The Owens–Thomas House & Slave Quarters (originally known as the Richardson 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 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 Brita ...

, that is operated as a

historic house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that is preserved as a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a variety of ...

Telfair Museums Telfair Museums, in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, was the first public art museum in the Southern United States. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia His ...

. It is located at 124 Abercorn Street, on the northeast corner of Oglethorpe Square. The Owens–Thomas House was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

in 1976, as one of the nation's finest examples of English Regency architecture. and Renovations in the 1990s uncovered and restored one of the oldest and best preserved urban slave quarters in the American South.

Architectural style and house history

Acanthus Side Veranda Owens-Thomas House

This most important and architecturally significant house was begun in 1816 and completed in 1819. Designed by the English architect William Jay of

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

, the house plans were drawn while Jay was still in England. He sent architectural elevations to local workers before his arrival in Savannah sometime after foundations were laid. According to Jay's letters, the house was to be aesthetically compatible to Bath. This is evident in the Bath stone of the house's construction as well as its sophisticated architectural detail. It was a gentrifying physical ornament to the newly successful Southern port. The Richardson House, as it was originally known—after its first owner and builder, Richard Richardson— is North America's preeminent example of period

English Regency The Regency era of British history is commonly understood as the years between and 1837, although the official regency for which it is named only spanned the years 1811 to 1820. King George III first suffered debilitating illness in the late ...

architecture. The mansion was purchased in 1830 by local attorney and politician

George Welshman Owens George Welshman Owens (August 29, 1786 – March 2, 1856) was a United States Representative and lawyer from Georgia. Early life Born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1786, Owens attended school in Harrow, England, and graduated from the University of ...

for $10,000 (~$ in ). The family maintained it for several decades until Owens' granddaughter, Margaret Thomas, bequeathed the house to the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (established in 1885) as the South's oldest art museum, in 1951. The house is notable for its early cast iron side veranda with elaborate

acanthus Acanthus (: acanthus, rarely acanthuses in English, or acanthi in Latin), its feminine form acantha (plural: acanthae), the Latinised form of the ancient Greek word acanthos or akanthos, or the prefix acantho-, may refer to: Biology *Acanthus ...

scroll supports on which the

Marquis de Lafayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis de La Fayette (; 6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (), was a French military officer and politician who volunteered to join the Conti ...

addressed the citizens of Savannah on his visit in 1825. William Jay was architect to other Savannah landmarks such as the Scarborough house, the Telfair House as mentioned above, and an attribution to the Gordon-Low House.

Slave quarters

A focus of tours of the site is the

carriage house A ''carriage house'', also called a ''remise'' or ''coach house'', is a term used in North America to describe an outbuilding that was originally built to house horse-drawn carriages and their related tack. Carriage houses were often two ...

and the history of the enslaved workers who lived there, including the nanny, cook and butler. During a renovation of the carriage house in the 1990s, the owners of the site discovered one of the oldest and best preserved urban slave quarters in the American South. The history has been uncovered via their ''Slavery and Freedom Project'', and via symposiums in 2008 and 2020 (planned). The ceiling of the slave quarters is painted

haint blue Haint blue is a collection of pale shades of blue-green that are traditionally used to paint porch ceilings in the Southern United States. The tradition originated with the Gullah in Georgia and South Carolina. The ceiling of the slave quar ...

, which was customarily used in

Gullah The Gullah () are a subgroup of the African Americans, African American ethnic group, who predominantly live in the South Carolina Lowcountry, Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida within ...

culture to deter ghosts or other malevolent spirits. It is notable as the largest swath of haint blue paint in North America. The restoration includes the pantry and other elements of the Gullah cooking, and the cellar where meals and laundry were prepared.

Museum

The Owens–Thomas House collection contains furnishings and decorative arts from the English Regency period; containing effects of the Owens family, most pieces dating from the years 1790 to 1840. Collections include English Georgian and American Federal period furniture, early Savannah textiles, silver, Chinese Export porcelain, and 18th- and 19th-century art. The slave quarters feature slave artifacts of the period. The courtyard features a small parterre garden that was redesigned in 1954 by Savannah landscape architect

Clermont Huger Lee Clermont Huger Lee (March 4, 1914 – June 14, 2006) was a landscape architect from Savannah, Georgia, most known for her work designing gardens and parks for historical landmarks in the state. Specifically, Lee is known for her designs such as th ...

. Lee designed the formal garden in 1820 English-American style and supervised maintenance of garden for fourteen years.

Gallery

File:Owens-Thomas House Slave Quarters.jpg, The rear of the property, on Lincoln Street, 2021

Footnotes

External links