Savannah is a city of mercurial history and enigmatic charms. Home to cotton barons, shipping magnates, antiques dealers, and tireless preservationists, it has helped define Southern elegance, manner, and style for more than two centuries.

From the slightly faded grandeur of the Second Empire baroque Thomas Levy House, filled with antique maps, prints, books, and other curiosities, to the phantasmal, Proustian decor of the high style Greek Revival Knapp House, the 20 houses featured in this book express the city's alternating moods of decadence and decorum. Quite often, a serene exterior-- designed in a Georgian, federal, or restrained Greek Revival style-- will relinquish its polite composure to an ingenious play of interior whimsy or flight of decorative fancy. Elegant town houses designed by William Jay, John Ash, Isaiah Davenport, and William Gibbons Preston, gracious plantation manors, and unpretentious summer cottages are featured in detail in word and image. A delightful foreword by John Berendt acts as an informative addendum to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and an excellent introduction to this book.

Susan Sully has written numerous magazine articles on Southern interiors and lifestyles. She is the author of Charleston Style and Fish & Soup, both published by Rizzoli, as well as the recently published Late Bloomer's Guide to Success at Any Age.

Steven Brooke is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and winner of the AIA National Institute Honor Award for Photography. His books include Views of Rome and Views of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, both published by Rizzoli, as well as Seaside, Gardens of Florida, and The Majesty of Natchez.

John Berendt is the author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.