She pointed to the bell rope that Ernestine would pull to
call guests into the dining room where Eugene (“Gene”)
Williams, Ernestine’s brother-in-law, would begin serving
the meal. “Gene helped maintain Tranquilla and its
contents after my grandfather’s death.” With over 20 years
in the Ladson household, he, too, would become a dear
friend.
As I walked from room to room with Jack and
Margaret’s granddaughter Dorsey, she said smiling, “The
house felt more like an art gallery when I was a kid. We
were always being told, ‘Don’t run in the house or touch
this or that.’ Most of my childhood memories were of
playing outside.”
“Some of the antiques here were passed down through
my grandmother’s family,” said Dorsey. “Many were bought
through Jim Williams, the antique dealer in Savannah
whose story was the basis for Midnight in the Garden of
Good and Evil. In fact, my grandparents had a townhouse in
Savannah and the writer of the book, John Berendt, lived
in a garden house right behind them.
“Other antiques my grandparents bought came from
George Hartness in Columbia, South Carolina. He did much
of the interior design at Tranquilla. Antiques were also
purchased from a woman in Louisville, Georgia, named
Bernice Stone. When we moved into Tranquilla, I found
some of the original receipts tucked away in drawers for
some of the things my grandmother bought that are still in
the house.”
When the house and all its antiquities were brought
back to life by Dorsey and her husband, it was not as an art
gallery, but as a home: A place where the sounds of their
two-year-old daughter Susan, (called “Sus”), could be heard.
The mechanical dumbwaiter, a small freight-type elevator
used to cart food from the kitchen to a room on another
level, is now filled with Sus’s jackets and shoes.
In a time of mobility and disconnection, Dorsey and
66 TOOMBS COUNTY MAGAZINE
1 “Mediterranean
Landscape”
hand-painted
wallpaper mural
produced by
Charles R. Gracie
& Sons in New
York.
2 Bricks on the
porches and in
the kitchen, foyer
and hallway
were handmade
in Savannah
before the Civil
War-no two are
the same.
3 Satinwood
inlays can be
seen on the
mahogany
trimmed Empire
Marquetry sofa,
circa 1820.
4 Imported
Italian handpainted
tiles.
4
all the texture
1 2
3