Back in the ’90s, Juanita Dixon helped usher in Savannah’s soul food revival,winning over the passions and palates of celebrities, city leaders and simple folk alike.  Amy Paige Condon gets the gravy.  »  Photography by Beau Kester

Juanita Dixon’s strong and supple hands stir the air as if she’s conducting a symphony.  She uses them as she talks—to amplify a point, to clap in celebration, to demonstrate the proper way of sprinkling flour over caramelized onions for gravy. 

“You got to know the consistency in the hand,” she tells me from across her dining table.  “You can feel it.  The hand is the gift that God give you, so God be making sure that everything is felt through the hand.”  She cups her palm and taps it with a finger.  “For cooking, your hand is your measurer.”  She takes an imaginary pinch and tosses.  “Your fingers, when you pick up the flour, it’s the dash.”

That brown gravy she’s making, poured with care and pride over a steaming plate of shrimp and grits, drew legions of fans—Clint Eastwood and Meg Ryan among them—to her downtown outpost, Nita’s Place, throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, when Juanita served up some of Savannah’s most savory soul food.  Her sour cream and buttermilk biscuits were legendary, and she shrewdly offered free hoecakes to passing trolley riders, enticing them to return to her 12-seat luncheonette on Abercorn for fried chicken, candied yams, collard greens and a squash casserole that people still rave about a decade after her doors were shuttered.

Loaves and Fishes

Biscuits were the first things Juanita learned to make at the age of 5.  The second of seven children, Juanita took over the household cooking so that her mother could work to support the family.  Her older sister had already moved out of the house, so it was up to Juanita to make sure the younger siblings were dressed and fed.

Her mother and aunts never wrote down their recipes, so they brought Juanita into the kitchen and taught her everything they knew by letting her observe and repeat.

“I had to get up and do, and they’d tell me, ‘Don’t you mess up,’” she remembers.  Food was a precious commodity and nothing could go to waste.

“My mama would say, ‘Don’t overcook that cabbage, Nita; you want a crunch to it.’  I had to learn fast.”

By her tweens, Juanita was cooking and cleaning for a family that lived on East Broad Street.  As a teenager, she got a job as a coffee girl for Morrison’s Cafeteria.  Later on, while she raised her son and daughter, she shuffled between four jobs: cooking and serving hearty breakfasts out of food trucks to longshoremen at the port; stocking shelves at Savannah Wholesale; prepping food for Memorial University Medical Center’s doctors’ lounge, and helping out at a funeral home on weekends.

But Juanita never dreamed she could have her own restaurant until she started catering house parties in Yamacraw Village.  That’s when she discovered her joy for cooking, and she learned she could make money from it.

“We used to have rent parties, honey,” Juanita recalls, her deep, rich laughter filling the house.  “We’d start them off on a Friday and they’d end on a Monday.  (Governor) Lester Maddox closed down the clubs at twelve o’clock on Saturday nights then, and we didn’t have no place to go so we would crank up the house.”

Juanita would make chicken, pig’s feet, chitlins, macaroni and cheese, potato salad and cornbread, charging a small fee to help raise money for rent.  On Fridays, she made sure she offered crisp fried whiting with red rice—a standard on many African-American tables, even today.

“Every Friday was the day for fish,” she explains.  “If you see a fish market with black people lined up, it’s a Friday.  Whiting is the African tradition here in the South.  It was so plentiful.  At the shrimp boats in Thunderbolt, they give you the whitings.”

She tells me how she prepared the fish whole, not filleted, with their bones and heads intact and the eyes carved out.  She dredged them in golden cornmeal and flash-fried them for crunch.

Breaking Bread

Red rice and whiting were staples on the menu when she opened Nita’s Place in 1992 with just a household refrigerator, a freezer, a four-burner stove and a steam table.  Back then, customers sat on Coca-Cola crates and would help serve sweet tea and slices of sweet potato pie if she was needed in the back.  Pretty soon, food and travel writers from Southern Living, Travel+Leisure, The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and the BBC were extolling the virtues of her victuals.

“It was fun.  My cooking was fun,” she reminisces.  “All these people coming in here to eat from me?  It was fresh vegetables that made Nita’s.”

The notoriety created long lines and even longer waits.  By the late 1990s, Juanita’s friends and patrons talked her into moving from her pocket-sized place on Abercorn to a larger storefront on Broughton Street, where, off the trolley line, Nita’s Place got lost among the other shops.  Rising costs and fewer feet walking past her door led her to make a wrenching decision in 2003 to lock up for good.

“I had a goldmine in my hand—and a gut feeling I shouldn’t move,” she says now.

Juanita has since settled into catering special events and cooking for dinner parties.  But it’s not the same as having something to call her own.

“I miss feeding the people,” she says with just a pinch of melancholy.  “I would sing songs to them.”  At Nita’s Place, the jazzy, improvisational blues of Billie Holiday often played as the soundtrack—a lyrical representation of Juanita’s tactile, visceral way in the kitchen.

“Food is an art, just the way people play music by ear,” she says with her palms face up, holding an invisible platter filled with a bountiful feast—a feast crafted by hands that know exactly how to take the measure of things.

Kitchen Confidential

If Nita’s short on cornmeal for her signature crispy whiting, she’ll dredge the fish in all-purpose flour that’s been bedazzled by turmeric.  “That’ll give you that golden color that’s so important,” she says.  She always buys her whiting from “Charlie”—that’s Russo’s Seafood for those of us not on a first-name basis—who will butterfly the whole fishes for her.

Nita Dixon’s Crispy Whiting and Savannah Red Rice

(Serves 4)

Crispy Whiting: 

4 whole whiting, butterflied with eyes removed

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

Cornmeal, or all-purpose flour with turmeric

Canola oil

Red Rice:

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ pound large shrimp, peeled, deveined and tails removed

½ cup celery, coarsely chopped

½ cup yellow onion, coarsely chopped

½ cup green bell pepper, coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon dried rosemary

1 tablespoon dried sweet basil

1 tablespoon dried Italian seasoning

4 bay leaves

3 tablespoons butter

1 cup fresh diced tomatoes

4 cups canned diced tomatoes, in liquid

2 cups tomato sauce

One 6-ounce can tomato paste

Wash and pat dry the fish, then sprinkle all sides with kosher salt and ground pepper.  Set aside in the refrigerator until ready to pan fry. 

Position a rack on the bottom rung of the oven and preheat the oven to 450°  F.

Heat olive oil in a heavy-bottomed stock pot over medium heat.  Add the shrimp and stir until the shrimp are coated with the olive oil.  Add the celery, onion, green pepper and garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes until the shrimp have started to turn pink and curl.  Then add the rosemary, basil, Italian season, bay leaves and butter to warm and release the aromatics.

Stir in fresh diced tomatoes, canned tomatoes, tomato sauce and paste.  Continue to stir until a loose sauce has formed.  Bring the sauce to a boil.

Slowly add the rice, one cup at a time, and continue to stir the tomato sauce until you feel the mixture tighten.

Pour the rice into a 3-quart casserole dish and cover first with plastic wrap then foil, and set the dish on the bottom rack of the oven to bake for 25-30 minutes, until all the water has been absorbed and the rice is tender.

When the rice is almost done, fry the whiting.  In a 12-inch cast iron skillet over medium, heat enough canola oil to pan-fry the fish.  Test the oil’s heat by sprinkling in some cornmeal or flour.  When it pops, you’re ready to fry.

Remove the fish from the refrigerator.  Pour cornmeal or flour with turmeric into a shallow dish then dredge the fish on both sides, shaking off any excess.  Gently place two fish, skin-sides down, in the heated oil, and let it cook for 3-4 minutes until golden brown.  Gently turn the fish skin-sides up and cook 3-4 minutes more until golden brown and flaky.  Remove the fish and let it drain on a paper towel.  Serve immediately.

Joe Xayadeth, better known as “Sushi Joe,” doesn’t seem like he’s from around here.  He doesn’t wear khakis with embroidered whales or sport a head of shaggy hair that grazes his eyebrows.  He doesn’t say “y’all,” not even once during our conversation—in fact, I can’t detect even a hint of a Southern accent.

“Born and raised,” he assures me, smiling.  I must appear skeptical because he attempts to offer further evidence:  “I went to Jenkins High School.”

Joe is an affable, soft-spoken dude—the only child of parents who immigrated to the United States from Laos before he was born.  He grew up fishing with his dad off Tybee Island and spending summers on his uncle’s shrimp boat in Thunderbolt, dreaming about becoming a firefighter or a police officer.  But, after a few years working in warehouses and operating boat lifts, he stumbled into an unexpected opportunity.

Catch of the Day

Joe was trying his hand as an assistant at Ele Tran and Sean Thongsiri’s celebrated Southside fusion restaurant, Tangerine, when the owners asked him if he wanted to try out to be a sushi chef.

“I thought, ‘You know, I could try that on for a while,’” Joe says, casually shrugging his shoulders.

He studied under Thongsiri’s critical eye for a year, learning to wield one of the sharpest knives in the kitchen and steam the perfect pot of rice—a revered skill in the sushi world—and when Joe felt ready, he auditioned for the sushi chef position at Tangerine’s ultramodern sister restaurant, Ele Fine Fusion.  He admits that he still “gets a little nervous and breaks into a sweat here and there” when his sensei inspects his work, but because of that rigorous training, his job seems to come naturally.

“It’s just 1-2-3,” Joe insists, oversimplifying his intricate craft.

In just three years, the chef has quietly risen to sushi-making stardom, rotating between Ele, Tangerine and their casual downtown alter ego, Fire Street Food.

“My regulars complain when I’m not at Ele,” Joe says with a hint of embarrassment.  “Or if they find out I’m at Fire, they’ll go there instead.”

On a Roll

The easygoing 28-year-old credits everyone but himself for his success—his parents for instilling his love of food, the cousin who first got him the job at Tangerine, Thongsiri—even the fish itself.

“I just make the sushi nice in regards to presentation, but the quality of the fish speaks for itself,” he insists.  “I feel really, really honored that people enjoy my sushi and my company, but I’m just doing my job, you know?”

True to his character, Joe downplays the skill involved in the art of sushi-making.

“Mainly, it’s just a sharp knife, rice and nice fish,” he says.  But anyone who has ever attempted at-home sushi knows better.  And anyone who has ever watched Joe dice an avocado in his hand with a knife so sharp it could bisect an atom will call his humble bluff.

His artistry is especially evident in his custom-made lobster roll, which is constructed from two lobster tails; one tucked inside a tear-drop shaped roll with crab meat, avocado and asparagus, and the other tail deconstructed into a lobster tartare, adorned with avocado and spicy sauce.

“It looks like a blooming flower,” Joe says, gently cupping his large hands as an illustration.

He doesn’t consider himself an artist or a “big time, big deal chef.”  He does, however, consider himself lucky.  “I never pictured myself at a nice place like Ele,” he admits.

Joe seems like the kind of guy who’s happy where he is—not tempted by the “next big thing.”  Which is why I’m surprised when he tells me that he may leave Savannah one day.

“My wife, she wants to maybe move to Pooler or something,” he says.  “But to me, that’s too far.”

Clearly, Joe is from around here.

Surf ’n’ Turf

Six days a week, Joe is tasked with remembering 65 different rolls—and the special requests of his regular customers.  On Sundays—his one day off—the chef prefers to stay home and turn up the heat for a change, serving his wife and two young children dishes that blend Laotian and American influences.

“I’ll grill outside or, if the weather’s bad, I’ll do a stir-fry.  I like a lot of seafood and beef,” he says.  “My parents cooked Laotian food every day.  After work, my mom would come home and cook a three- or four-course meal.

Here, Joe provides one of his favorite courses—a beef salad with layers of color and fresh flavors.

Sushi Joe’s Beef Salad

(Serves 4)

12-ounce thick-cut rib-eye steak, seasoned with salt and pepper

½ red onion, thinly sliced

½ cup cilantro, minced

¼ cup scallions, minced

1 red bell pepper, sliced

1 lime, freshly squeezed

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon roasted rice powder (available at Asian markets)

½ cucumber, sliced

Pinch of salt

Pinch of sugar

Preheat skillet on high heat.  Lightly oil the skillet and place the steak in the pan and cook until medium (or desired temperature).  Remove the steak from the pan and allow it to cool.

In a bowl, combine the red onion, cilantro, scallions, red bell pepper and cucumber, then set aside.  Thinly slice the steak and combine with the vegetables.  Add the lime juice, fish sauce and roasted rice powder to mixture.  Add the salt and sugar.  Serve at room temperature.

Two veterans of fine dining turn their chef pedigrees toward simpler fare—and tempt us all to try new things in the process.  Annabelle Carr digs in.  »  Photography by Beau Kester

“You don’t get to pick the temperature of your burger.”

Patrick Zimmerman delivers these fighting words as we settle into a shadowy pleather booth at Betty Bombers with his business partner, Seth Musler, surrounded by World War II propaganda in the heart of the American Legion Post 135 on Bull Street.

Then comes the peace offering: “But you can count on us to make that burger moist and delicious.”

My taste buds have made sweet, hippie love to a thick, juicy Betty Bombers cheeseburger, served just before midnight by a retro-cool Rosie-the-Riveter lookalike, so I know from experience that Patrick is telling me the truth.

“I was trained as a French chef, so rare to me is cold in the center,” the former Sapphire Grille chef de cuisine explains.  “Rare at Applebee’s is pink.  There’s nothing more disappointing than ordering what’s in your brain and getting something else instead.  So we don’t try to read minds.  We just make good food.”

This no-frills approach to dining has won throngs of loyal customers—both here and at the duo’s flagship Bull Street eatery, Butterhead Greens, a bright green and black storefront with painted plywood floors where SCAD kids and locals alike wash down lush salads, gourmet sandwiches and creative soups with the infused water or “tea o’ the day.”

“You’ve got to keep it simple and fresh,” says Seth, previously the chef de cuisine at Alligator Soul.  He now manages Betty Bombers’ lunch-to-late-night hours, while Patrick rises early to oversee Butterhead Greens’ breakfast and lunch crowd.  Both men exchange menu ideas and recipes—and collaborate on their custom catering business, King Cotton Catering.

“I think a lot of people try to open a restaurant that is everything they’ve always dreamed of,” Seth adds.  “We intend to own several so each one can just do what it does well and keep doing that.  That’s enough.”

A Match Made in Pooler

The partnership dates back to 2008, when the pair collaborated on Green Tomato Concepts, an organic produce company Patrick started with Georges’ on Tybee cohort Robbie Wood that offered restaurant consulting, catering and a before-its-time farm box.

“We were working out of a cooler in Pooler, curing our own meats,” Patrick remembers.  “It was fun.”  But it was also promising.  “Seth and I worked well together.  In kitchens you find that not everyone is even-keeled or dependable.  It’s a hard job that just about anybody can get into.  So when you find people you can work with that you know are trustworthy that are going to be on your side, that’s the biggest thing.”

So when Seth was ready to start working for himself, he knew who to call.

With Butterhead Greens, he says, “we wanted to create a concept that was economically feasible where we wouldn’t have to work 60 hours or more a week, all of them at night.  We studied the area and we thought something fresh, fast, affordable that would be patronized by locals and SCAD.”

That prospect was enough to bring Patrick back from a stint in Boulder, Colo., and the pair set about crafting a lunch menu to rival any in the city.  Today, the aptly named “I Surrender” salad brightens roast chicken and romaine lettuce with toasted pecans, sun-dried tomatoes, bleu cheese and a secret-recipe creamy herb dressing.  The grilled “Sustainable Sammy” pairs the complex, satisfying flavors of a house-made vegetarian patty with spinach, gruyere and basil aioli.  (“I eat it all the time,” Seth deadpans.  “I put bacon on it.”)

Butterhead Greens opened quietly across from SCAD’s Arnold Hall in 2010, winning over students and professors before pulling the rest of us in by word of mouth.  Then, Patrick and Seth saw another opportunity: a spacious, vacant kitchen at the American Legion.

“We had known the Legionnaires for years because we’d go to the bar after work,” Patrick says.  “So we did a soft opening and the bar people could eat here while Seth retooled the menu and got the kitchen up to speed.”

Today, Betty Bombers offers a bounty of scrupulously handmade sandwiches, tacos, wings and fries—even a reimagined military staple, S.O.S. (or Sh*t On a Shingle).

Think all-American favorites with a gourmet twist.

“Our Salisbury steak is pretty intense,” Seth says. “You eat it with a knife and fork.  We make our own gravy.  We reduce beef stock, red wine, caramelize our mirepoix.  We do it right.  And our Thai wings—I totally ripped off that recipe from a former boss of mine at Pak Pak in Portland.”

Patrick tried them at Seth’s house years ago and never forgot them.

“They’re weird,” he tells me.  “Fish sauce, chilies and lime on wings with fried garlic.  Delicious!”

Clearly, the pair’s modus operandi is to lure us into casual, unassuming environments and situations (midday, late-night) and then take our taste buds by surprise.

“Nobody knew what quinoa was when we opened up in 2010,” Patrick says of the ancient, protein-rich “super” grain he and Seth have transformed into a zesty, bionic tabouleh 2.0.  “We’ve taken risks with menu items and they’re paying off.”

Embracing the Paradox

So what’s the next big risk for adventurous eaters?  You’ll find it on the specials board at Butterhead Greens.

“Cold soups—we cannot sell cold soups!” Seth laments.  “We keep putting them on the board but they’re still weird to people.”

But the Western Culinary Institute graduate, who cut his teeth at Chicago’s James Beard award-winning Tru and iconic Everest restaurants, can’t resist the fresh simplicity of a chilled combination—especially now, as the temperature climbs and Savannah’s fruits and vegetables proliferate.

“Seth made a cantaloupe soup with smoked paprika oil—so refreshing on a hot day,” affirms Patrick, a Culinary Institute of America alum who has worked as an organic caterer and private chef.

Cold soup?  Is it a gamble I’m willing to take with these T-shirt-and-jeans-clad chefs, these self-described “back-of-the-house” restaurateurs?  I think of my helpless weekly pilgrimage to Butterhead for the “I Surrender,” and my post-Cosmo need for a scrupulously well-done Betty Bombers cheeseburger, its juices forming happy rivulets down my chin.

“White grape and pine nut cold soup?”  Seth offers.

Somebody hand me a spoon.

All the Lovely Loquats

Roughly the size and color of apricots, the native Chinese loquat is Savannah’s “most underrated food,” according to Patrick.  “Out west they’re expensive,” he muses, “but here they grow everywhere and people just let them fall all over the ground.”  Delicate, fragrant and mildly sedative, the fruits of this popular ornamental evergreen make for delicious jam fresh off the tree.  If you don’t have a tree of your own, chances are that your neighbor will be happy to share.

Patrick Zimmerman’s Loquat Jam

(Makes 4 cups)

6 cups ripe loquats

Zest of 4 lemons, minced

¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 packet of fruit pectin (Sure-Jell works great!)

6 cups white sugar

¼ teaspoon powdered ginger

Peel and pit freshly picked loquats, then toss immediately with the lemon zest and juice in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan to retain the color.  Add pectin and bring to a boil.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the sugar and ginger.  Return fruit mixture to the heat and boil for one minute.

Skim any foam and film from the surface of the mixture and pour the jam into sterilized canning jars.  Enjoy fresh, freeze or follow canning procedures.

From garden clubs to country clubs, Savannahians seem especially equipped to navigate high society.  Is it good genes or good rearing—and how can we pass this gift on to our children?  To find out, Andrea Goto breaks bread with the best of them.  »  Photography by Katie McGee

Little fork, big fork, knife, spoon.  Little fork, big fork, knife spoon.  It’s a refrain I put to music in my head one day during my childhood when Mom asked me to set the dining room table.  Some 25 years later, it’s still filed away in my memory alongside the Lord’s Prayer and the “50 States” song, playing back the two times a year I host a dinner (or cook, for that matter).

As a child growing up in a middle-class home in the Pacific Northwest, I was empowered by what I thought was a complete understanding of all things Emily Post.  My sister and I knew to sit up straight at the dinner table and sweetly coo “please” and “thank you.”  When my friends came over for dinner, my mom would watch in horror as some slurped their milk or fisted their forks.  I was both embarrassed for them and sorry for myself because they would not be invited back.

So armed with the ability to chew with my mouth closed and distinguish a salad fork from a dinner fork, I confidently made my way into my adult life.

And then I moved to Savannah.

The Hostess City is ripe with raucous revelry, to be sure, but the debauchery is carefully cloaked in decorum—polite cheek kisses and bless-her-hearts.  Not having an innate understanding of these codes seems to push some of us “come heres” to Savannah’s social sidelines.

A Fork in the Road

My undoing was a fortress of forks.  My husband and I had been invited over for a “very casual” Sunday dinner by a lovely Savannah couple we’ll call the Belvederes.  As soon as Mr. Belvedere greeted us at the front door with cheek kisses, I knew we were in trouble.  He was wearing pressed khakis, a starched button-up shirt and—wait for it—a baby blue cashmere sweater tied around his shoulders.  I, on the other hand interpreted “casual” as a small step up from workout wear.

Mr. Belvedere graciously escorted us to the parlor where I sat awkwardly on the edge of a velvet sofa and—perhaps too eagerly—accepted a cocktail.  At that moment, I caught a glimpse of the dining room table in the adjoining room, weighted down with what appeared to be thousands of glasses, plates and silver.

“Is someone else joining us?” I asked hopefully.

“No, just the four of us,” he chirped.

When Mrs. Belvedere, impeccably dressed in pants, pleats and pearls, called us to the table, I noticed, to my horror, four forks of varying lengths at each setting—two to my left, one to the right and one above my plate.  I was surrounded, cornered like a wild dog.  I wanted to wave my white linen napkin in defeat.

Above My Raisin’

The feast-of-forks incident unleashed a flood of insecurity within me, which I quietly suppressed for a number of years, believing that only bluebloods could unlock the secret book of etiquette and that  I would live out my days taking cues from those more formally trained than I.

Enter Grace Merritt.

Grace is a former fashion model who has spent the past 30 years schooling Savannahians on the rules of etiquette through the Millie Lewis Modeling and Development Center and as a director of the Savannah chapter of the National League of Junior Cotillions.  The first time I speak with her, even though it’s over the phone, I’m so nervous that she’ll be able to detect my rough edges that I suddenly develop an English accent as a defense mechanism.

The lively, slightly gravely voice on the other end of the line, however, is completely disarming.  She’s not an orator, she’s a human being, complete with “ums” and “uhs.”  And so begins my first lesson: using proper etiquette is not about pretending to be something you’re not; it’s about having the confidence to be who you are.

“I take pride in seeing the young ladies and gentlemen who come through our program build their confidence,” the Savannah native explains.  “Giving them that confidence allows them to achieve in all aspects of life.”

Millie Lewis enrolls an average of 150 children each year, which makes me think I should see a lot fewer kids watching iPads at dinner and smarting off to their parents.  But Grace informs me that her classes are not intended to reform little spawns of Satan.

“We’re not a disciplinary school.  I don’t teach you to be polite to your mom and dad,” she says.  “My approach is more about reiterating what we’re hopeful is taught in the home.”

So if Grace won’t play the role of the polite police or accept the responsibility of parenting my child into a Pollyanna, what do I get?

She patiently explains that, in addition to providing model-specific training, her program covers etiquette, good health and nutrition, voice and diction training, personal grooming and wardrobe planning.

“I take what is taught at home and show my students why those things are important in social situations,” says Grace.

Saving Grace

When Grace invites me to see her in action by attending a private table-manners training dinner with four students ranging from ages 9 to 15, trumpets sound.  Angels sing.  The seas part.  Under the guise of investigative reporting, I see this as an opportunity to earn my stripes as a bona fide blue blood who knows her fish fork from her oyster fork.

The dinner is held at a private club in The Landings where we have a room to ourselves, because, as Grace explains, “If you take them to a public restaurant, then they’re being watched.  And the last thing I want is for my students to feel intimidated.”

But it’s too late for me.  I already feel schlumpy and awkward as I make the acquaintance of my fellow diners—lovely, poised and confident girls who introduce themselves one by one, each firmly grasping my hand and intently locking eyes with me.  I laugh nervously and avert my eyes every time.

As soon as we take our seats, the lesson begins with an illustration of the “eating position”—sitting upright, a palm’s width from the table—versus the “resting position”—a relaxed pose to indicate that we have completed the course.

“What would you call this position?” I joke, slumping into my chair and throwing my head back post-Thanksgiving-feast-style.  The girls’ giggles are quickly snuffed out by our focused instructor.

“We practice what we do do, not what we don’t do,” she clips—at which point I resist the urge to make a “doo-doo” joke.

That’s not to say the class isn’t fun.  Even while Grace continually scans the table, gently reminding us of a seemingly infinite number of steps—“offer to the left, serve yourself, pass to the right” and “we cut with our right, place the knife, switch hands and enjoy the bite”—we giggle at one another’s missteps and personal habits that seem nearly impossible to break.  For me, it always comes back to the fork.

“Between each bite, you rest your fork,” Grace instructs.  “So you try to estimate about 15 minutes for each course.”

“You’re kidding, right?”  Buddha doesn’t have that much self-control.

“That’s the difference between eating and dining, isn’t it?” she replies, smiling.

Breaking Bad

By the end of the meal an hour later, I’m mentally exhausted.  Changing my habits feels like forcing my knee to bend in the opposite direction.  But, having been at the short end of the fork too many times, I understand the value of the lesson and vow to practice what I learned here at home.

“I tell the parents that their kids can’t practice these things week to week with just me,” Grace explains.  “These things have to be taken home and implemented at every opportunity.”

The next night, while eating with my family, I really try to set down my fork between each bite, but every time I do, I feel like I did when I was trying to train my daughter to go to sleep on her own.  I wanted to rush to her, pick her up and never put her down again.  But I couldn’t.  I had to show myself, my child, and my fork who was in charge—and the confidence that comes with that knowledge is priceless.

Mrs. Belvedere, I think I just earned my pearls.

Beyond the beach-fare standards, a Tybee Island chef reveals his true heart in chalk.  Amy Paige Condon shakes off the sand and pulls up a chair.  » Photography by Beau Kester

My first visit to North Beach Bar and Grill on Tybee Island taught me a valuable lesson: read the signs.

Of course, the canary yellow hut trimmed in turquoise looked like every other salt-and-wind-whipped crab shack up and down the southeastern coast.  The wood plank floors were strafed with sand and a guitar picker’s music drifted in from the patio through the screen windows.  Happily buzzed and sunburnt patrons sipped ice-cold longnecks and fruity umbrella drinks.  Ravished from a day in the sun and wind, my husband and I snagged the only table left, mere seconds before a line started to snake out the door with hungry folks packed cheek-to-jowl at the bar.  The crowd should have been my first clue that we were in for some kind of wonderful.

The old standbys—burgers, crab cakes, fish tacos and peel ‘n’ eats—were available, but there weren’t deep-fried smells wafting through the swinging door that led to the kitchen.  The aromas were subtler and spiced with something I couldn’t quite put my senses on—jerk or curry, perhaps?  Led by my nose, my attentions strayed off the menu to a blackboard propped against the corner of the bar on the floor.

Falafel salad, chipotle-citrus barbecue ribs, steak smothered in a caramelized onion-bacon-port sauce and lamb meatball sliders were writ in tidy block letters with white chalk. Directly above the bar, a hand-painted sign called for patience.  “Every dish is made to order,” it read.  Clues number two and three.

I chose a salmon from the chalkboard.  Seared, then finished off with a sweet onion relish and served with a side of broccolini, the dish proved worth every minute of the gut-grumbling wait.  So did my husband’s succulent ropa vieja, which I sampled aggressively.

That’s when it finally dawned on me. North Beach isn’t my granddaddy’s fish camp—it’s four-star fare dressed in a Hawaiian shirt.  And the soul behind the Franco-Caribbean fusion, chef Mir Ali, tells me he often improvises the grill’s daily specials based on what’s in season and what spices he can get his hands on.

Tybee’s a long ways from his native Pakistan, to be sure, but Mir has made a home for himself here in the South, melding the flavors and techniques of all the places he’s been.

Good Chemistry

Coming of age in New York City and the Washington, D.C. area, Mir didn’t dream of becoming a chef, although the culinary traditions of his homeland shaped his childhood.  His family emigrated from Pakistan when Mir was 7 years old.  As Muslims, his parents prepared meals according to Islamic law, choosing only halal, or permissible, foods and preparation methods.

“My mom is a hell of a cook,” Mir says with obvious pride, describing how his mother would buy meats only from kosher butchers and select spices to grind fresh from Indian grocers.

He didn’t dip his fingers into the over-salted fast-food nation swirling around him until the age of 15, when he forgot his lunch on a school field trip.

“The whole class was treated to White Castle.  I had two orders of fries and a soft drink.”

Fast forward to graduate school where Mir studied pharmacology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.  To help pay for school, he got a job as a prep cook at La Residence, the venerable upscale French restaurant founded by Southern foodways pioneer Bill Neal.  The executive chef at the time took Mir under his wing, inculcating Mir with the edicts of New Southern cuisine—sourcing fresh produce and proteins from local growers, using heirloom vegetables and grains when possible, spiking simple foods with layers of seasonings, both indigenous and international.  To his surprise, Mir found that he was able to lose himself in the cooking.  He especially loved making fresh breads.

“It’s still chemistry,” Mir explains.  “Compositions, mathematics, ingredients.”

In 1998, after college, he followed a friend to Savannah and got a job as sous chef at the former Georges’ on Tybee.  There, he met the two Georges—Spriggs and Jackson—developing a food-borne friendship that endures today.  Excited by the challenge of a down-island-inspired menu, Mir brought his New South techniques to the cutting board.  He and the restaurant grew together, organically, until Mir left for France in 2000.  There, he worked in a small bistro in the town of Toulouse to further hone his skills.  Nearly three years later, Mir returned stateside, working in Miami for a brief time before he headed back to Savannah.  When George Spriggs reopened his retooled beachfront outpost in 2011, he asked Mir to serve as the executive chef.

An Invitation

Mir is also the executive chef of the Wilmington Island home he shares with his wife, Azi, who was born and raised in Athens, Ga., to parents who emigrated from Iran in the 1970s.  For everyday meals like the one Mir’s making tonight, he returns to the traditional dishes of his youth because of their familiar simplicity.  He often incorporates the tastes and textures of Azi’s Persian heritage, as well.

Standing at the kitchen’s island, Mir hand-tosses a crisp, colorful medley of English cucumbers, tomatoes and red onions.  Its sharp, citrusy brightness fills the air, melding with the heady scent of saffron and ginger coming from the direction of the stove.  A marigold-colored chicken korma, one of his mother’s specialties, bubbles away in a stock pot.

“I ate this type of curry a few times a month growing up,” Mir says.  “It was one of those comfort dishes—like meatloaf or mac ’n’ cheese—that I always craved when away from home.”

Around the dinner table, as we’re savoring this feast and sharing stories, Mir explains that there’s an Urdu expression—hath ke bareme—that explains why his chicken korma tastes different than his mother’s.

“It loosely translates to ‘about the hand’,” he says.  “Even though I try to duplicate my mother’s recipe, I could never imitate hers.  Each person’s hand adds his or her own flavor to the recipe.  We can copy or mimic a recipe exactly, but it will never have the same imprint.  Each hand has its own touch.”

Mir’s words confirm why I should always order off the chalkboard.

Mir Ali’s Chicken Korma

(Serves 4)

10 garlic cloves

2-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled

1 whole fryer chicken, 2 to 3 pounds, cut into

8 pieces

1 tablespoon white poppy seeds

1 cinnamon stick

6 whole cloves

6 cardamom seeds

½ teaspoon turmeric

2 teaspoons ground coriander powder

2 tablespoons oil

1 large yellow onion, julienned

2 tablespoons grated unsweetened coconut

flakes

Salt and pepper, to taste

16-ounce container of plain whole-milk

yogurt

Fresh mint, cilantro and green onion, chopped for garnish

Puree the garlic and ginger in a blender with a little water to make a paste to rub on the chicken pieces.  Let the chicken marinate in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

While the chicken marinates, grind the poppy seeds, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom pods, turmeric and coriander powder in a spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle, then set aside.

In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat and carefully add the julienned onions, stirring occasionally to allow them to caramelize.  Add the ground spices, coconut flakes, salt and pepper and cook until the aromatics develop, making sure not to over-brown the spices.

Add the marinated chicken pieces and cook for 5 minutes.  Stir in the yogurt until it completely dissolves, creating a sauce in the pot.  Cover the chicken and cook on medium heat until the chicken is completely cooked and fork tender, about 30 to 45 minutes.  Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.

To serve, spoon the chicken onto a serving platter.  Reduce the sauce in the pot until it is the desired consistency then ladle the sauce on the chicken.  Garnish with fresh herbs.

Can your modern Julie Gordon Low shuck her own oysters, change a flat tire and fend off an online predator?

As concerned parents and invested locals, we have a new generation to raise—and a rich traditional culture to uphold.  How do we balance the two?  We asked Savannah parents and educators for their expert opinions.

MOM, M.D.

Dr. Katy Moretz is a pediatric neurologist who takes pride in the fact she was born at St. Joseph’s Hospital and has lived in the Coastal Empire ever since.  Raised on Tybee Island, she feels blessed to stay in Savannah with her husband, Dr. William Moretz III, and relive her coastal childhood through their two children: Henry, 7, and Emily, 4.

A Coastal Childhood:  “When I went to college at the University of Georgia, everyone was so jealous of me for being from Savannah.  My parents, Jim and Kathy McNaughton, still live on Tybee, and all my friends would beg to come home with me on the weekends.  I never realized how lucky I was to grow up here until then.”

Special Skills:  “Teach your children how to fish and enjoy seafood.  My kids will eat shrimp—Lowcountry boils are essential.  They love crabbing, and one day I might show them how to tear open a boiled crab the way Wink taught Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild.  Also, I’ll teach them to throw a cast net, which I believe is something all Savannahians should learn.”

Teaching Values:  “Good manners are vital, but Savannah’s children also need to learn to deal with heat and bugs!  They need to appreciate nature and to be well-rounded socially so they can be tolerant and accepting of all people.”

Take the Kids:  “My favorite event of the year is the Fourth of July fireworks at Tybee—there is nothing like lying on the beach and looking up at a sky full of lights.  I think kids should visit Fort Pulaski, the Children’s Museum and the Forsyth Farmers’ Market.  And one of the greatest experiences for children is to take a boat to dinner—I love boating to Bonna Bella with the kids in the summer.”

Culture Under Fire:  “Country clubs and clubs in general seem to be popular around here.  We’re members of the Wilmington Island Club.  All of the clubs are so much more progressive than they used to be.  People are becoming more tolerant of each other and more effort is put forth to bring people together.  It’s a slow process because some traditions are so strong that it’s hard to change people’s beliefs.  Churches are still pretty separated and we need to work on that as a community.”

Role Models:  “Paula Deen.  She’s is such a great example of a Southern woman.  She’s come such a long way in her life to build her success.  I’m secretly trying to set up my daughter with Jack Deen in an effort to become part of the Deen family!”

YES, MA’AM

Cindy Edwards is the author of the etiquette-inspired blog “Southern Proper” and the mother of two grown Savannahians: Joe, 22, and Jack, 19.  A native Georgian, she has spent the past 23 years in the Hostess City with her husband and college sweetheart, Dr. Joe Edwards III.  She volunteers with the Telfair Museums, the Savannah Book Festival, March of Dimes and Young Life Savannah.

Teaching Values:  “The most important thing we can do for our children—other than love them and give them a stable home—is to teach them the Golden Rule.  I also think people have higher expectations of (Savannahians).  They expect us to have manners because we are from Savannah.”

Special Skills:  “Children should know how to introduce themselves to other people.  It puts everyone in the room at ease and it gives the child confidence to go out into the world.  I made sure my boys knew how to reach out and properly introduce themselves, looking people in the eye when shaking hands.  Small children aren’t comfortable with that, but my sons got in the habit.  Eye contact is so important for children.”

A Coastal Childhood:  “The biggest blessing has been spending our summers on Tybee.  We were fortunate one year and got to see the turtles migrate from their nests and make their way out to the sea.  Who gets to see something so amazing in their lifetime?”

Only in Savannah:  “Every local child should get the chance to go to an oyster roast and shuck (his or her) own oysters.  I also made sure my boys toured the Historic District and learned to appreciate and understand the history of our city.  Children should know about the architect William Jay and his contribution to designing some of the most fabulous buildings in Savannah.  To me, learning the history of our city is the most important experience.”

Culture Under Fire:  “Research shows children nowadays just aren’t communicating the way they should.  We need to make sure they learn to step away from the cell phones and video games and to enjoy their surroundings.  They need to know it’s a gift to stop and enjoy the world and the people around them.  My sons liked to play video games, but one day I had my son put away his game and walk with me to the beach to explore.  When we got home, he hugged me and said it was one of the best days he ever had.”

Role Models:  “I would like for my sons to emulate their father by being the kind of man who cares for people and the community.  He works morning, noon and night for others, and I’m not just talking about his work at the hospital.   I want my sons to always help people when they can and to always give more than they take.”

A VERY BUSY DAD

Tony Jordan has helped raise more than 1,000 Savannahians—including two of his own: Tony, 10, and Daniel, 5.  Originally from Washington, D.C., Tony married into a local family and has immersed himself in the city for almost 20 years.  After working with troubled youth through the juvenile detention service, Tony collaborated with his wife, DaVena, to found the award-winning arts and technology program AWOL (All Walks of Life), which aims to inspire and empower at-risk youth.

Special Skills:  “I’m from the city—I’m not a hunter or a fisherman or a fixer-upper kind of guy.  My father-in-law, ‘Papa,’ God rest his soul, was from here and he was that kind of man.  One day something was broken in the house and I heard my son say, ‘Do you want me to call Papa?’  We laughed, but I also learned to make sure I had our elders show the boys—and me—how to fix things.

“My mother-in-law knows all about shrimp and she teaches my boys how to cook and peel shrimp.  By having our elders teach the boys how to do things that are natural to this area, we give them a chance to learn about this unique environment and to pay homage to their elders who are from here.”

Teaching Values:  “One of the most important things is faith in God.  Every night I pray with my sons before they go to bed.  Prayer gives them a time to reflect on others in this city and to care about them so they can build stronger bonds with their neighbors.  I regard the value of faith in terms of planting seeds—it gives my sons something to believe in during hard times.

“Also, in AWOL, we teach the kids that they have the power to change their environment.  We teach the same lesson at home with our boys.”

A Coastal Childhood:  “We have a large, diverse group of people here in Savannah.  Unfortunately, I don’t think there is enough interaction between races, but we have the power to make those changes.  I try to expose my boys to as much diversity as possible, so when they grow up they are comfortable in almost any situation with any group of people.”

Culture Under Fire:  “Poverty is huge here, and Savannah will have a hard time moving forward economically if we don’t teach our children to move forward and to interact with each other in a positive light.  We need to raise them to be well-rounded and progressive thinkers—fair-minded people who are willing to come out of their comfort zone and interact with each other.”

Role Models:  “Oh, that’s easy.  First, Pastor Ricky Temple from Overcoming By Faith Ministries.  Second, Ron Thompson who owns the Inn at Ellis Square.

“Next would be Murray Wilson from TPS Consulting.  He has shown me that giving your time is more valuable than giving money.

“And finally, Sidney J. Johnson; he’s 87 years old and he has been giving me great advice over the years.  He always says, ‘Know the mix, but don’t get in the mix.’  All of these men have been mentors to me and they are the kind of men I want my sons to be like.”

Our tastemakers hail from as far away as Pakistan and Laos—and as close as Yamacraw Village.  Some bear credentials from the finest culinary institutes; others graduated from rent parties and matriculated at the ends of their mamas’ apron strings.

Last year, our Epicures issue asked the question, “Are we a food city?” and discovered that we’re well on our way to becoming one.  This year, we asked, “Who’s hungry?”—in every sense of the word.

In this issue, we sought out the risk-takers and the spice shakers, the people whose passion for flavor is driving our food forward.  Along the way, we began to take notes on how to make the most of Savannah’s epicurean experience—how to connect the dots and become creative consumers, shaping the Hostess City into the culinary capital of the future.

1. Ask about the specials.  Menus are the staff’s best guess about what will sell, day in and day out, in a city of tourists and timid eaters.  But the specials are a chef’s true treasure trove.  Just look at North Beach Bar & Grill’s classically trained Mir Ali as an example.  Sure, his fish taco is tasty beach fare, but the pan-roasted duck with leek bread pudding and truffle honey on his chalkboard?  Out of this world.

2. Become a regular.  In a city where many of the economic drivers are transient—tourism, the military, the ports—your weekly routine can help anchor a local business.  And your feedback can help improve one.  Love the steak but hate the service?  Speak up.  Think of it as helping to protect a neighbor’s investment.

3. Take risks.  Don’t let a restaurant’s look or location deter you from trying the food.  Many of Savannah’s most mouthwatering meals simmer behind hand-painted signs.  And if you’ve ever picked up the fresh Friday banh mi along with a handful of lottery tickets at Chinatown Market, you know good things can turn up where you least expect them.

4. Get personal.  Put Savannah’s cult of character to work and get to know your favorite chef the same way you might follow a performing or visual artist.  Learn his or her habits, talents and hours—and introduce your new friend to other kindred spirits.  We discovered all the flavors in this issue by word of mouth, asking foodies to tell us who makes their favorite plates.  The result is an issue that favors taste over hype.

5. Get in the mix.  Use the chefs’ recipes in this issue to take advantage of Savannah’s abundant local produce—and to support area farmers and fishermen.  Help end hunger with America’s Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia.  Get on board with the city’s ongoing food truck movement.  After all, why just consume when you can create?

Warmly,

Annabelle Carr, Editor

On May 18, select fashion students from SCAD will introduce their senior collections at the SCAD Fashion Show—and we’ll get a glimpse of the style horizon.  As a lead up to this annually anticipated, ever-inspiring event, Danielle Austin introduces us to a few of the sartorial superstars hoping to make their entrance.  » Photography by Ryan Howard

Phillip Herrold, Senior 

Hometown: Columbus,OH

SM: When and why did you decide to pursue a career in fashion?

I was probably 16 years old.  Growing up I’d always loved clothes and the idea of luxury.  I was a little toddler in Polo Ralph Lauren shirts.  And when it started to come to high school and we needed to decide where we wanted go to school and what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives, it just seemed like the best option for me—kind of the only option.  I don’t like anything this much.

SM: What’s your favorite style decade?

I would say the ‘90s.  I think there was a lot of optimism toward the future and with the early invention of the internet.  People got really excited with what the future holds and the infinite possibilities.  I think that translated into fashion in kind of a crazy way, but it’s kind of coming back now that we’ve realized what we can do with technology.

SM: Is that kind of style reflected in your own designs?

Yeah, I would say for my collection I kind of pulled early ‘90s inspiration.  So, I have a lot of urban references, but that is mixed with the upscale fabrications and fabric manipulations that I’m doing.

SM: Where do you see fashion going in the next five to ten years?

I think there’s going to be a major shift toward athletic wear.  People are starting to get more active and realizing that’s really important.  I think that athletic wear will almost be a mainstay in everyday wardrobe.  I also think that the kind of the mass market—Forever 21 and H&M—will hopefully go out and it will be more about the quality of the clothes. You might not have as much clothes, but you’ll have better clothes.

SM: Who would be your dream designer to work with?

Probably Raf Simons.  He is the creative director of Christian Dior, but he has his own menswear line too, which is actually how he started in the fashion industry.  I love him.  His cuts are extremely futuristic and he has that really great urban sensibility, but he’s upscaling it into a luxurious market.

SM: What was it like working with the mentors?

It was great.  My mentor was Thomas Finney, who is a designer at Thom Browne menswear.  His luxurious sensibility helped me with all my finishings, because it’s not just about the fabric, it’s about what thread you use, what zippers you use, what buttons … I mean it comes down to the whole package.  And he taught me that.

SM: Tell us a little bit about your collection and the inspiration behind it.

It was inspired by Russian Constructivist Art, and that I kind of mixed with my personal style of, like I said before, the upscale athletic-wear concept.  It’s pretty heavy with the fabric manipulation, which is the leather woven into mesh.  I kind of like to take a classic garment and repurpose it with the fabrications and upscale finishings.

SM: Is there a certain theme you had in mind when you were building the collection?

When I actually started, the whole collection was color blocking.  So, there were tons of seams and all the different panels were different colors.  But I kind of realized that’s not where I really thought fashion was going.  That’s what Thomas, my mentor, helped me with—restraining it and bringing it back to clothes that people will actually wear and really want to wear.

SM: What do you think makes your collection stand out?

I would say the exaggerated proportion that I’m using, a lot of it is oversized, which goes back to the urban athletic-wear.  That mixed with the fabric manipulations and the overall fabric of everything.  I’m using some full leather pieces and cow skin with hair.

SM: These materials seem expensive, who would be the target audience?

My target audience is definitely someone who is sophisticated, pretty wealthy and well off, just because the fabrics that I’m using do take it to a different price point.  He’s athletic, but doesn’t want to wear his gym clothes everywhere and wants to kind of show that he can still translate how he lives his life in everyday clothes.

SM: Who has been the most influential person in developing your collection?

My Senior I professor and Senior II professor.  They were great in how they worked together and with us through the whole senior collection process, starting with designing in the first quarter and constructing in the last two quarters.  My Senior I professor really helped me with getting all my ideas out there.  And then my Senior II professor, Sachi Honda, is an amazing help with the construction of clothes and the sewing aspect.  We have to sew everything.  We can’t really outsource anything like other schools have the opportunity to do, so she’s always here to help.

SM: What’s been your biggest challenge while creating this collection?

We have so many critiques throughout the year and get a lot of different opinions and ideas from different professors and guests.  It’s great to get other concepts and ideas from people, but sometimes it’s a lot to handle.  People want you to change things and you have to really think how you want to present your collection to the world and have faith in yourself.  I always say if someone gives you feedback you should at least try what they say—maybe do a sketch of a different jacket—but if you don’t like it, don’t do it.  In the end, it’s your decision.

SM: Do you have any advice for future seniors and designers?

Stay true to yourself and don’t let anyone compromise what you want to do with your collection.  As I said before, it’s your collection.

SM: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

It wasn’t really in the form of words—it was more of the experience from my internship.  I interned with Alexander Wang men’s ready-to-wear, so it was more just being in that atmosphere of the upscale luxury brand and being around people who make real clothes and know how to put these clothes into production, and source all these different fabrics, and how to make them perfect and still satisfy the needs of the market.

SM: What are your plans after graduating?

I hope to move to New York… I will move to New York, find a job and design.

Danielle Elsener, Senior

Hometown: Northport, NY

SM: When and why did you decide to pursue a career in fashion?

It actually started a long time ago.  I went to a quilting retreat with my aunt and my dad—I was 11—and ever since that first stitch I just kept going from there.

SM: What’s your favorite style decade?

I keep going back and forth on that.  I really love classically tailored menswear from the ‘50s.  I don’t necessarily reflect that in my work, but I think that’s one of my favorites because everything is so pristine and perfect.  I also enjoy more ‘90s grunge stuff, which is kind of silly sometimes.

SM: Where do you see fashion going in the next five to ten years?

Just to preface my answer a little bit, the designs I do are zero-wastage patterns, which means that every inch of the fabric is used in the design.  So, I’d say that sustainability in a different way, other than organic fabric and things like that, is really what’s going to be up-and-coming.

SM: Who would be your dream designer to work with?

I have a few, but I’ll limit it to two.  Boris Bidjan Saberi is my favorite designer.  His stuff is amazing and he does menswear as well.  The other one would be Issey Miyake just because he’s such an architect of fashion and the clothes he makes are amazing.

SM: Tell us a little bit about your collection and the inspiration behind it.

This is a zero-wastage collection, like I said, where every inch of the fabric is used in one piece.  And the inspiration for the patterns themselves came from the golden ratio and the Fibonacci spiral.  So out of that came a lot of jackets with lots of volume and really large pieces in the back with lots of extra movement.  I ended up going with the dark colors and a lot of waxed cottons and textures and things like that just because I think that black is the purest color form in fashion.  And I chose to use waxed cottons because it adds a layer of protection to the wearer.

SM: What makes your collection stand out?

I really think the fact that these are all done in a zero-waste manner is what really sets everything apart.  The patterns take so long—it’s like solving a puzzle that there is no actual answer to and you just have to figure it out yourself.  The amount of time that goes into working that out and actually creating a product that someone would wear is really special.  I think that’s probably one of the nicest features of my collection.

SM: Who is your target audience?

Obviously men (laughs). Someone who isn’t afraid to be a little bit more active, dangerous and out there, but feel really comfortable in their clothes.

SM: Who has been the most influential person in developing your collection?

I think there are two parts to that.  Influential wise there are designers like Timo Rissanen and Julian Roberts who I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from with their zero-waste techniques.  But as far as people that I work around, the other students in the building are always an inspiration because they just keep going and going and pushing each other forward.  The professors as well—they really put everything forward to help us and make sure that our collections are as pristine as they can be.

SM: What’s been your biggest challenge while creating this collection?

Definitely the pattern making at the beginning was the hardest part for me.  Normally the process is you draw a sketch, then you make a pattern and then the final garment—but I have to do everything backwards.  I make the pattern first, but I don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like at first so I have to do a bunch of muslin-ings, then do a sketch, then change the pattern, then make the final garment.  It’s a whole lot of trial and error and there are a lot of extra steps added to the beginning.

SM: What are your plans after graduating?

I have a job lined up in Boston with Reebok.  It’s a yearlong apprenticeship, so I’ll be doing that for at least a year.  After that I can decide if I want to stay with them in that area or move on and do something else.  I do plan on having my own start-up company in a couple years, when I have more experience and more funding to be able to start.  I think what I make is very marketable and I think it will have a really good customer base.

SM: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Just to not take everything you do too seriously because sometimes it gets really easy to forget what you’re doing and get worked up about really small things.  You should have fun with what you’re doing, not be panicking all the time. 

Sarah Humphries, Senior

Hometown: Tampa,FL

SM: When and why did you decide to pursue a career in fashion?

I’ve always had an interest in art and design as well as fashion history.  In high school I was always rummaging around collecting vintage clothes.  I was really intrigued by different eras and styles.  I did pre-college programs at both Pratt and RISD before even considering going to art school.  So once I thought about it as an actual thing that I can make money off of and do everyday, I kind of knew that’s what I wanted.  The best use of a life career is to do what you love, so I decided to do fashion.

SM: What’s your favorite style decade?

It changes so much.  When I started SCAD I was really into the ‘40s, but I think now with my moods and inspirations it’s constantly changing.  One day I’ll wake up and I’ll be a ‘30s glamour girl and the next day I’ll want to be really androgynous sporty ‘90s. I’m really inspired by ‘90s minimalism right now, like the fusion of sportswear and daywear—I think that’s a really cool concept.

SM: Where do you see fashion going in the next five to ten years?

Right now, I’m seeing fashion becoming sort of androgynous and I like that it’s a fusion with identity in a sense.  I want to see more of that. 

SM: Who would be your dream designer to work alongside?

Jean Paul Gaultier has been one of my favorite designers my entire life.  His collections have so much innovation, but they are very sincere and playful as well.  I think he has an interesting foreign perspective on fashion. 

SM: What was is like working with the mentors?

My mentor at SCAD is Bibhu Mohapatra, he’s an up-and-coming designer in New York City, so it’s like I’ve almost lived my dream this quarter being able to work with him.  He’s been one of the designers I’ve admired and I’ve really gained so much perspective from him.

SM: Tell us about your collection and the inspiration behind it.

My collection is very dark and mysterious.  I was inspired by the goddess Diana.  She’s a strong feminine figure and I sort of got inspired by her and what she represents because she’s a symbol of femininity.  So I took beautiful mythology and fused it with a modern woman.

SM: Who is your target audience for this collection?

I would say a very dramatic girl. I don’t really want to design for a certain class. I really just want my designs to be for anyone who is adventurous enough to wear them.

SM: What materials did you use?

I chose to use so much texture, like with the alligator embossed and Mongolian lamb. Every thing is black so it’s so much about texture with me.  I’m also using neoprene which is an interesting fabric to use.  It’s really unexpected.

SM: Is that what you think will make your collection stand out?

For sure.  I’m also using a lot of laser cutting.  I decided to laser cut acrylic plastic into these sort of beads and then embroidered entire dresses with that.  So it’s a very arduous process, but I think that some of the material choices I used will stand out.

SM: Aside from working with the materials, what was the most challenging aspect of the senior collection process?

I think the time frame in working is really condensed so it’s really difficult to get everything done in the time allotted.  We basically have to finish a look in a week and a half every week this quarter.  So if we don’t finish, the work really piles up. 

SM: Who has been the most influential person in developing your collection?

My mom.  I think that she’s been the biggest influence on my life, and it’s funny that she’s the most influential person in my collection, per se, because she’s the least likely person to wear it.  She’s so classically styled and my stuff is so dramatic, but without her this wouldn’t be possible.  She’s the strongest person I know and I make clothes for strong women probably for that reason.

SM: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

I’d say fail.  Don’t be afraid to fail and make mistakes.  The president of Alexander Wang, Rodrigo Bazan, talked to us while I was interning there and he made it very clear that he never found his path until later in life and that as long as you work hard, it’s OK to not quite know what you’re meant to do or where you’re meant to be.  I loved that.  

I like the idea of trying new things but working hard at the same time.  And my senior collection professor, Sachi, always tells us just to get it done.  I think that’s great career advice.

SM: What are your plans after graduating?

I’m moving to New York.  I want to intern one more time before sort of starting the colossal job search and all that.  I’m all about serendipity.  It will be a struggle at first, but I think that things will fall into place. Hopefully.

Taylor Ullman, Senior

Hometown: Cleveland,OH

SM: When and why did you decide to pursue a career in fashion?

I always had a background in the fine arts, whether it was painting or anything.  Then one summer, going into my sophomore year in high school, I went to a program at Parsons in New York and I really enjoyed it.  So I think I found a good harmony between the two and I think that’s when I really knew.

SM: What’s your favorite style decade?

My favorite style decade would have to be the ‘80s.  I really like the oversized silhouettes.

SM: Where do you see fashion going in the next five to ten years?

I see the active sportswear market getting really big.  And a lot of attention, especially because of the economy, on the mass market fashion industries.  There will be lot of collaboration, I think, between designers and major companies.

SM: Who would be your dream designer to work with?

Definitely Haider Ackerman.  I just think that his use of fabric and color and the way he puts everything together is beautiful.

SM: Tell us about your collection and the inspiration behind it.

For my senior collection, I wanted to do something that I was really passionate about all year.  I’m half Japanese, so I am doing my senior collection as a tribute to my grandmother.  I love the traditional Japanese silhouettes and really admire designers like Issey Miyake.  And then I wanted to make it [the collection] contemporary modern and chic, so I searched for architects that I was drawn to for the linear look and found architect Kenzō Tange.  I was really drawn to his city plans for Tokyo, so I married the two.

SM: What materials do you use throughout the collection?

I have cashmeres, heavyweight taffetas and a lot of fabrics that hold structure.

SM: What was the most challenging aspect of the senior collection process?

The most challenging part of putting this collection together was finding a way to narrow down a concept into six cohesive looks.

SM: What makes your collection stand out?

I think what really makes my collection stand out is that it’s very minimal, but I have a lot of detail work.

SM: What are your plans after graduating?

I’ll probably move to New York and if I have to intern, I’ll intern, but I want to be in a creative environment on a creative team.

SM: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Treat others the way you want to be treated.

SM: What advice would you give to aspiring designers and future seniors?

Stay true to yourself no matter what anyone tells you.  And know who you are and what your aesthetic is and never second-guess that, because in the end it’s you.  And you are going to take whoever you are into where you go, the industry or whatever it may be, and you should always stand behind that because it’s awesome.

Baille Younkman, Senior

Hometown: Columbus,OH

SM: Where do you see fashion going in the next five to ten years?

I’m not really sure.  With fast fashion developing, I hope that there will still be a need for high-end designers.

SM: What’s your favorite style decade?

Probably the ’60s.  Minimalism was really booming and there were a lot of really cool foreign films that came then.  I also really like the vibes.

SM: Do you feel that comes across in your designs or is it just something that you’ve always loved?

I think when I’m designing more for consumer rather than conceptual, I think it is communicated. All the clothes from that decade are all pretty minimalistic with angular accents and that is communicated, although not in my senior collection.

SM: Tell us about your collection.

My entire collection started out being inspired by feminist artists and the motives behind their work.  From that I formed my own opinion and criticism on how our current culture has a really big control over women’s bodies and their sexuality and how there’s this unrealistic ideal for women to obtain.  So with my collection I kind of wanted to distort and disguise the natural figure by drawing inspiration from folds of the body.

SM: Have you always wanted to design with that aesthetic in mind?

A couple years ago in one of my art history classes, I was learning about feminist art and I was really interested.  And then over the summer I went to New York City and I saw this piece in the MoMA, it was “R.S.V.P.,” which is these pantyhose filled with sand and I thought it was really cool how the sand distorted the pantyhose.  The artist statement was talking about how all this pulling would never retain its original form.  So that was what originally sparked the idea.  I knew the direction I wanted to go in regards to working with the female figure.  I think, though, within the last four or five months that I really decided that I wanted my collection to be a promotion for change in hopes that people will recognize that it’s problematic what our culture is doing.

SM: What are some of the most commonly used materials in your pieces?

I actually never repeat a fabric in my entire collection.  The collection is various hues of peaches and blush and I thought that, as well as the technique that I’m using of crumpling and distorting the fabric, was enough to keep it really cohesive.  But they are all pretty much natural fibers like mohair and felted alpaca—really textual but soft tactile fabrics.

SM: Who has been the most influential person in developing your collection?

There have been two.  My construction professor Carol Harris has really pushed me to explore different methods of pattern making and be really experimental.  She’s been so encouraging in a different creative approach and I’m really thankful that I’ve had her to walk along with me.  And then one of my old art history professors, Lisa Young, she really helped me hone in on the point of view and voice that I was trying to convey.

SM: What was the most challenging aspect of the senior collection process?

In the beginning it was hard to convince people of the direction I wanted to go.  From that I think the challenges were with myself because it is so different from anything that anyone else is doing that I get a little insecure when I see other people and I’m like, ‘Whoa this is so different.’  I know that’s a good thing, but it was kind of challenging until I really got comfortable with what I was trying to say.

SM: Are you looking forward to seeing any of your peers’ collections?

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s.  I have no idea what the other three classes are doing, but I’m really excited to see the point of view that everyone is bringing.  From what I’ve heard from past critiques, everyone is bringing their A game.

SM: What are your plans after graduating?

This summer I’m going to be working with a performance artist [Andrew Ondrejcak] creating sculptures and costumes for him in Brooklyn.  After that I’m hoping to find something that will allow me to explore both fashion and fine art because I’m so fine art rooted that I want to be involved in both and find the perfect in-between.

SM: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

I think the best advice I’ve ever received is just to go with my own instinct and not try to please others, because if I just stay tuned to myself then in the end I’m going to be happy rather than if I’m catering to please all these different people.

Zach Powers sips, savors and shares the details.  »  Photography by Katie McGee

It’s early evening when I arrive at Blue Turtle Bistro, but there’s already a group of regulars at the bar.  They’ve come straight from work for cocktail hour—medical professionals still in their scrubs, businessmen with loosened ties and top buttons undone.  A jazz guitarist sits in one corner by the window, picking Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father” on the strings.  The coils of retro bulbs glow faintly orange in the industrial-chic fixtures.  Two patrons seated at the bend in the bar play a game with colored dice.  Almost everyone has a cocktail in front of them.

Cat Yates, the bar manager, mixes the drinks tonight.  She’s the quintessential keeper of the neighborhood bar, laid-back and friendly, efficient without being in a rush.  She’s as casual as the atmosphere—exactly who you’d want to serve you a drink after a long day at work.  She greets me as if I come here every night.

But it’s my first time through the door.  I’ve heard she serves up the usual suspects, but that she also packs some boutique liquors in her arsenal that elevate everyday cocktails to something special.

Not for Amateurs

Bottles of boutique liquors aren’t sitting behind every bar in Savannah.  These liquors are made in small batches, in obscure distilleries, and they usually represent the efforts of a few dedicated individuals with an obsession for Old World methods.  They don’t market through national ad campaigns.  These guys are hard-core—they go door-to-door.  You’re not going to see college kids ordering them by the shot.

Cat starts me off with a Honeysuckle Sour, made with Cathead Honeysuckle Vodka.  (That’s right, honeysuckle.)  She concocted this particular libation just this afternoon.

“I’d been wanting to try a sour drink with a flavored vodka,” she tells me.  “Honeysuckle seemed to make the most sense.”

In addition to the vodka and traditional mixers, she cracks open an egg and dumps in just the white.  After a couple rounds of shaking, she strains the mix into a lowball glass.  Inexplicable to me, the egg white has cooked itself into a frothy head, which Cat tops with lemon zest.

Lemon is the first and most obvious flavor when I take a slug.  Despite the egg, which I expected to feel heavy, the Honeysuckle Sour is crisp and refreshing—something I can imagine sipping outdoors on a sweltering summer day.  I don’t catch the honeysuckle flavor at first, but it comes out in the finish.  Long after I swallow, the sweet, floral flavor stays on my tongue.  I try a sip of the Cathead straight.  It’s a little harsh, the vodka base a little raw, but it’s certainly a welcome addition to the creative mixologist’s repository.

Cat tells me that the distillery’s story is what grabbed her attention: a portion of all Cathead’s sales goes to support live music.  She seems to relish talking about the drink, as though the story itself is stirred into the cocktail.

It’s Personal

That same sentiment is echoed by Garron Gore at 22 Square.  Garron is the food and beverage manager at Andaz hotel, where 22 Square resides.  He starts our conversation by pulling 15 bottles off the shelf and lining them up in front of me.  He goes down the row, telling me the story of each one—Chartreuse VEP, a liqueur whose ingredients are known only to two French monks; DeLeón Tequila, in a bottle designed by Chanel, and so on.  Garron’s excitement is evident and contagious.

You won’t go anywhere else in Savannah and see the same bottles, and that’s Garron’s intention.  22 Square is unique, from the sparse back of the bar, designed by local architects, to the long communal tables in the restaurant, built by local artisans.  Steel plates cap the ends of brick columns, giving an industrial contrast to the farm tables and carved wooden stools.  The space creates its own identity, and it invites guests to do the same.  Boutique liquors fit in like part of the architecture.

“Personal style,” Garron says.  “It’s all about being different.  It’s all about telling stories.  And that’s what we want behind the bar—for people to say about 70 to 75 percent of the products, ‘I have no idea what that is.’”

Garron is joined at the bar tonight by Scott Marshall, who was something of a legend in the Boston bartending scene before he “retired” to Savannah.  Scott was the head bartender at Boston’s Drink, which won the Spirited Award for Best American Cocktail Bar in 2011.  With Garron’s background as a sommelier, the pair may be the most knowledgeable drink-slinging duo in the city.  They concoct several cocktails for me with the precision and flair of master chefs.  Each stir is careful; the final pour slow.

I sample The Last Word, a citrusy mix of green Chartreuse, gin and maraschino liqueur, and the East of Hudson, one of Garron’s original creations, which was named best Manhattan in Savannah and finished second in a national competition in New York.  The Hudson is layered with three flavors: citrus, followed by whiskey then smoky cherry.  I’m most drawn to the Vieux Carre, made by Scott while I talk with Garron.  It’s handcrafted with Hine Rare VSOP Cognac and rye whiskey, along with sweet vermouth, bitters and Benedictine.  The cocktail feels broad and round, with a touch of sweetness from the cognac and just a nip from the rye at the finish.  The vermouth coats the mouth and adds its own twist to the other flavors.

Hine Cognac is one of the products that Garron is proud to keep in stock.  The Hine company has been around for almost 200 years, headquartered in an even older mansion on the banks of the Charente River in southwestern France.  The cognac imparts a subtle flavor that you won’t find in any other Savannah bar, and it’s what gives the Vieux Carre its character.

“It’s like a fine wine,” Garron says.  “You pick out (layers of flavors) in cocktails.  And properly balanced cocktails should be that way.”

Taste of Place

My next stop is Local 11 Ten.  Since it opened in 2007, Local has become one of the Savannah standards for a fine meal and a good drink.  The building used to be a bank, and the old safe is still situated to the left of the bar—its steel shining, the mechanism of its lock like abstract art.  The bar itself is simple and black, bottles lined neatly on the back shelf.  Large windows dominate the walls on two sides.  This is the kind of place you go to be seen.

I’m greeted by mixologist/sommelier Ryan Hall, a young man who’s already a veteran of the Savannah bar scene.  For him, the move from the downtown bars to Local, south of Forsyth Park, was an easy one.

“I’m happy to not be serving someone with a sweatshirt that says ‘Savannah’ on it,” Ryan says.

Like the other bartenders I’ve met on this sipping sojourn, Ryan has an obvious love for the alchemy of cocktails.  I can see it in the reverent way he holds a bottle and the careful manner by which he sets it on the bar.

The selection of boutique liquors isn’t quite as extensive at Local, but the bar has one of my favorites—High West Rendezvous Rye.  The High West Distillery is located 7,000 feet up the Rocky Mountains in Old Town Park City, Utah.  If you plan to visit, bring your skis, as you can get there straight from the slopes.

Ryan thinks the flavor of boutique liquors is due, in part, to the places they come from, much like terroir figures into the distinct flavors of wine.

“With a small distiller,” he says, “you feel like they’re putting more TLC into it.”  That same care is put into each drink Ryan mixes.

I order Local’s Sazerac, made with the Rendezvous Rye, cherry and orange bitters, and Vieux Carre-brand absinthe.  It’s one of Ryan’s signature cocktails, and it’s definitely one of my favorites.  Rye has a strong grain flavor, and the absinthe’s licorice notes smooth out the peculiar burn of the whiskey nicely.  A citrus finish cleanses the palate for the next sip.  Legend has it that the Sazerac was America’s first cocktail, made by a New Orleans apothecary in 1838.  It’s a story of invention that I think Ryan can relate to.

“We’re trying to get away from your simple cocktails,” explains Ryan, “and toward things you have to teach guests about.”

Last Call

I end my night, as I often do, at The Sparetime, Clara and Jane Fishel’s hip hangout at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Congress Street.  This time, I decide to try a glass of Redemption Rye, a relative newcomer to the craft liquor scene from a distillery in Indiana that’s trying to revive rye whiskey after its long fall following Prohibition.  The Sparetime has one of Savannah’s best selections of small-batch liquors, especially for a whiskey-drinker like me.  It’s not the most whiskies I’ve ever seen in one place, but it’s one of the most diverse collections.  The bartenders make careful pours, even using an eyedropper for certain ingredients.  Although I’m not here for an interview, I find I have questions I want to ask every time they pull a bottle off the shelf.  I know there’s a story inside each one waiting to pour out.

TASTE THE DIFFERENCE

Sample small-batch liquors—and befriend the bartenders—at these Savannah speakeasies.

» 22 Square at Andaz Hotel, 14 Barnard St.,  233-2116

» Blue Turtle Bistro, 5002 Paulsen St., #105,  358-0808

» Local 11 Ten, 1110 Bull St.,  790-9000

» The Sparetime, 36 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.,  232-7094

A Savannah businesswoman teams with local designers to transform her tiny cottage into a high-end getaway.   »  By Kim Wade »  Photography by Richard Leo Johnson

Jennifer Abshire opens the door of her newly purchased Jones Street cottage to reveal an empty, gray-walled living area that smells like sawdust.  I see a blank canvas.  She sees a promising investment.

Jennifer, the CEO and founder of Abshire Public Relations, is about to turn this 145-year-old, structurally sound cottage into a high-end vacation rental property.

“It’s amazing to know that this house was originally built (in 1868) as temporary housing for CSX railroad workers,” the Savannah socialite says.  “Now it’s being used as temporary housing for travelers again.  I guess this house knows its purpose to the city.”

I ask Jennifer why she wanted to buy a house, fix it up and rent it out to strangers.

“When I travel, I love to stay at places that are VRBO— Vacation Rental By Owner—because it gives me a chance to stay in someone’s home and feel like a local,” she explains, then adds that her son, Phillip, is a freshman at The Citadel and her daughter, Reilly, is a freshman at Savannah Christian Prep School.  “Paying out-of-state tuition was a shock to me.  I needed extra income.”

Rather than focus on an emptying nest, Jennifer put her energy into extending her nest egg.

“I wanted to find a great investment to extend my savings and I stumbled into this venture,” she continues.

Jennifer ran into her friend, Corey Jones, who told her about his new vacation property rental company, Lucky Savannah Rentals.  Letting Corey manage the rental details would make her investment that much easier.

Next, she hired Ruel Joyner, the owner of 24e Design Co., and his head designer, Johnathan “Darcy” Darcy, to transform her petite 700-square-foot cottage into a big asset.

When Ruel and Darcy meet us at the cottage, their excitement for the plans are contagious.  Jennifer beams as they discuss color palettes and furniture options.

To Protect and Preserve

First, Ruel wants me to know what he’s not doing. This is a décor job, not a full-scale remodel.

“We don’t want to destroy the original features of the cottage, like the plaster walls and handmade door frames,” Ruel explains. “We want to make a perfect blend of traditional with modern but still keep it functional.”

The only structural changes will consist of refurbishing the heart pine floors, knocking out a wall to make a large master bedroom area and adding blue slate flooring to the kitchen to replace worn linoleum.

Ruel is tasked with the overall concept, but Darcy takes charge of the design details.  His goal is to make the small home at once beautiful and functional.  He tells me he will achieve this design dichotomy by adding simple fabrics, timeless prints and reclaimed wood pieces.

“The great thing about reclaimed wood is that it looks better with wear and tear,” he explains.  “The bumps and scratches add character and beauty to the piece.”

The design team has chosen colors and objects that emphasize the nautical and railroad history associated with the neighborhood.  The palette mixes light ocean blues and creamy hues with sharp cerulean and citrus accents.  Ruel also has collected and retrofitted original bulkhead lights from old ships, along with other local antiques.

Design Within Scale

Of course, the size of the cottage will dictate many of the decisions, spurring the design team to manage the floor plan very carefully.

“Just because we are working with a small space doesn’t mean we try to fill it with tiny furniture,” Ruel says.  “Every inch of space needs to have meaning and comfort.”

Darcy shows me plans to minimize clutter by hanging globe pendant lights above the nightstands in the master bedroom instead of lamps.  This will allow for more usable space on the tables.

Similarly, Darcy intends to remove the original bedroom doors to add space.  He shows me his designs for sliding, wooden railroad-cart doors—a nod to the home’s former purpose—that will be manufactured onsite.

Next, he lays out a sample of the special-order seagrass wallpaper from Phillip Jeffries.

“We want to bring in natural elements like this wallpaper, bamboo Roman shades and cowhide rugs to juxtapose with the modern fabrics,” Darcy explains.

He also wants to use simple shapes in his designs.  Circles appear to be a big theme—from the round pedestal tables (fewer potentially painful corners in the small space) and the circle-print rugs, armchairs and wallpaper to the wooden drum chandelier for the kitchen.

It’s time for them to get to work and for me to get out of their way.  Inspired by the mood boards, fabric swatches and designs, I can hardly wait to see the final product.

The Best-laid Plans

Almost two months after my first visit, I arrive at the cottage expecting to see the finish product as planned.

A man wearing paint-splattered clothes and a tool belt walks out the open front door.  He passes me, carrying a circular saw and drenched with sweat.

Ruel greets me at the door.  He tries to mask his obvious frustration with a smile and we both laugh when I look around the empty room.

Finally, Ruel throws his hands in the air.

“We’ve had a few setbacks,” he laments.

Ruel admits that his insistence on not “bastardizing” the original plaster walls has caused the delay.  The special-order wallpaper won’t lie flat because the walls are too uneven.  Instead, he’s going to have to apply a Venetian plaster finish in the bedrooms and paint the walls in the kitchen.

“This is what happens when you work with an old house,” Ruel shrugs.  “Over time, things have settled and moved.  Most people would just tear out these walls and throw up sheetrock, but we’re determined to keep the original structure.”

I scan the guest room and notice the subtle slanting and gaps around the doorways and window frames.  I have a new appreciation for historic preservation.

When Ruel insists everything will be done in 48 hours, I give him a high five and wish him luck.

Miracle on Jones Street

Two days later, I’m back.  The front porch is draped with a colorful assortment of fresh spring flowers, courtesy of Jennifer’s beau, Savannah florist John Davis.

Jennifer opens the front door to greet me, revealing the open living and dining area.  My eyes are immediately drawn to the right, where an overstuffed, ultra-suede sea- foam sofa hugs the wall beside the original fireplace.  Dual diamond-shaped footstools rest on the floor and the scent of more fresh flowers masks fresh paint fumes.

I’m amazed by the transformation of the living room and the way the full-sized furnishings fit perfectly into the small space without overwhelming it.  Jennifer is more amazed that everything stayed exactly on budget.

To the right just inside the entrance, an Edinburgh chair rests beside a ceiling-height walnut bookcase with round-cornered shelves.  To give the space a warm, welcoming ambience, Jennifer has filled the shelves with Savannah travel guides, bulkhead lights from 24e, personal photographs and a wooden chest her grandfather made for her.

“I wanted to add in personal items that had a ‘traveler’ feel to them,” she explains.

A 32-inch flat-screen television is mounted on the opposite wall just above a reclaimed wood chest.  The linen-tone sea grass wallcovering adds a rustic touch and some sound control to the living space.

At the far end of the main room, a cream-colored, circular pedestal table is flanked by four Louis-style ghost chairs.  A brilliant white drum chandelier lights the area.  A painting by local artist Marcus Kenney and floating photographs of the Coastal Empire by Tiffany Yarborough lend vibrant color to the peaceful space and add the touch of Savannah art Jennifer wanted to showcase.

Jennifer rolls back the black railroad-cart door on the left wall, revealing the guest bedroom, its twin beds adorned with teal fabric headboards and separated by an oversized dressing table made from reclaimed wood.  The walls are painted in alternating shades of antique gold and white, giving the appearance of a birch bark backdrop.  Pops of goldenrod burst from the simple block-print bedspreads and from the contemporary wool throw rug.

“This is my favorite room,” Jennifer says.  She points out an aerial color photograph of historic downtown that fills one side of the wall opposite the beds.

“I just popped into Photo Master for passport photos and found this,” she tells me.

An antique pull-down map of the United States doubles as a window shade.  Bamboo Roman shades cover another window behind the dressing table.  The subdued sunlight reflects off a small color photo of Jennifer and her children perched on the table.

“I wanted this to feel like a home,” she explains.

To the right of the guest room, Jennifer rolls open another set of ebonized cart doors to reveal an office area that is connected to the master sleeping quarters.

Opposite the entrance, a desk made of reclaimed wood is paired with a cozy armchair covered in a cream, citron and gray geometric pattern.  A cowhide rug rests on the floor.

The room contains no closets, so Ruel and Darcy have brought in an oversized wood cabinet with glass doors that doubles as storage and a sound buffer.

“This room can be used as either a dressing area or work space,” Jennifer explains.

To our right rests the luxurious sleeping area, replete with a queen bed outfitted with Missoni bedding accented with nautical blues. The white ostrich-leather headboard and the subtle shimmer of the light blue and silver wallpaper add a modern touch.

Each side of the bed is flanked with chestnut dressing tables designed to provide extra storage for traveling guests.

The master bedroom opens into a short hallway that leads to the bathroom, kitchen and back yard.   Fresh paint and flooring have given the small bathroom and kitchen a new lease on life.  Repurposed cabinetry, some of it original to the house, provides additional storage for homey amenities, such as spa robes and a first-aid kit.

In the kitchen, the blue slate floors and mustard yellow walls embrace a sitting area comprised of two blue velvet antique armchairs and a small, rounded pedestal table.  I look up and see a circular drum chandelier from 24e, which evokes the cozy feel of a small diner.

“Can’t you imagine people sitting here for cocktails before going out to explore the city?” Jennifer asks me.

The back door of the kitchen leads to the outdoor patio area, where oversized pots of fresh hydrangeas from John Davis pair perfectly with freshly planted camellias and knockout roses.  A container garden from Lucky Savannah Vacation Rentals completes the picture, and a handful of mix-and-match furnishings create a second, alfresco dining space.

I look around the lush garden and listen to the sounds of random cars rumbling over the uneven bricks on Jones Street.  The blank canvas is gone and Jennifer’s vision of a Savannah-style retreat has arrived.

See the cottage transformation right HERE >>

The Jones Street Cottage Stats »

Owner:  Jennifer Abshire

Year built:  1868

Year purchased:  2011

Square footage:  700

Number of bedrooms and bathrooms:  2 bedrooms, 1 bath

Time to complete:  3 months

The Jones Street Cottage Referrals »

Interior designers:  Ruel Joyner and Johnathan Darcy, 24e

Contractor/builder:  Nate Hanks, New Life Restoration

Tile/flooring:  New Life Restoration

Paint/wallpaper:  Johnathan Darcy, 24e

Windows/doors:  Drapery and hardware by 24e

Kitchen design:  Nate Hanks

Lighting design:  24e

Landscape design:  John Davis Florist and Robby Willingham, The Lawn Bull

Hardscape design:  The Lawn Bull

Electrician:  Harry Williams

Carpenter:  New Life Restoration

Plumber:  Hutson Plumbing

Furniture:  24e and owner’s collection

Appliances:  Kenmore

Accessories:  24e and owner’s collection

Art:  Tiffany Yarborough and Marcus Kenney