Why it matters
Telfair Square is home to the Telfair Academy, one of the oldest art museums in the American South, housed in a beautiful Regency building designed by William Jay in 1818. The square itself is one of Savannah's most architecturally coherent, with the museum's facade anchoring the south side.
William Jay, an English architect who arrived in Savannah in 1817, designed several of the city's most refined buildings, and the Telfair square is the best concentration of his influence. The Owens-Thomas House, also by Jay, is just a few blocks away.
Architecture is the city's most durable argument for its own seriousness.