Column: Historic Savannah Foundation unites community, focuses on the future

Sue Adler and Austin Hill
Updated ·4 min read
A visitor reads the names of the 13 enslaved individuals that were owned by the Davenport Family at the new Urban Enslaved exhibit at the Davenport House Museum. The Davenport House's preservation was the beginning of the Historic Savannah Foundation.
A visitor reads the names of the 13 enslaved individuals that were owned by the Davenport Family at the new Urban Enslaved exhibit at the Davenport House Museum. The Davenport House's preservation was the beginning of the Historic Savannah Foundation.

This column is by Sue Adler, the CEO and president of Historic Savannah Foundation and Austin Hill, the chairman of Historic Savannah Foundation’s Board of Trustees and the President of Corcoran Austin Hill Realty.

This year, Historic Savannah Foundation celebrates 69 years since seven brave women saved the Davenport House from demolition, launching the modern-day preservation movement in Savannah.

In 1955, blight and the demolition of historic buildings stood apart as the biggest issues facing downtown Savannah. Today, however, Savannah’s National Historic Landmark District faces a very different set of challenges as well as pressure from competing stakeholders, including local residents, business owners, visitors, developers and others. Over the past decade – as more and more people relocate to Savannah and a growing number of visitors explore the Hostess City – issues like regional growth, traffic and affordable housing have put a real strain on our community resources.

Sue Adler
Sue Adler
Austin Hill
Austin Hill

Today, Savannah’s major challenges include threats to our Historic Landmark District from rising waves of tourism and overdevelopment. The Hostess City faces undeniable challenges that have the potential to alter our city’s future.

Historic Savannah Foundation, the city’s premier preservation organization, offers a community-based vision to help Savannah move forward strategically and collaboratively. As we look to the future, we will continue to work with the City of Savannah to protect Savannah’s National Historic Landmark District, which is a cultural and architectural treasure with a world-renowned city plan developed by Georgia’s founding father, James Edward Oglethorpe.

Historic Savannah Foundation will continue to save endangered, blighted historic properties in various historic districts throughout the greater Savannah area through the HSF Revolving Fund, which has saved and protected more than 420 local properties to date. Using privately raised money, HSF purchases vacant, blighted and endangered historic properties through our Revolving Fund and stabilizes them before identifying a preservation-minded buyer who agrees to a preservation easement designed to protect the property in perpetuity. The money from each sale goes back into the HSF Revolving Fund to purchase the next endangered property. In recent years, we have extended our reach from the Landmark District, the Victorian District and Thomas Square into other historic neighborhoods throughout Savannah.

Historic Savannah Foundation will continue to play a key advocacy role on important community issues, from saving the Kiah House to removing the I-16 flyover in order to resurrect a lost neighborhood. HSF will collaborate with the City of Savannah to preserve our city’s historic fabric and to ensure that new development meets existing preservation standards that are crucial to protect Savannah as a vibrant, dynamic city.

Historic Savannah Foundation has a strong vision for the future and will engage, nurture and inspire the next generation of preservationists to “pass the baton” and to ensure the vitality of the city’s preservation movement. We want to be a resource for all of Savannah, serving the entire community.

Over the past several years, Historic Savannah Foundation restored the Kennedy Pharmacy on Broughton Street and the Sheftall House on York Street, creating exciting new community spaces where residents and visitors can learn about Savannah’s rich preservation history. We also launched a new urban enslavement exhibition at the Davenport House in an effort to tell a deeper, more complete story about the residents who inhabited this iconic home where Savannah’s preservation movement was born. We are expanding educational programs for students and adults, creating a vibrant campus that’s focused on preservation as a vital, ongoing act of advocacy, storytelling and community.

By any measure, Savannah has seen a great deal of change since the Davenport House was saved in 1955 – and more change is, no doubt, imminent. Our goal as a community should be to meet our city’s challenges with a clear vision and to champion a future that respects Savannah’s past while planning thoughtfully for its future.

At Historic Savannah Foundation, we passionately believe that if we all work together, we can address the challenges we face as a community. Our organization’s strength has always been honoring the past while championing the future.

Historic Savannah Foundation’s leadership is committed to working with Savannah’s city leadership, key stakeholders and the community at large as we navigate these issues together. Despite the changing times, HSF’s mission remains steadfast: to save the buildings, places and stories that define Savannah’s past, present and future.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Column: Historic Savannah Foundation recalls past, focuses on future