17Hundred90 Inn, Savannah: Anna and the Legend of Room 204

The 17Hundred90 Inn & Restaurant sits on the corner of East President and Lincoln streets, just off Columbia Square and a few minutes’ walk from River Street. Despite the name, nothing here dates to 1790: the name honors the year Savannah held its first free election for mayor and city council after the Revolution. The inn is made up of three old residences joined together, the oldest built between 1821 and 1823, and it has 14 guest rooms above a restaurant and a tavern with a heart pine bar.

It is also one of the most talked-about haunted inns in the country. The inn’s own website promotes it as voted Savannah’s most haunted inn, and nearly every Savannah ghost tour stops outside. Most of the attention falls on a single room, 204, and on a young woman called Anna, or Anne, who is said to have died from its window.

The ghosts of 17Hundred90 Inn & Restaurant

Anna of Room 204

The legend comes in several versions. In the one Visit Savannah tells, Anna was a young maid who fell for a sailor docked in Savannah. He made her promises, then sailed away without a goodbye, and she watched from the window of what is now Room 204 before taking her own life. The inn’s own version makes her a bride in an arranged marriage in the early 1800s who loved a sailor instead, and adds that some believe her angry husband-to-be pushed her. Other tellings give her a cruel, drunken husband who owned the house.

Whatever the version, guests in 204 tell similar stories. The inn says they often report objects moved, nudges and bed covers shifted. Others describe sheets tugged in the night, someone sitting on the edge of the bed, crying in the corner after the lights go out and, in our older guide, being woken by the sound of breaking glass with a shadowy figure at the foot of the bed. The inn calls her friendly, but always wanting to make her presence known.

Does the history fit?

Not neatly. Ghost City Tours dug into the records and found two possible Annes. Anne White was the widow of Steele White, who built the oldest part of the inn and died in 1823 in a riding accident, but she moved out to the Isle of Hope after his death. Anne Powers really did live here: her family added the eastern section in 1888 and she shows up in the 1890 and 1920 censuses, still alive in her late seventies. Neither fits the story, and the balcony some versions mention was not built until 1888.

That researcher’s conclusion was that the ghost everyone calls Anna may be someone connected with the building who did not die there. The stories keep coming regardless.

The kitchen spirit

The inn is open about a less friendly presence in the kitchen. Staff describe the clinking of metal bracelets followed by pots and pans being tossed about, and spice jars thrown at kitchen workers. Ghost City Tours adds that the spirit seems to dislike women working in the kitchen, and that staff believe it was a servant who practiced Voodoo, though no name has been found. Visit Savannah gives a kinder version: a long-dead head cook who respects people who care about the work.

Thaddeus and the pennies

The gentlest ghost here is a boy the inn calls Thaddeus, seen on the ground floor in the restaurant and tavern. According to the inn, he leaves shiny pennies on the tables, the bar and the front desk. Owner Patrick Godley has told The South Magazine that when he is alone in the restaurant late at night he sometimes hears chairs moving across the floor.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 204: The famous one, on the top floor of the main inn. Request it by phone and expect to book well ahead. Only In Your State reports that the inn once asked guests in 204 to sign a waiver; ask whether that still applies when you book.
• Other main inn rooms: Rooms 101 to 107 and 201 to 207. The inn keeps a guest ghost journal for rooms, with entries for rooms such as 201, 205 and 107.
• Guest house rooms: The inn also rents rooms in nearby guest houses, including an 1875 three-story house. A quieter choice if you would rather hear the stories than live them.

History of 17Hundred90 Inn & Restaurant

The inn’s name looks back to 1790, when Savannah, still a small town of a few hundred wooden buildings, held its first free election for mayor and city council. The buildings themselves are younger. According to the inn, the slate floor and soft brick walls of the ground level may survive from an earlier structure, possibly lost in the Great Savannah Fire of 1820.

Between 1821 and 1823 Steele White built the western part of today’s inn as a duplex. He died in a riding accident in 1823, before work was finished. In 1888 the Powers family added the smaller eastern section, and the inn notes original wood shingles in the attic and wooden pegs and wedges still holding beams in place. Across the street, a three-story guest house went up in 1875, and the inn says a Norwegian shipbuilder who lodged there in the 1890s hand-painted its parlor ceilings to help pay his rent.

Like many houses near the river, the buildings later took in lodgers and spent years as a boarding house before becoming an inn and restaurant. The South Magazine describes it as one of the oldest inns in the country. Today the family-run inn is managed by Patrick Godley, whose parents own it, and it has 14 rooms, each with a private bath and a king or queen bed.

The restaurant serves dinner nightly, and the tavern, with its 360-degree heart pine bar, is a regular haunt for locals as well as ghost tour groups. The inn even keeps guest ghost journals, so you can read what earlier guests in your room wrote.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Call the inn on 912-236-7122 to request Room 204. It is always in demand, especially in October.
• Book dinner downstairs. Reservations are suggested, and required for groups of seven or more.
• Have a nightcap in the tavern: Thaddeus is said to leave his pennies on the bar and tables.
• Ask to read the ghost journal for your room.
• Columbia Square and the Kehoe House are just around the corner, and River Street is a short walk north.
• If you are a light sleeper, consider one of the other rooms and visit 204 only in the stories.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Marshall House, Savannah: Savannah’s oldest hotel, a Civil War and yellow fever hospital
• Olde Harbour Inn, Savannah: a riverfront inn where a ghost called Hank drops coins
• More haunted hotels in Savannah: the Kehoe House, Eliza Thompson House, Foley House Inn and more
• Francis Marion Hotel, Charleston: a haunted 1924 hotel about two hours up the coast
• Haunted hotels in Georgia
• Haunted hotels in Savannah

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• 17Hundred90 Inn & Restaurant: Ghosts
• 17Hundred90 Inn & Restaurant: History
• Ghost City Tours: The Ghosts of the 17Hundred90 Inn
• Visit Savannah: Savannah Hauntings at 17hundred90 Inn
• The South Magazine: Ghostly Tales of Savannah
• Only In Your State: The Georgia inn room that needed a waiver
• Savannah.com: 17Hundred90 Inn & Restaurant

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