Savannah Victorian Historic District

Savannah's Victorian district covers about 45 blocks south of the city's original settlement and adjoins Forsyth Park and its Park Extension, a former military parade ground. Wards and lots were laid out between 1868 and 1872 on land Oglethorpe's plan had designated as farm lots. Street railways made the area workable as Savannah's first suburb, and most building took place between 1870 and 1897. Most houses are two-storey wood Carpenter "Box" dwellings with lace-like wooden trim. The district also has brick row houses with cast iron lintels and later Queen Anne houses with turrets and fine detail. Architects including William Gibbons Preston and A. S. Eichburg designed homes and institutional buildings there, among them Telfair Hospital and the Henry Street School. Many other houses came from the Home Building Company, which used published cottage plans. The district was listed for its concentrated, intact late nineteenth-century middle-class neighborhood, with a tree-lined grid of brick sidewalks and narrow lots.