Above the expansive fireplace in the kitchen, where generations of a colonial-era Connecticut family cooked their meals, hangs a weathered pine plank with a stick-figure scene drawn across it. There are figures with tricorn hats carrying muskets as well as others shooting bows and arrows — perhaps depicting a battle from the French and Indian War during the mid-1700s.

Pete Galloway estimates it was drawn by an older person between the 1820s and 1860s, based upon research he’s done with historians at Yale and a graffiti expert at the University of Delaware.

“He’s never seen anything this intact,” Galloway said. “You see a lot of ships with pen knives, and you’ll see initials and dates, but nothing more like a piece of art.”

The board is just one of the many treasures and surprises uncovered by Galloway and his wife Kristen as they rebuilt the home, which predates the founding of Savannah by 40 years, after having it dismantled and moved from a property near the Connecticut River to 303 W. Gwinnett St. in 2020.

A faithful board-by-board restoration

Before taking on the restoration project, the young couple lived and worked in Florida, where they spent more time in traffic than enjoying life.

“I always wanted an old house,” said Galloway. He and Kristen first considered Charleston, but he had a familial connection to Savannah. His uncle, Keith, co-owns and manages the Galloway Inn on 35^th Street, near Thomas Square Park and the Bull Street Library.

So, in 2015, they purchased the Victorian-era home with the wrap-around porch at the corner of Gwinnett and Jefferson streets, which was built in 1884 for William Nichols, the son of Savannah’s first printer. The grand Italianate had been on the market for four years. The home had been divided into apartments, making it ideal to live in while renovating and renting the other spaces as a small inn. The house also came with a large vacant lot, where Pete Galloway envisioned expanding what is now known as the Printmaker’s Inn.

His uncle said he’d had a friend who had moved an older home from Virginia to Connecticut, which sparked Galloway’s desire to find a historic home to move to the site. After looking throughout Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, he turned to homes in New England threatened by demolition. He found the Cape-style house near the Connecticut River in fairly decent shape with relatively unaltered interiors in 2018. Dismantling board by board began in 2019 for the move south, and the foundation for the home was set in January 2020. Reassembly began in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“I begged two of [the timber framers] to stay and help me finish it,” Galloway recalled. Through Savannah State, he found a plasterer who was trained in traditional techniques, and a local Mason. The cobbled-together team brought the circa-1693 home back to life, even restoring its exteriors to what it would have looked like in the 1740s by using pattern books from that era.

For the next two years, they stripped all the paint off the original woodwork and repainted fireplace mantels and trim with linseed oil paint that matched an original swatch from an upstairs bedroom. They redid the lath and plaster — even offering a “window” into the work —and floors were deep cleaned using a wire brush and left in their natural state, except in an upstairs bedroom and the attic where they were burnished with wax.

Savannah represents new chapter in colonial Connecticut home’s history

With period-era furniture and authentic finishes gathered through estate sales and auctions, the Galloways have created a cozy setting for family reunions, wedding guests and corporate retreats without sacrificing historic integrity. Architectural details in the west parlor signify upper middle-class stature: raised walls, a corner cupboard, a smaller fireplace with fluted pilasters, and double crown mouldings. Exposed timbers throughout bear the axe marks of the original builders, the Hills family, who also were one of the founding families of Hartford, Connecticut in 1630. Pete’s energetic inquiries from historical societies and Facebook groups helped pieced together their story through deeds, wills and other records.

Lt. Jonathan Hills, a member of the Connecticut militia, built the home in 1693. His son, also named Jonathan, was a ranked military officer as well. Around 1745, great-grandson Capt. David Hill, who fought in the French and Indian War, inherited the home as a wedding present, and most likely completed the first expansion of the home.

A new staircase and landings accessed through the back yard lead to second-floor bedroom suites where someone in the home’s past wrote 1799 on a wall made with mortise-and-tenon joinery. That same wall gave up a 1720s British half penny that had been tucked inside a mortise pocket for more than 280 years. The third-floor attic serves as a game room with a television upon request.

The bricked courtyard joins the two properties, which now co-exist seamlessly as if they had been neighbors through different eras of Savannah’s evolution. It’s no small irony, either, that the city’s newest accommodation in the hospitality market is also it’s oldest structure.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: The Printmaker’s Inn is Savannah’s newest and oldest accommodation