"Music I heard with you was more than music, 

And bread I broke with you was more than bread. 

Now that I am without you, all is desolate, 

All that was once beautiful is dead. 

—Conrad Aiken (Music I Heard) 

The Jacob Guerard Heyward Mansion 

This magnificent mansion, located on Whitaker Street and blessed with a stunning view of Forsyth Park, was built in 1878 for Jacob Guerard Heyward (1844-1888). Jacob Heyward was the great-grandson of Thomas Heyward, Jr. (1746-1809), a consequential political leader from South Carolina made famous for being a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. 

In his youth, Jacob Heyward served in the Confederate Army. Union forces captured him toward the end of the Civil War and then released him in June 1865. Like many former Confederate officers, before being released from captivity at Fort Delaware, 2nd Lieutenant Jacob Heyward was forced to take an ‘Oath of Allegiance’ to the United States of America. 

Like great-grandfather, like great-grandson: Thomas Heyward, Jr. was captured by the British during the siege of Charleston in 1780 during the Revolutionary War. Held near St. Augustine, Florida, during his captivity, Thomas Heyward, Jr. was later released in a prisoner exchange. 

After the Civil War, Jacob Heyward moved to Savannah but died at a relatively young age. He is buried in the Heyward family plot in Laurel Grove Cemetery. 

In recent years, the Heyward Mansion was beautifully restored by the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Renamed as SCAD’s Magnolia Hall, this fabulous residence is generally put to use as a guest home for visiting VIPs of the college. 

Two notable Pulitzer Prize nominees have reportedly stayed at Magnolia Hall in recent decades. Writer John Berendt, a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction by authoring ‘The Book’ that placed Savannah back at the heart of American tourist maps: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil —A Savannah Story. Covering the murder trials of Jim Williams, among other flavorful characters of the city, Berendt’s book remains the most extended record-holding best seller of the New York Times. 

Honored with a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for his poetry, Savannah-native Conrad Aiken (see PFS-80) reportedly stayed at the Heyward Mansion decades back. Aiken wrote or edited more than fifty books over his lifetime, including several volumes of poetry, novels, and an autobiography. His poem excerpted above, Music I Heard, has been put to music by many composers, including Leonard Bernstein. His writings were heavily influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. 

Without a doubt, the critical backdrop of Savannah’s history has been the preservation and restoration of so much of its architecture. Documenting these efforts en Plein air has been the purpose of my effort in this series of paintings — to help retain in memory Savannah’s beautiful, yet often darkened, past.  

In 1955, a local Savannah painter named Anna Colquitt Hunter gathered a group of wealthy ladies — often referred to as ‘The Magnificent Seven’ — who founded the Historic Savannah Foundation. The organization has been responsible for rescuing hundreds of Savannah’s historic buildings. Jim Williams also began his career around the same time and also preserved and restored dozens of buildings, too. 

Then, in 1979, SCAD President Paula Wallace began preserving so much more of Savannah’s valuable cityscapes by repurposing dozens of gorgeous buildings (see PFS-14) and residences, like the beautiful Heyward Mansion, to expand the presence of SCAD in the Historic District of Savannah.