17-Hundred-90 Restaurant and Inn

17 Hundred 90 Restaurant and Inn is the oldest hotel in Savannah, built in 1820 to be a boarding house by a Virginia planner, Steele White, who was killed in a riding accident even before this building was finished. Sometime in its history it turned from a boarding house into a hotel, with the name 17 Hundred 90 in its title. The year 1790 must have been a better year than 1820! The year 1820 wasn’t used in its name because this year was disastrous for Savannah. A terrible fire ate up 2/3rds of the city, and a yellow fever epidemic killed a lot of people as well, wiping out whole families. There was a little graveyard down the street which had whole clans buried there.

The original federal style 17 Hundred 90 Restaurant and Inn building offers great food in its upscale restaurant and tavern located in the basement, while the hotel B & B rooms are located in the upper floors. This dining room and tavern has a rustic, wooden decor of a 1820s tavern. “The dining room is done up to almost resemble a trading vessel of yore, and the charming bar in the rear is the stuff of crusty sea captains.” travel.yahoo.com.

Ghost tours make a nightly stop here in the tavern for a drink, as they hear about the main entity who resides here, mainly on the second floor.

In recent years, 17 Hundred 90 Restaurant and Inn expanded by purchasing another old, impressive home across the street, moving its check-in desk and also providing more rooms on the upper floors for guests to stay in and enjoy. With this new building, the owners also gained a lovely patio area and a nice parking lot as well for its guests, which is a valuable commodity for a B & B to have in Savannah because of the limited parking available. This makes it convenient to just leave your car here and walk to the downtown area.

17 Hundred 90 Restaurant and Inn has a total of 14 guest rooms, some of which have fireplaces. Complementary wine and a continental breakfast are included in the rate.

We stayed here on our cross country road trip of 2006. We were able to spend the night in the original building, in haunted room 204, which just happened to be vacant that night. The people who were in this room the night before left in the middle of the night, finding out that having a threesome with a ghost cans be scary and not what they expected.

After checking in, we climbed up an interestingly old staircase which starts in the middle of the first floor, against the wall up to the second floor. There is a hallway which runs underneath some windows which leads to room 204. There is a life-size female mannequin dressed in the 1800s dress which is looking out the window to the entertainment of the nightly ghost tours who walk through the neighborhood. Some guests like to scare the tours who stop in front of this building, by making her move, according to the log found on the table next to the bed. Room 204 has a fireplace, some lovely reproductions of 1800s furniture and a nice view of the street below.

HISTORY OF MANIFESTATIONS

The entity of Anne Powell…

There are several versions about the circumstances leading up to Anne Powell’s suicide.

One story reports that a young woman, 16 year old Anne Powell, was unhappily married to an Englishman, who despite his faults as a husband, did build the large home for her. Anne fell in love with a German sailor who used her but didn’t love her. As she saw his ship leave, she threw herself down on the brick courtyard below.

Another version of this story claimed that Anne was an indentured servant forced to marry Steele White, who was a jealous husband who threw her off the second floor. This isn’t true because Steele White didn’t even live to see his building finished.

Second Story: The home was at this time a boarding house. A young, naive, 16 year old maid, by the name of Anne Powell fell in love with a sailor/merchant marine and became pregnant by him. Instead of marrying her right away, he instead promised to return after this voyage in a few months and marry her then. Months passed and the sailor was a no show. Anne Powell found out that he never intended to come back because he was already married.

A variation of this story: When she wasn’t working as a servant, Anne Powell was a flirtatious beauty, a bit of a tart and party animal and liked to have relationships with young men, perhaps hoping to marry up and out of her social status. She went to bed with a young sailor, fell in love with the lad who was just in it for a good time. When she turned up pregnant, he didn’t marry her right away but promised to return after his next voyage in a few months. A few months later, he was a no show, and had no intention of coming back.

However it happened, Anne gambled and lost. Desperate, pregnant and heartbroken, Anne Powell then threw herself onto the bricks below.

The sinister entity in the basement restaurant kitchen

This female entity is thought to be an African American servant who was heavily into Voodoo. She was in charge of the kitchen, and probably took pride in her culinary skills.

The entity of the Merchant Marine

Savannah is a river port city, located on the Savannah River which flows into the Atlantic. The close proximity to the river and sea made it the home of men and their families who made their living on the docks, the boats, and the shipping industry. Merchant marines were men who worked on the boats, many of whom lived in Savannah, a convenient commute!

This building was once home to this entity, who obviously loved his home. Not much is known about him. Perhaps he died suddenly while on a boat, or could’ve perished in an epidemic outbreak. Perhaps he doesn’t know that he is dead and is just going about his business.

MANIFESTATIONS

Anne Powell may have died by her own actions, but she is a lively, mischievous spirit who has no trouble entertaining herself.

Anne Powell’s room was on the second floor, 204, which is the area she makes her presence known most strongly. The owners of 17 Hundred 90 Restaurant and Inn used to make guests who wanted to stay in this room sign a waiver saying that they would not be entitled for their money back if they left in the middle of the night because they were frightened. However, this room is now very popular with ghost seekers and curious folks who know what they are getting into when they rent this room. There’s a paranormal experience log one can record experiences.

Anne has been seen sitting in the chair by the room’s fireplace.

An unseen female presence is often sensed in this room.

Anne has been known to lay out guests’ clothes neatly on the bed. Some women have come back to the room to find their evening & bedtime clothes taken from their suitcases and laid out on the bed.

Electrical gadgets, lights and new tech items like cameras are irresistible to Anne.

This entity likes to tease the living!

Anne likes to turn on the lights and /or clock radio in the early morning hours.

Anne likes to yank the covers off couples, and has been known to throw their covers up in the air, in a spirit of fun!

If the living leave jewelry, personal items and keys on the fireplace mantle, she will take them and put the items in strange places.

This entity has a weakness for nice undergarments, but she usually gives back the ones she doesn’t like in some manner eventually.

Two women staying in this room found that their undergarments were missing from their suitcases. They found them later draped on branches of the inn’s Christmas tree in the tavern!

Her spirit is as emotional as when she was alive. If the living are kind and she likes them, she will not bother them during the night too much.

One young couple burned a vanilla candle in the room, and expressed sympathy for what happened to her, which pleased this spirit.

A young honeymooning couple awoke one early morning to find water drops falling from the ceiling. The spirit of Anne was still crying about her lost love and the rejection she felt.

The spirit of Anne took a strong dislike to a paranormal investigator who brought his equipment into her room to try to get evidence of her existence. She took his car keys and placed them on a headstone on the very back row of headstones in the Bonaventure Cemetery.

According to a Ghost Tour guide and James Caskey, the spirit of Anne took a strong dislike to a young male waiter, Sean whose job it was to collect the B & B meal cards from the door knobs of all the rooms.

One day, as he went around collecting the cards on the first, second and third floors, he felt a strange coldness and an uncomfortable feeling of being watched.

The intensity grew and by the time he reached the third floor, it reached a peak when he felt the strange sensation of being picked up off the floor of the hallway about 6 inches. He flew down the stairways to escape.

When the Travel Channel wanted to interview him in room 204, Sean found that an invisible barrier was physically stopping him from entering.

OUR ACTUAL EXPERIENCES WITH THE ENTITY OF ANNE

Incidents we experienced during our stay in room #204:

As we did some reading/paper work in our room before retiring, the door latch began to gently move back and forth by itself.

In the early morning hours, in a half-awake state, I realized someone playfully was trying to lightly tug down the covers. I just grabbed the covers and rolled over, not realizing it was a paranormal occurrence.

Background: (On this road cross country trip of 2006, Tom would turn down the air conditioning before we went to be at night during our stay in places because we would be too cold otherwise. On several occasions during the early morning hours, I would have the other problem of being too hot and stir a little.)

In Room 204, Tom had turned down the air conditioning before we went to bed as was our custom.

When I became too hot and stirred a little in a semi conscious state, something cool would gently move across my forehead, cooling me down and putting me back to sleep!

When we were packing up to move our stuff the next morning, I had put my little camera bag on the bed. I had left it in the room when we went down for breakfast. Before leaving, we did our usual idiot check to be sure we didn’t leave anything behind. We had already moved our stuff down to the car, when I noticed the camera wasn’t in the bag. I got the key from the desk and Tom went back up to the room to take a look. He immediately saw it in plain site sitting in the middle of the chair by the window. The camera wasn’t in the chair when we had first left the room because we would’ve seen it. The maid hadn’t been in the room yet, so it must have been the entity of Anne returning the camera after she had looked at it.

The Entity of the African American servant Cook who haunts the basement kitchen and restaurant area.

She hates women.

This entity pushes women who work in her kitchen in the back and jangles her bracelets at them.

This entity will slap or flick women as well.

She plays mean tricks on the female staff who work in the restaurant and tavern.

As in many restaurants, the kitchen will feed its bartenders. One female bartender wrote up an order for crab cakes, and put it on the order board. On her dinner break, she found her written order by a plate of crab cakes. It turned out to be an order for a waiting customer and no one had seen this bartender’s written order.

She has scared waitresses by pushing silverware from the table settings laid out on the tables.

She likes to rattle pots and pans to let the staff know she is there.

Pots have been known to take pots off their hooks in the kitchen and drop them.

She has her sad moments: A maintenance man was doing some work when he heard a woman sobbing in the kitchen. He went in the kitchen, armed with a knife to find no one living there.

The Entity of the Merchant Marine

This entity seems to be relaxed, enjoys music and is helpful to the staff.

His apparition dressed in his uniform has been seen listening to the piano player and has been seen strolling through the garden room.

He helped a staff member who was closing the basement restaurant for the evening, by turning off the light which the staff member couldn’t reach without a chair.

STILL HAUNTED?

The joint is jumping with paranormal activity, which the owners, staff and guests accept as part of the experience of this old building.

LOCATION

306 East President Street
Savannah, GA 31401
(912) 236-7122

17 Hundred 90 Restaurant and Inn can be found in the historic district of the glorious town of Savannah,
near the corner of Lincoln Street and Bay Street.

The city of Savannah is not only beautiful, but was well planned and very easy to navigate. Armed with a detailed city map complements of the tourist office located in the old railroad station building, Tom and I easily found our way around town. Many people walk from their B & B or hotel to the downtown section and River walk area. The city engineers who designed Savannah over 100 years ago knew what they were doing, making it both practical and beautiful at the same time.