Savannah ยท Lafayette Square
Hamilton-Turner Inn
The 1873 Second Empire mansion on Lafayette Square that became the first house in Savannah with electric light.
- Built
- 1873built 1873 as a private residence for Samuel Pugh Hamilton; inn since 1996-97
- Style
- Second Empire
- Type
- Inn
- Rooms
- 17
- Area
- Lafayette Square
- Credentials
- Inside a National Register historic district
The story
Built in 1873 for Samuel Pugh Hamilton, a businessman and alderman known as ‘the Lord of Lafayette Square’, the Second Empire mansion became the first Savannah residence with electric light in 1883 through his work with the Brush Electric Light & Power Company. Dr. Francis Turner bought it in 1915. In 1965 the Turners sold it to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, which planned to replace it with a playground until the Historic Savannah Foundation intervened. In the late 1980s Joe Odom managed it, and his parties there appear in John Berendt’s ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil’; Nancy Hillis, the model for the book’s ‘Mandy’, later owned it. Charlie and Sue Strickland converted it into an inn.
The ghost story
Ghost-tour lore says guests have reported footsteps at night and the sound of children playing billiards upstairs, and some report a man smoking a cigar on the roof, often linked to Samuel Hamilton.
Source: ghostcitytours.com
Good to know
- Breakfast: included
- Parking: street
- Pets welcome
- Address: 330 Abercorn Street, Savannah, GA 31401
Things to do
Ghost tours in Savannah
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Sources (4)
Last verified October 2026. Details change; confirm with the inn before you book.