The Douglas

A private house on East Oglethorpe Avenue that passed through a banker's ownership, a WWII-era rooming house and a Girl Scouts annex reopened in August 2025 as a 16-room luxury hotel, restored over two years by Charleston's Obstinate Hospitality group. It's a small, unbranded bet on intimacy over scale in a city increasingly filling up with flagged, mid-size properties.

The place

The Douglas sits at 14 East Oglethorpe Avenue in Savannah's Historic District, on a residential block of the city's original 18th-century grid rather than the more heavily trafficked squares to the south. The address puts guests within walking distance of both the shops and restaurants of Broughton Street and the quieter, tree-lined streets that give the neighborhood its residential character.

The concept

Built in 1853 as a private residence, the townhouse spent the following seventeen decades cycling through uses that track much of Savannah's own social history: a banker's home, a gentlemen's club, subdivided apartments during World War II, and later a Girl Scouts annex. A two-year restoration led by Reggie Gibson Architects and Glenn Keyes Architects, with interiors by Kirby Caldwell, preserved original Murano glass chandeliers, stained-glass transoms and heart pine floors while converting the building into a 16-room house hotel. The project is operated by Obstinate Hospitality, the Charleston-based team behind the restaurants Wild Olive and The Obstinate Daughter, and each of the 16 rooms is furnished individually with French antiques and vintage Turkish rugs rather than a repeated hotel-brand template, a scale and approach closer to a well-connected private house than a conventional boutique property.

Dining & wellness

Guests have access to the Parlor, a shared common space, and the Drawing Room, a guests-only bar for cocktails, plus a complimentary a la carte breakfast and an evening reception of cheeses, charcuterie and canapes, both overseen by chef Jacques Larson, a two-time James Beard Award nominee. A second phase next door at 18 Oglethorpe Avenue will add six rooms and Lester's, a full-service restaurant, targeted for early 2026.