The claim
A restaurant of fifteen rooms at the east end of Bay Street, on the ground where Oglethorpe's trustees planted the first public agricultural experiment in America. The house dates itself to 1753 and an inn for sailors; what the records date is the tea room Herb Traub and James Casey opened here in 1953. The house calls the Herb House in the group, of 1734, the oldest standing building in Georgia. Rum flights at the bar.
What the records show
The 1753 is the house's own, and its own history page shows how the year is reached rather than cited: Savannah had become a seaport, the Trustees' Garden was being turned into a residential quarter, and so one of the first buildings there "was naturally an inn & tavern for visiting sailors". That is an inference, and no licence, deed, directory or newspaper has been traced for an inn here in the 1750s. What is documented is either side of it. The Herb House of 1734 was built to house the gardener of the Trustees' Garden, the first public agricultural experiment in America, and is often called the oldest standing building in Georgia. The restaurant is of 1953, when Herb Traub and James Casey opened a tea room in the derelict buildings that Mary Hillyer had saved from demolition eight years earlier; the upstairs room was a jazz club in the 1990s and is now the gift shop. Question one is answered by the house itself: its FAQ says reservations are "not required, but strongly encouraged" and that it keeps a full service bar with signature drinks, rum flights and local draught beer, and it publishes a drinks list of cocktails, wines by the glass and beer. So a visitor can walk in and be served a drink; what the 1753 does not do is date that trade.
What to look for inside
- The restaurant calls the Herb House of 1734 in the same group the oldest standing building in Georgia
- Stands on the Trustees' Garden, the first public agricultural experiment garden in America
- Robert Louis Stevenson's Captain Flint is said in local tradition to have died in an upstairs room
Visiting
The Pirates' House is in Savannah, United States, at 20 East Broad Street, Savannah, Georgia. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- web.archive.org/web/2026/https://thepirateshouse.com/history/
- web.archive.org/web/2026/https://thepirateshouse.com/faq/
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates%27_House
- www.openstreetmap.org/way/1074193070
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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