24 December 2024

Andrew Low House Museum

Having already visited the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace, we needed to complete the circle and go see where that dimwitted blighter husband of hers came from: the Andrew Low House Museum, also in Savannah, Georgia.

The home was completed in 1849 for cotton merchant Andrew Low and his wife Sarah Cecil Hunter Low.

The home is situated on prime real estate on Lafayette Square, taking up what was originally two lots. The exterior features a grand entrance with a pair of recumbent lions waiting to greet visitors, with a formal garden laid out before them (see cover photo).

The back of the house, which overlooks a courtyard.
The entrance to the carriage house and stables where the Girl Scouts were headquartered.

Sadly, Sarah died shortly before construction was complete, but of course Andrew married again, to Mary Cowper Stiles. (It was their son William who married Juliette Gordon in 1886, though both parents tried to get the couple to rethink the match.)

Though William and Juliette primarily lived in Scotland and England during their marriage, they lived in this home when they were in town. After William’s death, Juliette founded the Girl Scouts while living here in 1912, turning the carriage house and stables into the first Girl Scout headquarters in America. It is still owned by the Scouts today and operates as gift shop and meeting place.

Looking through the house towards the front door.

The interior of the home is furnished to reflect how the home would have looked in the 1850s and 1860s. Many pieces belonged to the Low family, though many of are “of the period” and not “of the family.”

Formal dining room.
Just getting some ideas for how to style the inside of our van.
The portrait is Mary Cowper Stiles Low. The giant books in the stand are Shakespeare, naturally.
Broadwood & Son Upright Piano, circa 1815. Apparently gravity caused these upright pianos to get out of tune very quickly, so they were more of a conversation piece than musical instrument.
Of course, Doug excitedly noticed that there were not one but two multi-volume sets of William Makepeace Thackeray’s works in this bookshelf. Our guide told him to just wait until we got upstairs!
Upstairs, this is the William Makepeace Thackeray room. The Victorian writer not only stayed in this room, supposedly using the writing desk, he was good pals with Andrew Low. “I write from the most comfortable quarters I have ever had in the United States…in the house of my friend, Andrew Low.” (1856)
It was hard for Doug to be interested in any of the non-Thackeray bedrooms.

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