• The first building in Savannah Georgia with electricity
• One of the first homes with an indoor bath and privy
• Mid Victorian architecture with Second French Empire interiors
• Hamilton Mansion is called the “Grand Victorian Lady”
• Construction (ca. 1872-1873) was published in the Savannah News
• Cost of the mansion (completed ca. Christmas 1873) was $100,000
• Cost of original furnishings was estimated at $50,000
• Samuel Pugh Hamilton was President of Brush Electric & Power, the winning contractor to first light Savannah streets
• Doc Francis Turner earned notoriety as owners of Savannah's first electric cars
• Historic Savannah Foundation purchased the mansion, saving it from destruction
• Rapscallion Attorney Joe Odom brought scandal with his rip-roaring parties
• The garish museum of Nancy Hillis found disfavor with the neighbors

Today, as the 1872-1873 construction period, the Lafayette Square mansion remains “historically, the talk of the town.”

Discerning Savannah travelers can abide at the luxury Savannah park mansion , now an historic Savannah bed and breakfast inn . A popular historic Savannah luxury bed and breakfast inn since 1997, the grand Mid Victorian exterior and Second French Empire interior architecture are unmistakably a guest's first fascinations. [Click for more details of the original construction]

The princely 1893 Victorian gentleman's mansion was built for Samuel Pugh Hamilton, the former naval officer-turned-prominent jeweler's large family of six children. Hamilton, who was called “The Lord of Lafayette Square,” excelled as a father, society leader, politician and businessman extraordinaire. One historian writes, “I do not know how Hamilton did all that he did.” [Click for more about Samuel Hamilton]

When built, the home was equipped with talking pipes for conversation through the four floors, a dumb waiter for foods to be transported vertically from the courtyard level kitchen to parlor and bedroom levels, skylights and a tin roof (which is credited with saving the mansion from the hot blowing wood embers during the catastrophic Savannah fire of 1898.) The flat roof gave a restful retreat to support staff. An indoor bath and privy was installed within three years of initial construction.

The Hamilton's park neighbors on Lafayette Square , laid out in 1837 and created with the destruction of the original colony's jail, included international merchant Andrew Low, whose mansion had been completed in 1848. That year, Mr. Low was considered the wealthiest of Savannah 's 14,000 inhabitants. [Click for more details of historic Savannah 's Lafayette Square prominent citizens.]

Savannah's elite society , known as the Savannah Four Hundred … not so unlike the New York Four Hundred of the Gilded Age, frequently gathered at the Hamilton 's home for cotillions, the annual January 1st social introductions, costume parties, dignitary visits and family entertaining. A typical on-call staff included approximately one dozen. [Click for more details of the society mansion.]

Savannah Tour guides will tell of the mansion's most enduring moment in the spotlight – that of the first building in Savannah with electricity. As President of the Bush Electric & Power company, Samuel Pugh Hamilton added electricity to the mansion's parlor in 1883. Local lore relays that Savannah 's citizenry gathered in Lafayette Square taking bets as to whether the mansion would explode when the electricity was first activated. For historical perspective, Thomas Edison invented the first electric bulb in December 1879 and electric lams were added to the first railroad trains in 1906. [Click here for quick Savannah Tour Highlights]

Subsequent owners of the grand mansion included Doctor Francis Turner, an osteopath who savored ultra pride in the efficiency and ecological superiority of his 20 th century electric car. Later owners included Nancy Hillis -- “Mandy” in John Berendt's mammoth best selling novel, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” [Click here for the mansion's genealogy of ownership]

The architecturally notable mansion and its “historically, talk of the town sm ” story are preserved and shared. The architectural prominence, social graces and fine living comforts of the Hamilton mansion were not included in the “Save America's Treasures -- Honor the Past -- Imagine the Future.” However, the avid Savannah Georgia preservationists who endeavored successfully to save the Hamilton-Turner mansion were among thousands of unsung American's who have adopted, restored and preserved American treasures without any accompanying fame.

Owners Jane and Rob Sales are members of the Historic Savannah Foundation, an organization founded in 1955 and credited with saving the Hamilton mansion from destruction. Also a land developer, Mr. Sales is restoring select properties in the Thomas Square Streetcar District in historic Savannah Georgia, as well as spearheading a new island development off the Georgia coast.

Photo Credits: © Georgia Historical Society. Used with permission.
The Hamilton-Turner Inn mansion in holiday dress at Christmas time © Hamilton-Turner Inn .