Ashantilly is a historic house built by

Thomas Spalding Thomas Spalding (March 25, 1774 – January 4, 1851) was a United States representative from Georgia. He was born in Frederica, Georgia, St. Simons Island, Glynn County, Georgia. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1795, but did not ...

north of

Darien, Georgia Darien () is a city in and the county seat of McIntosh County, Georgia, United States. It lies on Georgia's coast at the mouth of the Altamaha River, approximately south of Savannah, and is part of the Brunswick, Georgia metropolitan statist ...

. The house is made out of

tabby A tabby cat, or simply tabby, is any domestic cat (''Felis catus'') with a coat pattern distinguished by an M-shaped marking on its forehead, stripes by its eyes and across its cheeks, along its back, around its legs and tail, and characteris ...

and is also called Old Tabby. The house was named after

Ashintully Castle Ashintully Castle, located near Kirkmichael, north of Blairgowrie, in the county of Perthshire Scotland, was built in 1583 as a fortified tower house by the Spalding family; the Feudal Barons of Ashintully. The Spalding Barons were chiefs of th ...

, an ancestral home in

Perthshire Perthshire (Scottish English, locally: ; ), officially the County of Perth, is a Shires of Scotland, historic county and registration county in central Scotland. Geographically it extends from Strathmore, Angus and Perth & Kinross, Strathmore ...

, Scotland. The construction probably took two or three years and was finished by 1820.''Ashantilly and the Haynes Family'', leaflet available at the house, dated May 2002 Spalding was a businessman in Darien and inherited property from his mother, Margery McIntosh. He was the owner of the

Sapelo Island Sapelo Island is a state-protected barrier island located in McIntosh County, Georgia. The island is accessible only by boat; the primary ferry comes from the Sapelo Island Visitors Center in McIntosh County, Georgia, a seven-mile (11 ...

Plantation. The Wilcox family bought Ashantilly in 1870 and they made several changes to the house, removing classical columns and marble flagging. The Haynes family moved to the house in 1918. In 1937 the house was gutted by a fire. Restoration of the house started in 1939, using period pieces salvaged in Savannah and Charleston. William Greaner Haynes, Jr. (1908–2001), in 1954, started a

private press Private press publishing, with respect to books, is an endeavor performed by craft-based expert or aspiring artisans, either amateur or professional, who, among other things, print and build books, typically by hand, with emphasis on Book design ...

, the Ashantilly Press, and a building for printing was built on the property. The family donated the property to the Ashantilly Center (a non-profit organization) in 1993. Ashantilly was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on August 25, 2015.

References

External links

*
Ashantilly Center website
* McIntosh County, Georgia Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Georgia (U.S. state) National Register of Historic Places in McIntosh County, Georgia Tabby buildings {{McIntoshCountyGA-NRHP-stub