The Telfair Museum

Architect William Jay designed this Regency-style house in 1818 for Alexander Telfair, son of Revolutionary War patriot and Georgia governor Edward Telfair. After Alexander's death, his sister Mary Telfair inherited the estate and its growing art collection; when she died in 1875, the last of the Telfair line, she left the house to the Georgia Historical Society to become a museum. It opened in 1886 as the Telfair Academy, the oldest public art museum in the South. Staff and visitors say Mary herself still looks after the place — smoke a cigarette inside or sit in the wrong chair, and you may hear her footsteps crossing the marble floors toward you.