150 Years on Lafayette Square: The History of Hamilton-Turner Inn
Before it was a hotel, Hamilton-Turner Inn was a home built to make an impression.
It has illuminated Lafayette Square with some of Savannah's first electric lights.
It has hosted lavish nineteenth-century parties.
It survived one of the city's great fires.
It was nearly demolished.
It later became entangled in the eccentric Savannah world immortalized by Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
And eventually, more than a century after its construction, the mansion became the historic inn guests know today.
The building at 330 Abercorn Street has watched Savannah change for more than 150 years.
Yet somehow, standing beneath the live oaks of Lafayette Square, it still feels remarkably at home.
This is the story of Hamilton-Turner Inn.
When Was Hamilton-Turner Inn Built?
The mansion was constructed in 1873 for Samuel Pugh Hamilton, a prominent Savannah businessman and alderman who became known locally as the “Lord of Lafayette Square.”
Hamilton wasn't simply building another Savannah residence.
He created a substantial mansion suited to both family life and the elaborate entertaining for which his household would become known.
The house rose on the eastern side of Lafayette Square, one of Savannah's historic public squares, surrounded by some of the architecture that still defines this part of the city today.
Its scale, decorative details and commanding position made it immediately distinctive.
More than a century later, the building is still sometimes called Savannah's “Grand Victorian Lady.” The New Georgia Encyclopedia describes Hamilton-Turner as an important example of nineteenth-century Victorian architecture and landscape design.
But the house's story really begins with the man who built it.
Who Was Samuel Pugh Hamilton?
Samuel Pugh Hamilton was far more than the owner of a grand house.
He was a businessman, civic leader and entrepreneur whose interests touched several parts of Savannah's development.
Historical accounts connect Hamilton with banking, real estate, municipal improvements and Savannah's emerging electrical industry. An extensive 1965 profile of the house described him as president of the Brush Electric Light Tower Company, president of Merchants' National Bank and a participant in other local business ventures.
Hamilton had also served as a naval officer and became active in Savannah civic life after settling in the city. The inn's own historical timeline remembers him as both a notable naval officer and versatile businessman.
But Savannah society knew another side of him.
Hamilton liked to entertain.
And his house on Lafayette Square became the perfect place to do it.
The “Lord of Lafayette Square”
Hamilton's reputation as the “Lord of Lafayette Square” gives you some idea of what life inside the mansion could be like.
The house became known as a gathering place for Savannah's social elite.
Guests arrived for elaborate dinners and parties beneath high ceilings and ornate interiors while the Hamilton family entertained on a scale appropriate for one of the city's grandest residences.
One surviving historical account describes the original basement spaces as containing a kitchen, wine cellar and food-storage areas, with dumbwaiters connecting the working areas below to the entertaining spaces above.
It's easy to admire a historic mansion today as something quiet and elegant.
That isn't necessarily what this house was in the nineteenth century.
It was alive.
Servants worked below.
Guests gathered above.
Food and wine moved throughout the house.
Conversations filled the rooms.
And eventually, something entirely new began glowing through the windows.
Was Hamilton-Turner the First House in Savannah With Electricity?
According to the inn's history, yes.
And this may be the most famous early chapter of the Hamilton mansion.
Samuel Hamilton's involvement with the Brush Electric Light & Power Company placed him at the forefront of Savannah's experimentation with electricity.
The inn's timeline dates the introduction of electricity at the residence to 1883, with the entire house outfitted with electric lights by approximately 1886.
Today, turning on a lamp isn't much of an event.
In 1880s Savannah?
It was a spectacle.
The technology was so unfamiliar that people gathered outside the Hamilton residence to watch the strange glow coming through the windows.
Some observers were reportedly fascinated.
Others worried the house might explode.
It sounds funny now.
At the time, electricity entering a private residence would have seemed almost futuristic.
And for a man who enjoyed entertaining, Hamilton had created perhaps the ultimate nineteenth-century conversation piece.
Imagine Lafayette Square Before Electric Light
This is one of those historical facts worth stopping to picture.
Savannah after dark was fundamentally different.
Gas lamps and candles had long illuminated interiors.
Then suddenly, one house on Lafayette Square was glowing with something new.
People gathered outside.
They stared through the windows.
And inside, the Hamilton mansion was offering Savannah a glimpse of what modern life might look like.
More than 140 years later, the lights still come on every evening.
We just don't generally have a crowd standing outside worrying about an explosion.
Progress.
The Mansion Survives the Great Savannah Fire of 1898
Then came 1898.
A devastating fire tore through part of Savannah, threatening the Hamilton residence along with surrounding properties.
The mansion came dangerously close to destruction.
According to Hamilton-Turner's historical record, the home's Connecticut limestone roof was credited with helping prevent the building from being consumed by the flames.
Visit Savannah similarly identifies Hamilton-Turner as one of the notable homes to survive the great fire of 1898.
Had that roof failed, the rest of this story might not exist.
No Turner family.
No Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
No historic inn.
Just another photograph of a Savannah building that used to stand on Lafayette Square.
Instead, the mansion survived.
And entered the twentieth century.
How Did Hamilton-Turner Inn Get Its Name?
The Hamilton part came from Samuel Pugh Hamilton.
The Turner came later.
In 1915, according to the inn's current historical timeline, Dr. Francis Turner purchased the house from the Hamilton estate. He and his family occupied the residence until 1926.
Turner had a technological interest of his own.
The inn's history describes him as something of an electric-car enthusiast—a strangely appropriate successor for a house made famous by electricity several decades earlier.
Hamilton and Turner would ultimately become the two family names permanently attached to the property.
But by the middle of the twentieth century, the mansion faced a problem that threatened historic buildings all across Savannah.
Old buildings were increasingly being viewed as expendable.
Hamilton-Turner Was Almost Demolished
This may be one of the most important chapters in the entire story.
In 1965, the Turner family sold the mansion to the nearby Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.
The plan was to remove the house and use the property for a playground serving the Cathedral's school.
Today, that idea sounds almost unimaginable.
Tear down Hamilton-Turner?
On Lafayette Square?
But Savannah in the 1960s was a very different place.
Historic preservation had not yet achieved the cultural and economic importance it has today.
Across downtown, important buildings had already been lost to demolition, parking projects and redevelopment.
Hamilton-Turner could easily have joined them.
Instead, preservationists intervened.
Historic Savannah Foundation Steps In
The Historic Savannah Foundation became involved and helped save the mansion from demolition.
This was happening during an important period in Savannah's preservation movement.
Just a decade earlier, seven Savannah women had organized to save the threatened Davenport House, launching Historic Savannah Foundation and helping change the way the city thought about old buildings.
Hamilton-Turner's rescue became another example of a principle that ultimately transformed Savannah:
historic buildings could have a future without erasing their past.
The mansion remained.
But its days as a single-family private residence were largely behind it.
From Family Mansion to Boarding House
Following the preservation effort, Hamilton-Turner went through several owners and uses.
For a period, the mansion operated as a boarding house.
It's one of the less glamorous chapters of the building's story, but perhaps one of the most important.
Historic buildings rarely move cleanly from “grand mansion” to “beautifully restored hotel.”
There are usually decades in between.
Owners change.
Rooms change.
Neighborhoods change.
Original features disappear.
New ones are added.
And sometimes merely remaining occupied is what allows a building to survive long enough for someone else to recognize its potential.
By the 1980s, however, Hamilton-Turner's story was about to become considerably more colorful.
Hamilton-Turner and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
If you've spent much time in Savannah, you've probably heard of John Berendt's 1994 book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
The nonfiction book introduced millions of readers to an eccentric cast of Savannah personalities and helped transform the city's national cultural profile.
Hamilton-Turner has its own connection to that story.
In 1987, Ruben Lee Harper purchased the house, and his cousin Joe Odom became the property's manager.
Odom had a reputation for parties.
Big ones.
The kind of gatherings that would have felt strangely familiar to Samuel Pugh Hamilton more than a century earlier.
Hamilton-Turner's history notes that Odom's parties at the mansion were referenced in Berendt's book.
It is one of those wonderfully Savannah twists.
The same house known for elaborate nineteenth-century social gatherings somehow became associated with another generation of famously extravagant Savannah parties.
Different century.
Same house.
Was Hamilton-Turner Inn in the Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Movie?
Yes.
Clint Eastwood directed the 1997 film adaptation of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, starring Kevin Spacey and John Cusack.
Hamilton-Turner made a cameo appearance in the movie, further connecting the property with one of the works most closely associated with modern Savannah culture.
Visit Savannah also identifies the inn as one of the city's recognizable Midnight locations.
For many visitors, the book was their first introduction to Savannah.
Hamilton-Turner had been here for more than a century before it was published.
A Midnight Museum in the Mansion
The connection continued.
In 1991, the property was sold to Dr. Charles and Nancy Hillis.
Nancy lived in the mansion and transformed the basement into a museum and souvenir shop devoted to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Again, Hamilton-Turner adapted.
A private home.
A boarding house.
A gathering place.
A property connected to a literary phenomenon.
Then, finally, came the transformation that created the inn we know today.
When Did Hamilton-Turner Become a Bed and Breakfast?
In 1996, Charlie and Sue Strickland purchased the mansion and converted it into a bed and breakfast called Hamilton-Turner Inn.
More than 120 years after Samuel Hamilton built his private residence, travelers could finally spend the night inside it.
Since 2003, the property has changed ownership several times and undergone multiple renovations, allowing the building to continue evolving while maintaining the historical character that makes it distinctive.
Today, Hamilton-Turner contains 17 individually designed guest rooms, each named for a person connected to Georgia history.
And while plenty has changed since 1873, the basic appeal would probably still make sense to Samuel Hamilton.
This is still a place built around hospitality.
What Are the Ghost Stories About Hamilton-Turner Inn?
We can't tell 150 years of Hamilton-Turner history without at least acknowledging the ghosts.
This is Savannah, after all.
Over the years, stories have emerged about strange happenings inside the mansion.
One of the best known involves the sound of billiard balls rolling down the stairs.
The story traces back to the Hamilton children, who were supposedly sent upstairs during their parents' parties. According to local lore, they would roll billiard balls down the staircase so they had an excuse to follow them downstairs and catch a glimpse of the festivities.
Some guests claim those billiard balls can still be heard.
Another legend involves a mysterious cigar-smoking man on the roof, sometimes connected with stories of a former watchman.
Are the stories true?
We'll leave that decision to you.
A building that has been occupied for more than 150 years has accumulated enough verifiable history without needing a ghost.
But we're also not going to tell you that the noise you heard upstairs was definitely the plumbing.
Why Lafayette Square Matters to the Story
Hamilton-Turner wouldn't be the same building somewhere else.
Its position on Lafayette Square is part of its identity.
Outside the front door is one of Savannah's historic squares.
Across the square rises the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist.
The Andrew Low House—the adult home of Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low—is nearby.
The childhood home of writer Flannery O'Connor is also part of the surrounding neighborhood.
This is why staying at Hamilton-Turner can feel fundamentally different from visiting Savannah history during the day and then driving somewhere else to sleep.
The history doesn't end when the museums close.
You come home to it.
What Is Hamilton-Turner Inn Like Today?
The twenty-first-century version of Hamilton-Turner is obviously different from Samuel Hamilton's private home.
There are modern comforts.
Luxury guest rooms.
Wi-Fi.
Concierge service.
And thankfully, nobody is gathering on Lafayette Square to determine whether the electricity is going to blow up the house.
But some aspects of the experience still reflect the mansion's history as a place for gathering.
Guests begin the morning with a Southern-inspired chef-prepared breakfast.
Afternoon snacks are served in the parlor.
Each evening includes an Innkeeper's Reception from 5 to 6 p.m. with wine and hors d'oeuvres.
And later, guests can return for port and fresh cookies.
That rhythm feels appropriate.
More than 150 years ago, people came through these doors to eat, drink, talk and gather.
They still do.
The biggest difference is that now they can spend the night.
A House That Savannah Almost Lost
Of all the dates in Hamilton-Turner's history, 1965 may ultimately be as important as 1873.
Building a beautiful mansion is one thing.
Keeping it standing for another century and a half is another.
Hamilton-Turner survived fire.
Changing fortunes.
New owners.
Changing tastes.
Different uses.
And a very real threat of demolition.
Its survival reflects the larger preservation story of Savannah itself.
The Savannah people travel around the world to see today isn't simply old because nobody ever considered changing it.
It survives because, at critical moments, people decided certain places were worth saving.
Hamilton-Turner was one of them.
Stay in a Piece of Savannah History
There are plenty of ways to learn about Savannah's past.
Take a walking tour.
Visit a museum.
Tour a historic home.
Read the plaques.
Explore the squares.
We recommend all of them.
But Hamilton-Turner offers another option.
Sleep in it.
Walk through the same mansion whose lights once drew curious Savannah residents to Lafayette Square.
Have wine in a home built by the man they called the Lord of Lafayette Square.
Climb the staircase in a house that survived the fire of 1898.
Think about the preservationists who kept it from disappearing in the 1960s.
Remember the parties that eventually found their way into one of Savannah's most famous books.
Then walk outside.
The square is still there.
The Cathedral is still there.
The live oaks are overhead.
And more than 150 years after Samuel Pugh Hamilton opened the doors to his new home, the house is still welcoming guests.
We think he would appreciate that.
Frequently Asked Questions About Hamilton-Turner Inn
When was Hamilton-Turner Inn built?
The mansion that houses Hamilton-Turner Inn was constructed in 1873 for Savannah businessman and alderman Samuel Pugh Hamilton.
Who built Hamilton-Turner Inn?
Samuel Pugh Hamilton commissioned the residence. Hamilton was a businessman, civic leader and former naval officer who became known as the “Lord of Lafayette Square.”
Why is it called Hamilton-Turner Inn?
The Hamilton name comes from original owner Samuel Pugh Hamilton. The Turner name comes from Dr. Francis Turner, whose family purchased the mansion from the Hamilton estate in the early twentieth century.
Was Hamilton-Turner the first house in Savannah with electricity?
According to the inn's historical records, the Hamilton Mansion became Savannah's first private residence with electricity during the 1880s. The house was fully outfitted with electric lights by approximately 1886.
Did Hamilton-Turner survive the Savannah fire?
Yes. The mansion narrowly survived the great Savannah fire of 1898, with its limestone roof credited with helping protect the building from the flames.
Was Hamilton-Turner Inn almost demolished?
Yes. After the Turner family sold the mansion in 1965, there were plans to replace it with a school playground. Historic Savannah Foundation intervened and helped save the property.
Is Hamilton-Turner Inn connected to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil?
Yes. Joe Odom managed the property beginning in the late 1980s and hosted parties there that were referenced in John Berendt's book. The property also appeared in the 1997 film adaptation.
Is Hamilton-Turner Inn haunted?
Hamilton-Turner has become associated with several Savannah ghost stories, including legends of children's voices, billiard balls rolling down the staircase and a cigar-smoking figure on the roof. These are local legends rather than established historical facts.
When did Hamilton-Turner become an inn?
Charlie and Sue Strickland purchased the mansion in 1996 and converted it into the bed and breakfast known as Hamilton-Turner Inn.
How many rooms does Hamilton-Turner Inn have?
Hamilton-Turner Inn currently has 17 individually designed guest rooms, each named after a notable person connected to Georgia history.
Where is Hamilton-Turner Inn located?
Hamilton-Turner Inn is located at 330 Abercorn Street directly on Lafayette Square in Savannah's Historic District.
