipped sweet potatoes with vanilla sauce.
Spectacular Savannah River views draw diners to Vic’s on the River, which makes its home on three floors of an antebellum cotton warehouse. Chef Jay Cantrell keeps them coming back with his creative take on traditional Southern food. He says he combines “all the bounty of the Lowcountry waterways and the locally grown produce,” put together with a contemporary flair. Don’t miss the fried green tomato appetizer, a traditional Southern dish that Chef Jay pairs with tangy goat cheese and sweet tomato chutney.
Preparing Southern cuisine is no longer a mystery, thanks to Chef Darin Sehnert’s 700 Kitchen Cooking School. Housed inside a fashionable boutique hotel, The Mansion on Forsyth Park, the school offers hands-on instruction for preparing cheddar and chive biscuits and rich shrimp and red-eye gravy over fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth grits. Students top off the meal with pecan praline angel food cake and good conversation.
On Friday nights couples gather at Casimirs, the Mansion on Forsyth’s opulent second floor lounge. The popular tables are outdoors on the marble rooftop terrace, looking out on Forsyth Park and the glistening white fountain that has been delighting visitors for nearly 150 years.
As you relax, poised between the hotel’s magnificent lounge setting and the simple beauty of the fragrant, 30-acre park, the tug of old and new Savannah is palpable and delicious – the perfect setting to begin a new story.
By Melissa Schneider
Originally published in the Fall 2007 issue of Coastal Homes magazine
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