July 9, 2013 – Bluffton, SC and Savannah, GA
Our good friend Gary played tour guide for us and took us around the small historic town of Bluffton before we headed down to Savannah. We stopped at the Inn and Chapel on Palmetto Bluff to see the beautiful resort that has arisen from the ashes of what was once the mansion and property of R.T. Wilson, built in 1912. Wilson was a wealthy NYC banker and financier (somethings never change) who had amassed great wealth. He acquired 18000 acres near what is Bluffton, SC today. On this property, he attempted to revive southern plantation living by constructing a lavish 72 room mansion. At the mansion on Palmetto Bluff, he would entertain notable figures from around the world. Unfortunately, the property would be totally destroyed in a fire in 1926 – fourteen years after it was built. Wilson was devastated by the loss of his beloved mansion and he subsequently sold the property. It was later acquired by the Union Bag Company in 1937 primarily as a possible source for timber that could be used to make their paper bags. Their largest mill was located in nearby Savannah. However, the property sat largely unused and undeveloped for 70 years when it was acquired by Crescent Communities as part of a much larger development. Palmetto Bluff has now been returned to a place of splendor with a beautiful resort, and a number of exclusive home developments. Don’t worry about the beautiful setting being over developed as less than 20 percent of the available property will be developed.
If you would like to learn more about the archeology of Palmetto Bluff and the RT Wilson home check out this link.
If you would like to learn more about Palmetto Bluff today, follow this link
After that, we went on into historic Savannah to have a look around. We parked just off of Broughton St and Montgomery. This allowed us to take a long walk through most of the historic section of Savannah. By the time we got there, it was going on 11:00. We thought we would stroll by Paula Deen’s restaurant (Lady and Son’s) on Congress St at Whitaker to see if we could get a table around 12:00. Here it was before 11:00 and there was already a large crowd milling about the restaurant. We checked in with the hostess to see if we could get a table. She told us that we could get a table “around 11:00, otherwise it would be around 2:00”. So, although we weren’t that hungry, we decided that 11:00 was better than 2:00. At around 11:20, we were called and led to a nice corner table on the third floor. We had a nice view out over the city.
I’m not that crazy about southern cooking, or Paula Deen’s excessively rich recipes, but it seemed like coming here was the right thing to do, while in Savannah. Elisa and I opted for the Southern Buffet that was very well equipped with a number of southern staples like fried chicken, baked chicken, black-eyed peas, collard greens, green beans, creamed corn and grits, and those not so southern staples of lasagna and italian sausage. The food was pretty average and not quite what I was expecting. Elisa may have enjoyed it more than I did.
After than, we set off on foot zig zagging our way across the street and many public “squares” or parks that seem to pop up all over the city. We were mainly on the hunt for antique shops for Elisa. We found many different shops, but most were filled with furniture or other over-priced items. So we didn’t find much. We came across Chippewa Square, which is where many of the bus stop scenes for Forest Gump were filmed. We were disappointed to see that it didn’t look anything like the move. In fact the film crew covered up most of the natural beauty of the park and replaced it with Hollywood props. There aren’t even andy benches located in that park. We also walked by the diner where Jenny worked as a waitress when she sees Forest running across the country.
We also spend a fair amount of time strolling through the old Savannah Cemetery that is now a Colonial public park. This was the town’s main cemetery from 1750 through 1853. Among the more than 9000 grave sites include the burial place for James Oglethorpe, the primary settler of Savannah and Button Gwinett, the signatory of the Declaration of Independence on behalf of Georgia. At that time, Savannah was the capital of Georgia. It was very interesting.
After that we made our way down to River St, which has been revived and now houses numerous hotels and shops. Elisa visited a number of small antique shops. By now, the temperature and the humidity was rising so we decided to call it a day.
Later that evening, we went to Capt. Woody’s a seafood restaurant so we could get a light dinner (especially after that lunch we had a Paula’s place). We had soup and salads for dinner and I decided to forego the salad and instead has some freshly shucked oysters on the half shell.
A link to the pictures we took are located here.
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