Andrew Low House, Savannah

A major landmark on Lafayette Square is the lovely and stately house designed and built in 1848-49 for wealthy cotton merchant Andrew Low, which combines Grecian details with elements of the Italian Villa style and boasts one of Savannah's most stunning ironwork balconies. The shuttered piazza overlooks a beautiful brick-walled rear garden, and the front garden remains much as it did when first planted, with two hourglass-shaped flowerbeds.

Handsome inside as well as outside, the house features spacious rooms decorated with beautiful plaster cornices and carved woodwork, which were host to several important visitors over the years, including English author William Thackeray and Confederate General Robert E. Lee. In 1886, Low's son married Juliette Gordon, who later founded the Girl Scouts of America. When she died in 1927, she bequeathed her carriage house at 330 Drayton Street (in the rear) to the Girl Scouts.

The interior is decorated in the best examples of high-end furnishings from the 1850. No detail has been spared in textiles, furnishings, artwork, plate, glass and silver. Antiques junkies will go nuts over the furnishings, especially the massive secretary in the parlor, one of only four of this type in existence (a sibling is in NY's Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Why You Should Visit:
The tour guides are very informative and the period furnishings and window coverings add to the experience.
This is one of the few houses that allow taking pictures inside – if you go after hours as part of a 'ghost tour'.