Built by James Eppinger (1790-1871) with the forced labor of enslaved craftsmen between 1821-23, this Federal style home was moved to its present location on Warren Square from West Perry Street and retains its original appearance, except for the replacement of a curved brick entry stairway. Eppinger later left Savannah for Pike County, in west central Georgia, and served as an attorney, Georgia legislator, and judge. He was the son of John P. Eppinger (1765-1823) and, per Carol Todd, the grandson of John Eppinger (1730-1776), a brickmaker and bricklayer who built what may have been the first brick house in Savannah (a public house at 110 Oglethorpe Avenue built before 1764).
Peter Meldrim (1848-1933), who later became a judge, lived in this house as a youth during the Civil War. Judge Meldrim was later the owner of the iconic Green-Meldrim House, which served as General Sherman’s Savannah headquarters.
Savannah Historic District, National Historic Landmark
Dorchester Academy was founded as a primary school for African-American children by the American Missionary Association after the Civil War. The dormitory, designed by Norwegian-born architect George Awsumb in 1934 to replace an 1890s structure lost to fire in 1932, is all that remains of a once-larger campus. After the school closed in 1940, demolition of the campus took place. The boys’ dormitory became the community center and still serves that purpose.
During the Civil Rights Movement it was the primary site of the Citizenship Education Program (CEP) (1961-70), an important initiative of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). This was seen as the basis for the highly successful Voter Education Project (VEP). One of the prime boosters of the CEP was Septima Poinsette Clark, a Charleston school teacher referred to as the “Queen Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”. The work of this and other so-called “citizenship schools” trained over 700 teachers and registered 50,000 voters by 1963.
Workshops were often held at the site with numerous civil rights icons in attendance, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Andrew Young, Wyatt Walker, and Dorothy Cotton.
National Historic Landmark + National Register of Historic Places
Though the layout is Georgian Cottage, this house has strong Victorian elements. The cloverleaf cutouts in the dormers are distinctive. Whatever the form, it’s one of my favorite houses in Adrian.
This served as the county jail until 1926, when another facility was constructed near the courthouse. This facility served as the city jail until 1976, as well as police headquarters. It has been empty for many years and will hopefully be restored in the near future.
Superlative in appearance and history, Hollybourne is the only tabby-walled house to have been built in the cottage colony and the Maurices were the only family associated with the Jekyll Island Club from its inception until its disbanding in 1948. Charles Stewart Maurice was a Union midshipman in the Civil War, seeing service on several ships. After the war he took a job with the Lower Hudson Steamboat Company and was involved for a time in a tannery business with a childhood friend.
Around the time of his marriage in 1869, Maurice worked as a timber supplier to the Oswego Midland Railroad for the construction of bridges. He entered into a partnership with Charles Kellogg in 1871 to build railway bridges and soon, the firm of Kellogg and Maurice was pioneering the construction of iron bridges. In 1884 the firm merged with several others to form the Union Bridge Company. Union Bridge built some of the best-known bridges of the era and made Maurice a very wealthy man. The Maurices lived in Athens, Pennsylvania, during much of this time.
When Maurice became one of the first members of the newly formed Jekyll Island Club he enlisted architect William H. Day to build his cottage. Day’s design for the house is of a style referred to as Jacobethan. The term was coined by Sir John Betjeman in 1933 to describe a Renaissance/Tudor Revival form blending Jacobean and Elizabethan elements.
The Maurices spent all but two Christmases at Hollybourne from 1890-1942 and had a great love for the home and the island. Joan Hall McCash notes in The Jekyll Island Cottage Colony (Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1998) that the family was generous with others on the island at Christmas, and from about 1900-1920, Hollybourne was the center of life during the club season.
Hollybourne is the most architecturally interesting home on the island and its preservation should be commended.Though there has always been a desire to save it, its future was uncertain for many years.
Jekyll Island Historic District, National Register of Historic Places + National Historic Landmark
Though Edwin and Sarah Gould essentially severed their ties to Jekyll after the death of their oldest son, Frank Miller Gould had fond memories of past winters spent on the island and commissioned architect Mogens Tvede to construct this cottage, among the last built during the club era. He named it for his daughter Marianne.
Villa Marianna was one of the first large-scale renovations in Jekyll Island’s National Historic Landmark district and once housed the offices of the Jekyll Island Authority.
The courtyard at Villa Marianna is its most inviting feature and is a great spot for quiet reflection.
As the nameplate suggests, the house was completed in 1928, though the official marker outside the house dates it to 1929. Gould didn’t move in until 1929, but according to The Jekyll Island Club:Southern Haven for America’s Millionaires (William Barton McCash & June Hall McCash, Athens, UGA Press, 1989), the standard reference on the Jekyll Island Club, the home was “essentially complete” by October 1928.
Jekyll Island Historic District, National Register of Historic Places + National Historic Landmark
Solterra Cottage, the retreat of Frederic and Frances Baker, was built in 1890 and became known for its lavish parties, even hosting the newly-elected President William McKinley, along with his wife and the Vice-President’s family, in 1899. A fire consumed the cottage in 1914, but this dovecote survived. Over the years, it was moved several times but has finally been placed between the ruins of Chicota and Hollybourne Cottage, near its original location.
Jekyll Island Historic District, National Register of Historic Places + National Historic Landmark
