The Landings Association 50th Anniversary 

I have enjoyed interviewing several of our longer-term residents during this year of celebration of the 50^th anniversary of The Landings. Recently, someone told me about a person just down the street from me, who is a real Landings treasure.

Sonja Byrd (pictured at left) is originally from Savannah, growing up on DeRenne Avenue, which was a dirt road at the time. There were five houses between Skidaway Road and White Bluff Road. It was white sand and a real struggle to ride her Schwinn bike on it. There was an area that had cows (she thinks part of Starland Dairies) where the Fairway Oaks area is now. She tells of a giant hole that became filled with water, and they swam in it, even though her mother was very afraid for the children to do so. Sonja said one day, her brother surfaced from under the water, with mud all over him (sounds to me like Creature from the Black Lagoon!). She said it upset her mother greatly, and she took a switch to him. Sonja also lived in South Carolina for awhile. She told me she was named after Sonja Henie, the Norwegian Olympic skater. She had dimples as a baby, and when the doctor handed her to her mother, her mother said she looked just like Sonja Henie. Then Sonja looked at me and said, “but I don’t skate”.  Her parents owned Warren Exterminating, which was one of only two exterminating companies in Savannah at the time. Her father sold the company to Mrs. Yates (so it is now Yates-Astro). 

Her second husband, Benjamin Tillman “Cookie” Byrd, was the former owner of the Byrd Cookie Company (second generation). She tells the story of Mr. Byrd, Sr., who lived in South Carolina. His uncle had a small grocery store here, so Mr. Byrd moved to Savannah and met Mrs. Byrd. They lived on Norwood, and had a big garden and a cow. Sonja’s husband said as a boy, they were never hungry but he got tired of eating dried beans. Mr. Byrd, Sr. worked for Derst Baking Company, and Saturday was their big delivery day. He wanted to join the Seventh Day Adventist church, which held worship on Saturdays. So he wanted Saturdays off, but the company said no. So, he went back to see his mother in South Carolina and learned how to make oatmeal cookies. He’d drive around in his Model T truck and sell them. That was the beginning of the famous Savannah cookies.

Sonja’s husband was in the Flying Tigers in World War II. They flew over the Himalayas (“the Hump”) without maps or knowing the true height of the mountains, to bring supplies to China, which was barricaded by Russia and Japan. Growing up, her husband swam in the Moon River Creek and knew the Mercer (yes, Johnny Mercer) family. 

They built the first house on Ward Lane in 1978. They paid $16,000 for their lot. Building had to be accomplished via a generator, as there was no electricity on the island yet.  At the time of the building, of course, there was only the drawbridge. She said when they went into town, you didn’t see another car coming or going. If they did end up passing somebody, each car’s driver would roll their window down and wave. Sonja reported that people were upset when reading in the Savannah Morning News that the sales tax would be raised one cent to pay for the road and the bridge. Sonja said she was after her husband to buy one or two water lots (they were $25,000), but he said he didn’t really know where the island was going longer term, so he didn’t want to.  She said, “He bought a Corvette instead.”

When The Village came, she said she was hoping for shops, shoes, and clothing.  She said “instead, we got five banks!” There was one ladies’ clothing store there at one time, but it didn’t last.  Early on, Landings Harbor was there, but there were no boats yet in the marina.  Sonja’s husband had a yacht in Thunderbolt. The Landings told him “if you bring it here, we will give you free docking for one year.”  Their Club number was 3, and they paid $25 a month in dues.  She said the last time she used it in one of the restaurants, the waiter couldn’t figure out if it was a real number. He went off to the computer, came back, and apologized.

Sonja’s current home is the pink Queen Anne style on Priest Landing Drive near Landings Harbor. That lot was $50,000 at the time. This is her second home in The Landings, and she has lived in it for 22 years. Her husband drew up the plans with his uncle.  She loves having the woods behind her and told me that she has a sign out back that says “Byrds of Paradise.”

It was such fun talking with Sonja, and she left me with two great quotes:

• “I swell with pride that I’m 85, and people say I look 45.”
• “I don’t have a fax, cell phone, or email.  I have a life.”  (Love it!)

Karen Dove Barr (shown at left) and her husband purchased their lot on Brisbane Court in Tower Point in 1985. They initially rented in the “historic part of the community”, The Settlement (the townhomes on Dame Kathryn Drive), while they were building their house. At the time, Tower Point was just opening up, and there was a road going through their lot. Karen said there was a plan to have condos near the Marsh Tower. Since there was no ocean view, the expansive view of the marsh would have been desirable. Luckily, that did not occur. She had lived in Savannah for a while, and neighbors from Windsor Forest had moved here. She recalls that there were more oaks in Tower Point than pine trees. When the footings for their house were dug, pieces of blue and white pottery were found.

At that time, Landings Way South was a dirt road. Midpoint had been started, as well as the golf course. There was a huge sawdust pile in Oakridge, where the Union Camp logging camp was located. This area was where Log Landing Road is now. Although kids were told not to ride their bikes on this road because it could get internally hot and have a spot where it might cave in, they still did, riding around the loggers’ cabins in the area. Karen remembers an abandoned 1940’s Army surplus jeep (jeeps were useful for driving around on the rough roads), which had a tree growing up through it.

Prior to the drawbridge being built, Skidaway was only accessible by boat. Karen tells of people rowing over to the north end of the island from Burnt Pot Island, to hunt. She shared that the Roeblings (who had a cattle farm where the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography now is) had horse-mounted guards, to try to prohibit the practice. There also were rumors that, due to the isolation, possibly Skidaway had been used for the witness protection program.

More people moved to the community, and Oakridge and Deer Creek brought about big changes. When the Fitness Center was built, the belief was that older people would not use it, but she said they definitely did. There were two treadmills, and people lined up to use them. Karen said, “there were some aerobic exercises, with people fighting when others jumped the line.”  She went in the evenings, and it was a great place to meet people. The Fitness Center also had some free weights, a stair master, and energy drinks and bars. Karen recalls that the early Village had the Smith Brothers grocery, the pharmacy, and travel agency. There was no Lake Street at that time.

The current, large bridge took four-to-five years to build. The approaches were first cleared, and concrete pylons were put in. They built from each side, and when it came time to connect in the middle, it wasn’t right, so re-work had to be done. At the time, the entrance to Butter Bean Beach was made larger. Karen remembers crabbing on the Moon River Bridge. She believes that granite was hauled in to build the Causeway, as well as dirt used from dredging. McWhorter Drive was woods all the way down, on the north end of the island. The Oceanography Institute planted rows of pine trees in the 1990s. They have now grown together into a forest, so the rows are not as obvious. In some areas, Union Camp wanted to clear the oaks and plant pines. However, the size and strength of the oaks made it prohibitive to try to cut them down, so the company circled them with saws, to let them die. Some did not, and you could see the circle scars.

Karen believes The Landings may have been modeled after Amelia Island, in wanting to preserve some sense of a maritime forest. There were restrictions on having large lawns with just grass. She wrote nature articles for the TWATL for 20 years. She also has written three books, including the most recent Burnt Pot Island, which is an historical fiction about early life on Skidaway Island. She shared the story that the Oakridge Fitness Center had a 5K Run, which she tried out, prompting her first book, Running Through Menopause.

Karen was a delight to talk to, as she shared her stories of early life in The Landings.

Recently, I talked to Larry Fall (pictured at left), who worked for The Landings Club for many years and is now retired. He has seen the evolution of The Landings over the years and happily shared some of his memories. For more interesting information about The Landings’ 50-year history and the people who helped shape it, please visit www.landings.org/50th.

Larry Fall is another great source of interesting information about The Landings in years past. He spent 50 years in the building trade, including owning his own hardware store, Savannah Brass, which dealt in Baldwin and Schlage handles, knobs, and locks.

He recalls when there was lots of building going on in The Landings, contractors would refer their customers to him. He would meet with clients to determine what type of door hardware they needed. He then would key all the locks according to their desires, label everything, and turn all items over to the builder for installation during construction. Larry’s customers found this personal attention very helpful. Not only did the personal attention draw them, but his store also sold unique items such as Baldwin candlesticks, trivets, and weathervanes, and was conveniently located next to an alterations store. One day a customer was getting alterations, saw items in his store’s window, and came in and said, “I have a wedding coming up, and candlesticks would make a great gift!”

When Home Depot took over as a Baldwin and Schlage distributor, Larry started working at The Landings Club in their engineering area. He was involved with the community in general, such as the time a few years ago when a major water main broke on Landings Way South, and he helped other staff with setting up cones and barriers and diverting traffic.

He remembers watching from the boat ramp of Butter Bean Beach the new, fixed bridge being built. It was a good change from the drawbridge, which too frequently got stuck and involved delays anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours. Larry recalls working on days when the bridge would get stuck.

 “After work, we would either go back to work or have a cocktail at The Village Bar,” he said. 

Larry also was involved with Skidaway Audubon and building birdhouses for the Bluebird Trail. Continuing with bird involvement, he helped build a nest for the eagles/ospreys, which others then hoisted up in the original tree used by The Landings Bird Cam. He described the nest as a 5- foot by 5-foot box, with a screen meshing underneath.

Larry was a member of the Club’s Emergency Response Team, which included activating during a hurricane. His team came back to the island first until they could establish it was safe for members to return to the island. Upon their return, the minute they crossed the bridge, they would help with cutting and clearing trees, to get down the roads. Tractors were used to push trees off Green Island Road. Larry recalls even helping people tarp their roofs.

Over the past five years, Larry has been involved with the fourth of July fireworks show, the PGA Korn Ferry tour golf tournament (now the Club Car Championship), the Savannah Challenger professional tennis tournament, and other events, all of which bring the community together as participants or spectators.

Who is the reigning “Adam and Eve” on this island of Eden we callThe Landings? Here’s a clue: This couple has lived here longer than any of their more than 8,000 neighbors and have a dozen descendants now living in the community, including three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

The answer is Bill and Peggy Foster, who bought Lot #242 in the fall of 1972, and moved into their beautiful home on Romerly Marsh two and a half years later. Theirs was the 25th home built in The Landings, and their Landings Club membership card carries an enviably low number, having been acquired on the first day memberships were offered.

Bill and Peggy are Savannah natives who married in 1954 and raised their two children, Linda and Bill, Jr., on Isle of Hope before the bridge to Skidaway was built. Bill spent his career as a Civil Engineer, joining the firm of Thomas & Hutton (T&H) in 1952. T&H was founded in 1946 and had successfully engineered a variety of small and large-scale communities along the Southeast coast, making them a natural for helping to solve the formidable challenges of low land elevations, bogs, and upland marshes that characterize Skidaway Island. By 1972, Bill had become a partner in the firm and was chosen to lead T&H’s civil engineering team on The Landings project.

He immediately became an integral part of the planning group, a team that included Harvey Branigar, Hideo Sasaki (founder of the world-renowned land planning firm Sasaki Associates), and others from Sasaki and The Branigar Organization’s Forward Planning Department. That collaborative effort began in 1969 and continued at an intense pace until the community opened for sale in September of 1972. Bill and T&H, of course, continued their involvement in engineering the streets, lagoons, drainage, and utility systems over the next 25 years of development in Marshwood, Oakridge, and Deer Creek.

Bill was enthused about The Landings before the first road was paved and brought his family out to spend an afternoon walking lots that, although platted, had not yet been developed. He hesitated on buying Lot #242, until another prospect expressed interest, and a classic case of “fear of loss” motivated a quick signing of the purchase contract. The family immediately set out to clear the lot and plan their home and have never looked back on that decision!

The Foster’s early life on Skidaway was that of pioneers. There were no streetlights, no Marinas, just one gate, and a plethora of wild deer, hogs, and turkeys roaming the property. Indeed, one of those turkeys took an ownership attitude toward Landings Way North that inspired the street name Mad Turkey Crossing!

The meager population of the early years also led to a close sense of community. Everyone was invited to house parties, covered dish suppers were held at the Marsh Tower, and mothers of the few Landings’ children attending public school shared carpool duty to get the kids to a bus stop at the Bethesda Gate, the closest school buses were willing to come at that time.

Affable but decisive by nature, Bill took a quick hand in helping to bring organization to the community. He served on the first Landings Association Board in 1974 and as the Association’s President in 1985. He helped organize the island fire department, and both he and Bill, Jr. volunteered as firefighters. Bill also helped the Island Community Church acquire land and build the first church on the island.

The Foster name has been affiliated with the community for all its 50 years and will likely continue appearing in our annual residential directory for many, many years to come.

We couldn’t have been blessed with a better Adam and Eve!

#CheersTo50Years!

Bill and Peggy Foster have lived here longer than any other Landings owner, but they were not the first to move into the community. That distinction belongs to Elbert and Helen Little, who bought their lot in 1972, built their own home at 4 Tything Man Lane, and moved into it in 1973, claiming Club Membership #14! 

Branigar honored this singular place in the community’s history by inviting Elbert and Helen to cut the ribbon at the Grand Opening of the 1,831 acre Plantation/Palmetto section of The Landings in 1980.

Elbert, known to his friends as Dixie (the name he put on his golf cart), was in reality a Yankee, born in Brooklyn. His wife, Helen, was born in Connecticut. They met and married in 1939 and the 1940 census lists his occupation as “salesman” and Helen’s as “nutritionist” in a school cafeteria. But by August of 1941, Dixie had enlisted in the Army and when war broke out three months later, he found himself fighting in the Pacific Theater. Although he was discharged when the war ended in 1946, he re-enlisted in 1950 and spent the next two years fighting in Korea, where he rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel. (This long exposure to Asian culture seemed to rub off on the couple and the furniture, fabrics, art, and curios they acquired for their homes had a distinct Asian character.)

Although Dixie took a financial management job in New York when he was discharged from the Army, he decided to pursue a career as a builder and for reasons unknown, picked Savannah as the perfect place to begin. Dixie moved the family south in 1956, enrolled his son and namesake Elbert, Jr. (known as Buck) in Benedictine Military Academy (at that time located on Bull Street) and began restoring old, and building new, homes throughout the city. Before moving to The Landings, the Little family lived in a home Dixie had built on Althea Parkway in Kensington Park. His biggest project was developing Meridian Drive in Oakdale, an area off Waters Avenue, south of DeRenne and north of Eisenhower. 

At The Landings, Dixie and Helen enjoyed golf and boating. (They kept a boat named Blue Chip at Landings Harbor.) The family were communicants at St. James and Dixie was a member of The Knights of Columbus. Elbert, Jr. (Buck) was their only child. He was Captain of the football team at BC and like his dad, had a strong sense of duty to his country, serving as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. Tragically, Buck died of leukemia in 1980 at the age of 37, two years before Dixie died, and six before Helen passed. But Buck had two children and they offered the most important tribute any grandparent can receive: “They were always kind and loving for the short time we had them in our lives.” May we all be remembered that way.

It was my privilege and good fortune to know Will and Chris Persons (pictured at right), who moved to The Landings in 1979 and spent the next 26 years on Skidaway Island. Married for 69 years and dying in their late-90s, just one year apart, they were a couple well matched and well met. The Persons were a classic example of opposites attracting. Will was open, friendly, and ever-ready to help, but reserved. Chris was outgoing, exuberant, energetic, with an unforgettable voice resembling Carol Channing’s.

Will came from a distinguished family. His father, Wilton “Jerry” Persons served in WW I and WW II and rose to become White House Chief of Staff to President Eisenhower from 1958 to President Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961. His uncle, Gordon Persons, was Governor of Alabama from 1951 to 1955.

Will Jr., followed in his father’s footsteps, serving in WW II, Korea, and Vietnam – – what military insiders recognize as “having perfect attendance”.  He graduated from West Point in 1946 and cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1954. His military career lasted 36 years and he retired as a Major General after serving four years as the Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army.

Will served as president of The Landings Association; assistant chief and later Board President of the Skidaway Island Division of the Southside Fire Department; commodore of the Skidaway Island Yacht Club (Chris and Will loved sailing in their boat, La Boheme); chair of  Allocations at the United Way of the Coastal Empire; charter member and board member of the Savannah South Rotary Club; vice president of the Savannah Symphony; president of the Skidaway Marine Science Foundation; volunteer guide and wildlife interpreter with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and first president of the Residents Council at The Marshes of Skidaway Island.

Chris, born in Tuscaloosa in 1924, also led a life of service. Before meeting Will, she joined the Women’s Army Corp and served in WW II. After marrying, she proved an exemplary Army wife traveling to various assignments throughout the world for the next 33 years. In Savannah, she volunteered at Safe Shelter, Hospice House, and tutored reading in public school.

But her strongest claim to celebrity came when a group of Landings residents formed an all-female group called the “Hot Flashes” that performed tap-dancing routines at Landings events and brought welcomed entertainment to nursing homes, senior centers, and hospitals throughout the city.

Chris was known for her glamorous wardrobe, snazzy shoes, and jewelry. She loved cats and dogs and was an inveterate reader. The last line of her obituary sums up her larger-than-life personality: If heaven features a bar, Christine will be found there savoring a Maker’s Mark Manhattan.

Will and Chris Persons, a couple who made a difference in The Landings and throughout their lives together.