By Eric Curl
Updated Sept. 3, 2020 – Ryan Williamson, with Farm-Savannah Properties LLC, received approval in November for a permit to renovate a late-19th Century Victorian house at 122 East 37th for use as a restaurant, Common Thread. (Read Jesse Blanco’s Aug. 2020 article about the restaurant plan here)
The two-story Krouskoff House, which includes an adjacent parking lot, previously housed Cobb’s Galleries Antiques & Collectibles.
Williamson opened a regionally-sourced, farm-to-table restaurant, Farm Bluffton, in 2016 with Managing Partner Josh Heaton and Executive Chef Brandon Carter.
Built in 1897 by Soloman and Matilda Krouskoff, the Queen Anne-style Krouskoff house retains much of its original historic elements and original floor plan, including a grand staircase, according to Lominack Kolman Smith Architects, the architectural firm hired for the rehabilitation project. Krouskoff was a Savannah Alderman from Feb. 1, 1897 to Jan. 30, 1899, under Mayor Peter W. Meldrim, and a proponent of developing the southern section of the city, to include his home. Solomon Krouskoff, who was a proprietor of millinery business, died at age 76 after moving to New York, according to an obit in the Jan. 1916 edition of a New York-based publication, The Illustrated Milliner.
In 1903 – after his time on the city council – Solomon Krouskoff protested the planned construction of a today’s city hall, which he argued was an unnecessary expense, according to a report, “The Birth of City Hall”, by the city’s Research Library & Municipal Archives department. The existing city hall was commodious, safe, and suitable for the purposes of the city government for many years to come, Krouskoff said during his unsuccessful appeal to the Chamber of Commerce.
The “new” city hall is now showing its age and in Nov. 2019 Chatham County voters approved a sales-tax referendum that included $3 million for the renovation of the 113-year-old building to address issues I outlined in this Savannah Morning News article from Nov. 2018.