Spending Another Midnight in the Garden

Spending Another Midnight in the Garden

Town gossips can provide the best introduction to a city, and as author John Berendt discovered, Savannah's not short on them. In his 1994 best-seller, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Berendt shares the juiciest of tales imparted to him during the eight years he spent here wining and dining Savannah's high society and dancing with Her Grand Empress, drag queen the Lady Chablis. By the time he left, there had been a scandalous homicide and several trials.

To fully appreciate the eccentric world of cutthroat killers, society backstabbers, voodoo witches, and garden-club ladies, you need to find a copy of the book, or at the very least, "The Book" Gift Shop (127 E. Gordon St. 912/233-3867) on Calhoun Square. This quirky outlet heralds itself as the official Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil headquarters and you'll find all manner of book-related souvenirs. Call for daily walking tour times and prices.

Most of the sights and historical homes in the book aren't open to the public, but the walk between them still makes a good stroll. Allow a leisurely two hours to walk the main points, plus another hour to visit the cemetery.

Begin at the southwest corner of Monterey Square, site of the Mercer House (429 Bull St.). The construction was begun by songwriter Johnny Mercer's great-grandfather just before the Civil War. This redbrick Italianate mansion became Jim Williams's Taj Mahal. He's the main character in the book and here, he ran a world-class antiques dealership and held the Christmas party of the season. Williams himself died here of a heart attack in 1990, near the very spot where his sometime house partner, Danny Hansford, succumbed to gunshot wounds. The house is now open to the public for tours.

Two blocks south on Bull Street is Armstrong House (447 Bull St.), an earlier residence of Jim Williams. On a late-afternoon walk past the mansion, author John Berendt met Simon Glover, an 86-year-old singer and porter for the law firm of Bouhan, Williams, and Levy, occupants of the building. Glover confided that he earned a weekly $10 for walking the deceased dogs of a former partner of the firm up and down Bull Street. Baffled? So was the author. Behind the house's cast-iron gates are the offices of Frank Siler, Jim Williams's attorney, who doubles as keeper of Uga, the Georgia Bulldog mascot.

The Forsyth Park Apartments (Whitaker and Gwinnett Sts.), where Berendt lived, are on the southwest corner of Forsyth Park. From his fourth-floor rooms Berendt pieced together the majority of the book. While parking his newly acquired 1973 Pontiac Grand Prix outside these apartments, he met the Lady Chablis coming out of her nearby doctor's office, freshly feminine from a new round of hormone shots.

Return through Forsyth Park to Serena Dawes's House (17 W. Gordon St.). Near the intersection of West Gordon and Bull streets, this house was owned by Helen Driscoll, also known as Serena Dawes. A high-profile beauty in the 1930s and '40s, she married into a Pennsylvania steel family. After her husband accidentally and fatally shot himself in the head, she retired here. Dawes, Berendt writes, "spent most of her day in bed, holding court, drinking martinis and pink ladies, playing with her white toy poodle, Lulu." Chief among Serena's gentlemen callers was Luther Driggers, rumored to possess a poison strong enough to wipe out the entire city.

Walk north on Bull Street where Lee Adler's Home (425 Bull St.) sits at Monterey Square. Just north of Mercer House, in half of the double town house facing West Wayne Street, Lee Adler, the adversary of Jim Williams, runs his business of restoring historic Savannah properties. Adler's howling dogs drove Williams to his pipe organ, where he churned out a deafening version of César Franck's Pièce Heroïque. Later, Adler stuck reelection signs in his front lawn, showing his support for the district attorney who prosecuted Williams three times before he was finally found not guilty.

Continue walking north on Bull Street to Joe Odom's first house (16 E. Jones St.), where Joe Odom, a combination tax lawyer, real-estate broker, and piano player, hosted a 24-hour stream of visitors. The author met Odom through Mandy Nichols, a former Miss Big Beautiful Woman, who stopped by to borrow ice after the power had been cut off.

Then head for Hamilton-Turner House (330 Abercorn St.), now a B&B. After one too many of Odom's deals went sour, Mandy Nichols, his fourth fiancée-in-waiting, left him and took over his third residence, a 2nd Empire-style mansion dating from 1873. Mandy filled it with 17th- and 18th-century antiques and transformed it into a successful museum.

The remaining two sights are both about a 20-minute walk away. Head north, and then west along West York Street and you'll find the Chatham County Courthouse (133 Montgomery St.), the scene of three of Williams's murder trials that took place over the course of about eight years.

Head south on Abercorn Street to Victory Drive and turn left, going through Thunderbolt to Whatley Avenue, which leads directly to Bonaventure Road. Bear left, and on your right about a quarter mile up the road is Bonaventure Cemetery (330 Bonaventure Rd. 912/651-6843), the final resting place of Danny Hansford. The haunting female tombstone figure from the book's cover has been removed to protect surrounding graves from sightseers. The figure is now on display at the Telfair Museum of Art.