History of the Davenport House Garden

In the early 19th century when the Davenport household lived on Columbia Square, the space immediately behind the brick house was a swept bare dirt and sand utility “yard.” It was spill over workspace for the enslaved laborers owned by Isaiah Davenport, and later Sarah Davenport. In 1812 on the adjacent lot where the garden is today, Davenport erected a “two story dwelling house and outbuildings.” Once the larger brick home was built in 1820, we assume the house on Lot 14 was taken down for workspace for the enslaved.

Outbuildings during the Davenports residence included a carriage house, privy, horse shed and well.

When the Davenport House became a museum in 1963, the courtyard and garden were nonexistent. Directly behind the house at that time was a 1916 apartment building which was torn down in the 1970s. The garden area was a parking lot for the funeral home across the street.

Effort and expense were required to reacquire Lots 13 and Lot 14 in Columbia Ward.

What you see today is a 20th century garden attached to a 19th century house. The present garden’s history began in 1976 as a bicentennial project of Trustee’s Garden Club. Through research of period gardens and the Savannah area, Cy Paumier of Land Design/Research Associates of Columbia, Maryland was commissioned to design our garden.

Over the years, the garden was monitored and nurtured by the Trustee’s Garden Club members who made substantial donations to it. During the 1990s a redesign was undertaken to remove diseased trees and shrubs, as well as to create beds with representational plantings that an 1820s resident of Savannah would have recognize.

Through the continuing generosity of the Trustee’s Garden Club, combined with substantial gifts from private donors, restoration plans were completed by Penelope Hobhouse, renowned English landscape architect, in collaboration with Frances Parker of Beaufort, South Carolina. Together they shaped a garden of structural plantings, supplemented by perennials and annuals. 

A focal point, the arbor, is planted with jasmine. Moon flower vines intertwine and bloom in the summer. Annuals are planted seasonally in the surrounding beds and decorative urns.