As noted in the October 2025 issue of Stroll Ardsley Park, the Chatham Crescent subdivision of our Greater Ardsley neighborhood is centered on the site of Harvey Granger’s grand Hotel Georgia at the southern terminus of the Atlantic Mall.  The hotel was begun in 1912 and construction was abandoned in 1914. The uncompleted hotel was demolished in 1932, and much of the concrete debris was repurposed as erosion revetment along the riverfront of Bonaventure Cemetery, where it can still be seen.  In 1935, the Chatham County School Board acquired the hotel site to build Savannah High School (pictured here).  It was designed by the architectural firm Levy and Clarke in a Georgian Colonial Revival style, also employed on the nearby 49th Street School, built in 1929 (now Charles Ellis Elementary School).  When completed in 1937, it was the largest construction, and the largest high school, in Georgia.  In 1963, it was one of the first two schools in Chatham County to initiate desegregation.

Savannah High moved to its present location on Pennsylvania Avenue in 1998.  In the same year, the colossal school building in Chatham Crescent became the Savannah Arts Academy.  The academy, part of the Chatham County Public School system, provides specialized curricula for fields of study in the arts, and requires prospective students to achieve a minimum GPA and complete an audition process.  For those who live nearby, sounds of music can be heard now and then from student practice sessions, with occasional recitals in front of the school.

A number of upgrades and renovations to the school were completed in summer 2022, including paving and landscaping the parking lot.  The project was temporarily stalled when construction workers happened upon large concrete piers while grading the lot, the foundation piers of the old Hotel Georgia.   The post card of Savannah High School pictured here is postmarked 1944.

To learn more neighborhood history, and to join the neighborhood association, visit the links on our website @ APPCC-NA.org