Savannah Indoor Activities

In 1820, an upwardly mobile carpenter named Isaiah Davenport designed a 6,800-square-foot Federal-style home to live in with his wife, children, and slaves. After his death, Davenport’s wife turned the stately brick house into a boarding house, though it later devolved into a run-down tenement—until the Historic Savannah Foundation saved the landmark when it was threatened with demolition in 1955. The organization’s award-winning preservation, their very first effort, jumpstarted an organized preservation movement that spread across the entire port city.

Today, the Davenport House Museum’s rooms are filled with antique furniture from the 1820s, acquired after careful research relying on estate inventories and detailed artist renderings of long-ago games of musical chairs. These period-accurate tables and chairs join ceramics, textiles, and books to form the museum’s collection of about 500 historical items. Behind the home, where a carriage house, garden, and privy once stood, a garden designed by renowned landscape artist Penelope Hobhouse flourishes. After walking among its flowers, visitors can drop by the museum shop to pick up jams and jellies, books about Savannah, and reproductions of early 19th-century items.

The turrets of Star Castle climb high above Mall Boulevard, its drawbridge lowered to lead visitors into to a grand hall filled with treasure and adventure. Inside the 28,000-square-foot entertainment stronghold, children glide across a solid-wood skating surface, rolling around to top-40 hits and classic tunes spun by a resident DJ. Coats of arms and archways surround the rink and lead to other fun-filled chambers, including a video arcade where guests can test their skills on games both nostalgic and new and redeem tickets for prizes or sew them into giant ticket sweaters. As if that wasn't enough, the castle also contains a 4,000-square-foot laser-tag arena, where future knights engage in simulated battles beset by black lights and fog, all under the supervision of an arena attendant and any friends or family members who wish to watch from the spectator room.

The opening scene of Forrest Gump follows a feather as it floats above Savannah's rooftops, a view seen from the Sorrel-Weed House, where the scene was filmed. Completed between 1839 and 1840, the now-iconic building was distinguished as a state landmark in 1954—only the second house in Georgia to receive that honor. Today, during historic tours, guests patter down the same corridors where onetime houseguest General Robert E. Lee once practiced hacky sack, or track spirits during ghostly explorations of the home's creepy quarters. Southern history pervades each visit as guests catch glimpses of the house’s antique decor and Greek revival architecture.

Anyone active in Savannah’s theatre community in the 70s and 80s would likely have encountered Tom Coleman III, a director who began his career at the Savannah Young People’s Theatre. He produced and directed more than 200 shows in the ensuing 35 years, culminating in the founding of the Savannah Community Theatre. The company often produces shows by local playwrights, along with a weekly, pirate-themed murder mystery dinner show.

YogiVeda founder Carrie Wandall, who studied yoga and Ayurvedic therapy as a child, creates a community where students can plumb Eastern and Western traditions to treat the mind and body. During sessions in the signature yoga style Carrie created, Nataraja Vinyasa, instructors incorporate moments of meditation into a dynamic sequence of physically challenging postures. Outside of the practice room, the studio’s staff also promotes holistic health by proffering alternative treatment options, such as reiki energy therapy and soothing aromatherapy with essential oils harvested from beloved teddy bears.

In 2012, Park Plaza Cinema made the conversion from reel to digital projectors, which WTOC chronicled locally. "It's a sad day. It's a historical day," Lucie Mann, who owns the theater with her husband, Larry, told WTOC. The digital conversion has not been the only upgrade at Park Plaza. The new Parlez-Vous Lounge and Ciné-Café invites guests to relax on its cushy benches or barstools for housemade ice cream or gourmet pizza or wings. Select beers and wines are also available. Along with its regular rotation of Hollywood blockbusters, family films, and arthouse cinema, the theater also organizes movie clubs and hosts a weekly movie-discussion group with a film critic.