The John Berrien House is a historic home in

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Br ...

, United States. It is located at 322–324 East

Broughton Street Broughton Street is a prominent street in Savannah, Georgia, United States. Located between Congress Street to the north and State Street to the south, it runs for about from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the west to East Broad Stre ...

, at its intersection with

Habersham Street Habersham Street is a prominent street in Savannah, Georgia, United States. Located between Lincoln Street to the west and Price Street to the east, it runs for about from East Bay Street in the north to Stephenson Avenue in the south. The ...

, and was built around 1794.Historic Building Map: Savannah Historic District
– Historic Preservation Department of the Chatham County-Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission (November 17, 2011) One of the oldest extant buildings in Savannah, it is now part of the

Savannah Historic District Savannah Historic District may refer to: *Savannah Historic District (Savannah, Georgia), a National Historic Landmark district in Georgia * Central of Georgia Railroad: Savannah Shops and Terminal Facilities, Savannah, Georgia, a historic district ...

, and was built for major

John Berrien John Berrien (November 19, 1711April 22, 1772) was a farmer and merchant from Rocky Hill, New Jersey. He was appointed a justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1764 and was a trustee of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, fo ...

, an army officer during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

. Berrien lived in the house until 1797, when he moved to

Louisville, Georgia Louisville is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Georgia, United States, and also a former state capital of Georgia. It is located southwest of Augusta on the Ogeechee River, and its population was 2,493 at the 2010 census, dow ...

. He sold the property to William Stephens, of Beaulieu Plantation. Stephens died in the home in 1882, at which point John Macpherson Berrien brought it back into the Berrien family. He lived there periodically until his death, also in the home, in 1856. Berrien's son-in-law Francis Bartow inherited the home, and he sold it to William Lake three years later. Lake split the property into two townhouses in 1871, with his brother-in-law, pharmacist Dr. Benjamin Hardee, occupying the eastern side. He had his offices on the first floor and lived in the upper storey. The gardens that original owner Berrien had laid out in the western lot of the two lots he purchased were replaced by a row of townhouses. The property was converted into a tenement in 1916. The building was raised over three feet the following year, with the original ground floor demolished and replaced with modern commercial space. The interior of the upper floors were divided into smaller rooms, thus original details were lost or covered up. The building was remodeled between 2012 and 2016. The

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

that had been added to its exterior in the 20th-century changes was removed, revealing the original

clapboard Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of these terms, is wooden siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping. ''Clapboard'' in modern Americ ...

siding, which was made of beaded cypress. Its removal also revealed the home's original

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

. The building was lowered, onto an 18th-century-style ground floor construction.

References

External links

Berrien House Trust
Houses in Savannah, Georgia Houses completed in 1794 Savannah Historic District {{GeorgiaUS-struct-stub

See also

References

External links