Armstrong Kessler Mansion
The Armstrong Kessler Mansion is a nationally significant example of Italian Renaissance Revival architectural style located in the Savannah Historic District. The structure was built between 1917 and 1919 for the home of Savannah magnate George Ferguson Armstrong. It was owned by the Armstrong family from 1919 to 1935. Afterward, the structure and grounds served as the campus of Armstrong Junior College. Threatened with demolition, the Historic Savannah Foundation purchased the Armstrong House along with five other threatened historic buildings from the college for $235,000 in 1967. Once saved, Historic Savannah Foundation sold the Mansion at the exact purchase price to preservationist and antique dealer Jim Williams who restored it as his home. Eventually, both were sold to a major Savannah law firm as offices. The mansion was featured in The American Architect in 1919, and listed in A Field Guide to American Houses in 1984.
Location and site
The Armstrong Kessler Mansion is located in Savannah's National Historic Landmark District at 447 Bull Street across Gaston Street from Forsyth Park. It is in Monterey Ward, one of twenty-four wards laid out in the form of James Oglethorpe's original town plan. Other notable structures on Bull Street in Monterey Ward are the Mercer House and Temple Mickve Israel. Six city lots were acquired to build the Armstrong mansion, and two existing houses were demolished to make room for the 26,000-square-foot structure. The entire site, including carriage house and grounds, is 0.5 acres.Original design
The mansion was designed by the architect Henrik Wallin in 1917 in an Italian Renaissance Revival style with interior elements of various established and experimental styles. The ten-bedroom home has nearly 26,000 square feet of living area. It is three stories over a full garden level with Granite balustraded terraces at each level. A broad hemicycle colonnade extending toward Bull Street offers a prospect of Forsyth Park. Other design features include a porte-cochère that opens into a side garden, an orangery, loggia, and sunporch. The exterior materials are granite and glazed brick. Bronze entry doors were fabricated by Bonachek of New York, with other doors in steel with bronze hardware. Windows were fabricated of steel and bronze by International Casement Company, now Hope Windows, which features the home in its promotional materials.The attached carriage house was also three stories, having two garage bays designed for automobiles with front and rear entrances from the street or from the alley. Living quarters were between and above the garages. The street entrances thus approached the carriage house through the garden creating a circular drive, with one side passing through the porte-cochere.
The landscape plan consisted of two formal yards on either side of a wide graduated approach to the front entrance, orchestrated to match the grandeur of the main hall. The effect in front carried through to the rear, where a second entrance under the porte-cochere faced a large rear garden. Front and rear grounds were enclosed with 200 feet of ornate iron fencing resembling that of Buckingham Palace.