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You’ll be able to explore period rooms full of exquisite decorative arts, interactive exhibits for all ages, and historic spaces filled with stories of both the free and enslaved people who lived there. The elegant urban villa that is the Owens-Thomas House comprises a front courtyard, the main house, a formal walled garden (originally a work yard), and a building at the rear of the property that once served as a carriage house and slave quarters. The style of the house is English Regency, named for the prince regent who became King George IV (1762–1830). The English Regency period dates from 1811, when the prince became regent for his incapacitated father, George III, until 1830, when he died.
History of the Richardson-Owens-Thomas House
The front of the property is bordered by a balustrade made of Coade stone, an artificial stone invented in Lambeth, England. A stucco-covered tabby wall connects the main house to the former carriage house and slave quarters, also built of tabby. Our interior waiting area has limited capacity, so keep in mind that we are only able to allow one group in at a time. Approximately 5-10 minutes before your tour begins, a Historical Interpreter will welcome all visitors in the tour group to spend the remainder of their waiting time in the Orientation Gallery. This space houses displays of introductory information available to read while you wait, as well as benches that visitors may rest on indoors before their tour starts.
Public Spaces
A handsome building with a stucco exterior, in contrast to the more traditional red-brick Federal style of its Savannah neighbors, it is situated on a 60 × 180-foot trust lot facing Oglethorpe Square, named for General James Oglethorpe, the founder of Savannah. Telfair Museums only offers a three-site pass to ensure that our visitors have the opportunity to experience all the museum has to offer at one combined price. Yes, all visitors must reserve their tour times in-person at the ticket booth. The line ensures that tour times are made available to all our visitors on a first-come, first-serve basis. The furniture and decorative objects from Telfair’s collection that are displayed at the Owens-Thomas House date largely from the early to mid-19th century. About one third of the objects descended in the Owens family, and many others were owned by wealthy Savannahians of the same period.
The Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters
John Giddins of Sotheby’s International Realty, who’s listing a $17.4-million home above the Sunset Strip, usually sets the cutoff for public open houses at around $10 million, but he decided to hold one at the home from 2 to 5 p.m. The stories that will be told of Emma, the Owens’ nurse maid; Diane, the Owens’ cook; and Peter, the Owens’ butler, offer the opportunity to consider how enslaved and free people lived, worked, and interacted on a day-to-day basis. The construction of the structure we now refer to as the Thomas-Owens House was commenced in 1816 for slave trader and merchant, Mr. Richard Richardson, and his wife, Frances. Upon the home's completion in 1819, the couple, their six children, and nine slaves moved into the estate. When Margaret Thomas died in 1951, she bequeathed the property and its contents to the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences to be used as a museum honoring her grandfather, George Welshman Owens, and her father, Dr. James Gray Thomas.
Architecture lovers will also enjoy the main house, which is one of the country’s finest examples of 19th-century Regency-style architecture. Across the rear hall from the family dining room is a four-room suite comprising the master bedroom, a bathing room that once had a marble bathtub, a water closet with a flush toilet, and a dressing room. The cast-iron balcony is accessed from the bedroom through jib doors below the lower sash of the window, which allow almost seven feet of clearance when fully open. The window cornices are original to the Owens family, and an Owens family bed made in New York about 1810 is exhibited in the room.
Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters Audio Tour
On large panels, guests read letters from the Owens family that illustrate their participation in the cruelty of slavery. In a nod to more contemporary times, one panel focuses on the power behind “family separation” during enslavement and alludes to contemporary practices on the US–Mexico border. These primary sources both welcome guests into the world of museum curation and function as work cited pages for the guides’ tours.
It was used for gatherings and entertaining, and it was a showcase for the family’s best and most impressive furnishings. On the curved east wall is a black marble fireplace flanked by curved doors topped by lunettes. The cornice is decorated by plasterwork in an anthemion, or honeysuckle, pattern adopted from classical antiquity. Similarly, the splendid amber window on the north wall with its Greek key overlay filters a warm light that bathes the room in daylight hours.
We are currently working on developing translations in additional languages, and we appreciate your patience while we expand our language accessibility.
William Jay Society hosts garden party at historic Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters - Savannah Morning News
William Jay Society hosts garden party at historic Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters.
Posted: Tue, 28 May 2019 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Often overlooked is that without the labor and blood of African American slaves, the wealth and prestige of the owners would not exist, and this is explored in the new interpretation at the site. Through a simple and honest presentation of their stories, these “invisible people” are given a voice and inform the public of what life was truly like in antebellum Savannah. The Telfair Museum currently offers walk-in guided tours of the Thomas-Owens House & Slave Quarters. Visit the estate for a dose of history and reality that offers a true look into Savannah’s interesting yet troublesome past. Whether you’re interested in history, art, or architecture, you’ll find something you love while exploring the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters. Visits to the site focus on the lives of 19th century Savannah’s most and least powerful people and how they interacted on a daily basis.
Unless you can land representation from one of L.A.’s top real estate agents, celebrities in themselves, you’ll never get a glimpse of the nightclub, or the moat, or the six-hole putting green, or the golf simulator, or the bowling alley, candy room or multiplex-size movie theater. Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of the home's history is the arduous slave labor required for its maintenance and the inhumane treatment that took place within its boundaries. The Slave Quarters were a two-story, six-chamber building where freedom-deprived African Americans lived. After being ripped from their home and transported as cargo to another country, these men, women, and children were thrown into cramped, deteriorated rooms, and forced into labor. They were verbally mistreated, physically, and sexually abused, punished for practicing their religions, and speaking their native language.
The home was designed by English architect (and relative to Richardson by marriage) William Jay but was constructed by builder John Retan and likely a team of free and enslaved men in his charge. The property also included a two-sided privy and a building located on the east end of the lot, which was divided into a carriage house and slave quarters. Since its 2018 re-curation, the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters has stood out among Savannah’s house museums and set an example for others to restore and interpret the domestic spaces of the enslaved.
His excessiveness, combined with inspiration taken from ancient Greek and Roman architecture, impacted how buildings were designed and furnished during the early to mid-19th century. Richardson also experienced personal hardships during this time after his wife and two of his children passed away. Richardson put the house on the market in 1822 and moved to New Orleans, where he had been selling and purchasing slaves for years. In 1833, the slave trader died at sea during a journey from Le Havre, France to New Orleans. The Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters is owned and operated by Telfair Museums, a collection of three iconic Savannah museums with three separate experiences that are all within walking distance to one another.
These rooms and the hall constitute the public area of the house, used in its day for entertaining. The mansion was purchased in 1830 by local attorney and politician George Welshman Owens for $10,000 (~$320,919 in 2023). The family maintained it for several decades until Owens' granddaughter, Margaret Thomas, bequeathed the house to the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (established in 1885) as the South's oldest art museum, in 1951. The house is notable for its early cast iron side veranda with elaborate acanthus scroll supports on which the Marquis de Lafayette addressed the citizens of Savannah on his visit in 1825. William Jay was architect to other Savannah landmarks such as the Scarborough house, the Telfair House as mentioned above, and an attribution to the Gordon-Low House. The stories of many of these people have been lost to history, and the little surviving information comes from Census records, family correspondence, legal documents, tax records, wills, and inventories.
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