625 East Broad Street

This property was built in 1896 by Anna Caroline Matilda Goetke Hientz.  She was a German immigrant who inherited a saloon from her first husband Charles Goetke.  Matilda sold the saloon and used the profits to invest in Savannah real estate building three identical Victorian double houses here along East Broad and Nichols. Returning to Germany after the turn of the century, she left the houses in the care of property managers.  During World War 1 and World War II the properties were seized by the US government and never returned to her family.  The properties began a steep decline over the subsequent 50 years.  HSF saved the house from demolition in 2017 and sold the property to a preservation-minded buyer who completed an award-winning restoration in 2021.