Criminal Defense Attorney in Isle of Hope, GA.

The oldest of Georgia’s tidewater estates, Wormsloe has remained in the hands of the same family since the mid-1730s. Claimed and developed by founding Georgia colonist Noble Jones, Wormsloe has successively served as a military stronghold, plantation, country residence, farm, tourist attraction, and historic site. Nonetheless, Wormsloe’s most characteristic and defining use has been as the ancestral home of Noble Jones’s descendants.

Lying some ten miles southeast of Savannah, Wormsloe occupies the southern portion of the Isle of Hope, a peninsula four miles long and as much as a mile wide. During the colonial era Wormsloe’s strategic location made it a valuable component of Savannah’s outer defenses against Spanish attack. As a principal military officer of colonial Georgia, Jones used Wormsloe (then his leasehold) as a guard post, and his fortified tabby residence served as nucleus for a garrison of marines.

In 1756 George II of England formally granted Jones ownership of Wormsloe (originally spelled “Wormslow”). During the 1750s Jones used a small corps of enslaved people to cultivate some of his 500 acres there. His agricultural activities, limited though quite diversified, included some cotton and grains (perhaps even small quantities of rice), along with vegetables, fruits, berries (including grapes), and mulberry trees. The leaves of mulberry trees were needed as food for the silkworms that Georgia’s Trustees hoped would make the colony a supplier of silk. Though it has long been assumed that this silkworm connection explains the plantation’s unusual name, “Wormsloe” (and close variants) figures prominently as a place name in the English-Welsh borderland from which the Joneses came.

Jones also made a start with the landscaping and gardens that would later make Wormsloe a byword in the South. He cleared a wide swath of timber and undergrowth on Wormsloe’s southwestern edge to afford a view of the Bethesda orphanage, at that time Georgia’s largest and finest masonry structure.

In his will Jones directed that Wormsloe go to his son, Noble Wimberly Jones, and “his Heirs for ever.” Nonetheless, for almost six decades after Jones’s death and burial at Wormsloe in 1775, his descendants made very limited use of the estate. His daughter, Mary Jones Bulloch, had only a life interest in the estate, as well as a Savannah residence. Noble Wimberly Jones preferred to live in Savannah and elsewhere; before his death he transferred Wormsloe to his son George Jones, who also owned other residences and even turned the estate over to a lessee for a period.

George Jones built the first version of Wormsloe House, the residence that replaced two earlier Jones homes at Wormsloe. This two-story timber dwelling, built around 1830, measured twenty by forty feet and faced the water. Most significant, however, the new house appears to have kindled a love for Wormsloe and family tradition in George Jones’s heir, George Frederick Tilghman Jones.

George Frederick Tilghman Jones changed the spelling of the estate from Wormslow to Wormsloe. He transformed his own name to George Wymberley Jones before legally adding a new surname in 1866 to become G.W.J. De Renne. Incorporating the original Wormsloe House, he created a spacious three-story residence. It faced north toward the road to Savannah, below which he purchased an additional 250 acres, adding it to the Wormsloe estate. Enslaved people worked his fields for Sea Island cotton as a money crop and harvested a large variety of edible crops as well, including seafood, poultry, fruits, nuts, and vegetables.

More significant for the survival of Wormsloe was De Renne’s linkage of the estate with historical and literary publications. The first of these, a handsome reprint of a rare 1781 pamphlet credited to George Walton, appeared under the Wormsloe imprint in 1847. It created a line of books carried on by De Renne and his descendants until this day. From G.W.J. De Renne’s time also came an association of the family and the estate with collections of books and manuscripts devoted to Georgiana.

Unsurprisingly, the Civil War (1861-65) brought profound changes to Wormsloe. The De Renne family fled to various points in the Southeast and Europe, and the Confederate authorities constructed massive earthworks at the southern tip of the Isle of Hope, near the ruins of Noble Jones’s fortified residence. Federal troops later occupied the area and apparently damaged two of the houses’ marble mantels, along with other acts of vandalism. While the family was abroad during Reconstruction, Wormsloe House and its acreage were briefly leased; only in the 1870s would the house and grounds be used by the De Rennes, and then mainly as a country retreat from their Savannah mansion.

With the death of G.W.J. De Renne in 1880, Wormsloe entered a sort of limbo until De Renne’s sole surviving child, Wymberley Jones De Renne, took possession of it in 1893. He oversaw the extensive renovation and expansion of Wormsloe House, as well as numerous improvements to the grounds, which included cattle barns and a dairy operation.

In keeping with the De Renne tradition of publications, Wymberley De Renne printed books linked to Wormsloe (including an account of the Cherokee Removal written by Wilson Lumpkin), and also created a matchless collection of books and manuscripts related to Georgia history. The De Renne Georgia Library was ultimately housed in a columned fireproof building near the residence.

With Wymberley De Renne’s death in 1916, his father’s estate was finally settled, and his son, W. W. De Renne, became full owner of Wormsloe, having purchased his sisters’ shares in the family estate. The young DeRenne, with his wife, Augusta Floyd De Renne, maintained and expanded the gardens at Wormsloe, creating three interlocking formal gardens to the rear of Wormsloe House. When business reverses cost him most of his inheritance, De Renne and his wife opened the estate to visitors in 1927 as Wormsloe Gardens, a popular tourist attraction that rivaled South Carolina’s Magnolia Gardens. De Renne had mortgaged Wormsloe in 1920, and his sister, Elfrida, took up the mortgage in 1930. She leased the estate to her brother until 1938. In that year the De Rennes moved to Athens, where Wormsloe’s Georgia Library became part of the University of Georgia’s library collection.

In 1938 Elfrida De Renne Barrow and her husband, Craig Barrow, moved to Wormsloe. Stripping Wormsloe House of its Victorian additions and ornamentation, the Barrows returned the structure to its former simplicity, adding a columned two-story portico double stairs to the front entry. The gardens, also simplified, were opened once a year for various charitable causes.

Elfrida Barrow linked Wormsloe to publications more explicitly than any of her ancestors. She created the nonprofit Wormsloe Foundation, which published primary and secondary works relating to Georgia history. The first of these was Wormsloe: Two Centuries of a Georgia Family, by E. Merton Coulter. In 1961 Barrow presented the bulk of Wormsloe—750 acres—to the foundation, reserving for her family mainly Wormsloe House and about fifty acres surrounding it. The foundation’s tax-exempt Wormsloe lands were to be used for various purposes related to history, conservation, and education.

After Barrow’s death in 1970, a court case began that ultimately led to the Georgia Supreme Court’s revoking the foundation’s tax-exempt status. Consequently, its Wormsloe acreage was acquired by the Nature Conservancy in 1972 and transferred the next year to the state of Georgia. In 1979 the state opened Wormsloe Historic Site, which features a museum and walking tours. These include the ruins of Noble Jones’s fortified residence and the Jones family burial ground. Though visible from the oak avenue, Wormsloe House remains private property, still occupied by descendants of Noble Jones.

For me, one of the more difficult pandemic outcomes was not having my ‘soul-cup’ filled at art receptions and art shows. And of all the shows, the one I missed the most was the annual art fair on beautiful Isle of Hope!

So, I was delighted to learn that after a two-year hiatus, artists and island residents Holly Jaakkola and Erica Wilson are bringing back the Art and Music Festival on October 22.

Jaakkola says, “Isle of Hope is a beautiful, historic place with many talented chefs, artists, and musicians. The Festival will be a wonderful place for everyone to come together to celebrate these artisans and support the community. We are dedicating this year’s festival to longtime resident Noel Wright, and his late wife, Ruthie Wright, to honor their dedication to the Isle of Hope community.”

Work by 90 artists and makers will be displayed in designated show areas around the Marina and Pavilion, Rose Avenue, Bluff Drive, and Paxton Park, while local musicians will perform on the stage at the Marina. The 3rd Infantry Division Army Brass Band kicks off the day followed by the Savannah Philharmonic, Anders Thompson Trio, Isaac Smith Band, Voo Doo Soup and Monkey Man.

Food trucks include The 5 Spot, The Big Cheese, Dark-Shark Taco Attack, Bayou Cafe, Ark Royal, Down South Cheesesteaks, Tier One Nutrition, Kona Ice and Ben & Jerry’s, while Mathnasium, the Art Bus, and Glitterboxx Studios will be on hand for younger visitors. A fun and creative day for the whole family is planned thanks to Jaakkola and Wilson’s leadership, and the help of many volunteers.

But back to the art! As in years past, the show includes woodturnings by the patriarch of the Bluff, Noel Wright; Chris Roberts’ quirky folk art and clothing; Frond and Fern’s object d’art and paintings by husband wife team Biza and Chad Mabry; Becca Slipper’s ceramics and paintings; and Heather Lindsay Stewart’s simple, yet stunning jewelry. These are just a very, very few of my favorites. It’s honestly all a bit overwhelming for art lovers! How to choose who to write about? In the end, I decide to focus on just two of the many artists creating on the island – ceramicist Carol Lasell Miller and illustrator Lindy Burnett.

Former graphic artist and event coordinator for the City of Savannah’s Public Information Office, Lasell Miller paints highly realistic acrylic portraits of Savannah characters. The pinnacle of her painting career was her 2017 solo exhibition, “Low Country Callings.”

Two years in the making, it showed at Savannah’s Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum and featured men and women who make their living on the water.

When I visit her home studio however, it is not to discuss paintings, but to look at the fabulous ceramic pieces she sculpts with the same exacting precision employed in her portraiture. Lasell Miller enrolled in her first clay class with the City’s Cultural Arts Center in early 2000: “There’s just something cathartic about it. You forget everything and play. One day, we were getting ready to close and I had a little bit of clay left. And I made an octopus.”

Today, the artist has a whole collection of strangely beautiful octopi, many of them transformed into serving platters, candelabras, or soap dishes, with tentacles and suckers rendered in amazing detail and realistic textures. Lasell Miller has taken sculpture, wheel, and hand building ceramic classes with the City and, as part of those classes, was taught glazing. She now uses her own colorful glazes, painting her bisque-fired pieces at home, before transporting them back to the Cultural Arts Center for a final firing.

Octopus dish by Lasell Miller

We discuss her fun Covid octopi, first created during lockdown; shrimp and dolphin whistles; hand-built lambs and pigs; elegant carved pieces made in collaboration with her Cultural Arts teacher Cameron Frost; and oyster shells with images of the little boys and girls who worked at Bluffton’s Van & Platt Canning Company at the turn of the century.

Famed photographer Lewis Wickes Hine took images of these young shuckers in 1910 as part of his documentation of child labor on behalf of the National Child Labor Committee. At seven years of age, in her second year as a shucker, Rosie Berdych was one of several children he photographed. That image, submitted into the public record, helped enact child labor laws in the early 1920’s. Lasell Miller pays homage to these children with a stunning, museum-worthy piece called “Dozen on the Half Shell.”

Literally a few doors away from this talented painter and ceramicist is the airy, open plan home of newly arrived Isle of Hope resident Lindy Burnett, her husband Rob, who captains a boat on the nearby intercoastal, and orange tabby cat, Mango.

Burnett grew up in Europe, the daughter of a pacifist chaplain in the US Army.

“We didn’t have much money. We camped everywhere on vacation and went to every dang museum.” She attended Macon’s Wesleyan College, but it was not until “years later,” she says, “when I KNEW I had to be an artist, I went to Portfolio School in Atlanta.”

That schooling laid the foundation for a highly successful career as a professional illustrator for high-end advertising campaigns for such companies as Kellogg’s, Budweiser, and the High Museum.

Burnett’s painting of Isle of Hope, made when she first moved there three years ago, on an easel in her home studio

“Being an illustrator is a lovely life,” she tells me. Her national rep. made all business contacts and contracts, and she was free to be creative. One of the highlights of her career was illustrating The Book of Wizard Craft – a whimsical, happy, Harry Potter-like children’s book of white magic which sold immensely well.

A small-scale version of Burnett’s last commission, an 18-foot mural to be installed in the pedestrian walkway of an Atlanta company housed in Peachtree Tower, lies on the dining room table. But the days of commissions are almost behind her, and we step into her custom designed, sun-filled art studio to look at current work. Inspiring images from other artists she has found on Pinterest and Instagram are pinned to bulletin boards. And everywhere are the pastel, tropical colors she favors in her own work: “I’m so into pink right now!” she laughs.

The artist says that the change from a busy, lucrative, career to that of fine artist was a slow and intimidating process. Acclaimed Savannah-based artist and illustrator, Katherine Sandoz, graciously mentors Burnett in a volunteer capacity, giving her the guidance and confidence to make the transition. “And finally, one morning,” she says, “ I started creating and it was fun again. Now, I would rather paint than eat. Rob and I never argue because Lindy is happy!”

An 18x24 painting on chipboard by Burnett

Looking like collages, Burnett’s playful paintings of marshes, foliage and landscapes are created with water-soluble gouache applied straight onto chipboard. She is slowly moving into a less illustrative and more abstract style which, for her, is a giant, exciting breakthrough.

“This is what I want to do. I want to paint on a much bigger scale and keep it simple.” Her work is clearly loosening up now that she no longer has the size and subject constraints of her former career.

Come see for yourself next weekend at the Isle of Hope Art Show where Burnett will sell prints and original paintings. Follow her on Instagram @lindyburnett80. And Lasell Miller will show paintings and hand-built ceramics, along with boatbuilder husband Frank’s mugs and cups. Reach her at frankandcarolmiller@gmail.com.

Isle of Hope Art Show hours are 10 to 5pm, and Isle of Hope Music Festival hours are 10 to 8pm on Saturday, October 22, 2022. Admission is free to the public. More information at iohartmusicfest.com. Proceeds donated to Isle of Hope Historical Association dedicated to collecting and presenting the island’s history, building community spirit, and spearheading the initiative to preserve the historic character of the Bluff area by seeking a Local Historic District designation.

For Do Savannah

One late fall morning in 1972, Mitch Kolbe sat in geometry class. His teacher lectured on the formula for calculating slope as Kolbe’s gaze wandered out the window. It rested on the rise of a nearby chimney where he soon found himself absorbed in the color and texture of brick steadily rising one atop another. When the teacher called his attention back to class, he demanded what was so important beyond the window.

Earnestly, Kolbe replied, “I was thinking about how I would paint the slope of the chimney out there.”

Soon after, Kolbe’s geometry teacher mentored him in applying for the national merit art scholarship. After winning the prestigious award, Kolbe left rural North Carolina for art school in New York City where he grew and thrived but remained a country boy at heart.

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He enjoyed creating landscapes and painting en plein air, and in the intervening years after art school, Kolbe’s plein air paintings emerged as his signature style.

This Friday, Savannah celebrates some of Kolbe’s nature-inspired art with “Wild Ponies of Cumberland Island,” an exhibit that chronicles a day-in-the-life of some of Georgia’s most special barrier island horses. The show opens Friday and runs through Dec. 23 at Plant Riverside’s Grand Bohemian Gallery.

The idea for the paintings came about in 2006 when Kolbe went on a 10-day boat trip with longtime artist friend, Tom Sadler. Sadler had purchased a 26-foot sailboat and wanted to take it from Isle of Hope near Savannah to Titusville, Fla. The friends decided to do the adventure together and paint the barrier islands along the way. They stayed only a day at each island, painting and taking photos as reference for future works.

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When they arrived at Cumberland Island, they were greeted with a pleasant surprise.

“After we gathered our art supplies and ventured ashore, right away a mare and stallion ambled by us and then just stood there as if posing for us to paint them. The painting in this show entitled 'Beachcomber' is the result of that encounter, painted on location while the mare just stared off into the distance.”

The origin of Cumberland Island’s horses is a bit unclear.

According to the National Park Service, “a few horses were probably brought to Cumberland as livestock when Spanish missions were established in the late 1500s although evidence is scarce.” 1742, however, does mark the earliest documented occurrence of horses — as many as 60 animals were noted during a battle between the Spanish and English for control of the island.

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By the early 1800s, at least 200 horses were there as by then multiple plantations were also on the island. Flash-forward to the 1880s and the beginning of the Carnegie family compound then into the mid-20th century, a couple hundred horses were regularly rotated on and off the island. But after the Carnegies left, fewer and fewer people lived on Cumberland, so that what horses remained became free ranging.

By 1972 when the island was designated a National Seashore, all horses were feral.

Currently, as many as 200 of them live unmanaged on Cumberland Island. Whether or not these animals are more closely related to older Spanish horse bloodlines, horses as an introduced species have been on Cumberland for at least 270 years.

“I hope these paintings spark conversations about the conservation of these beautiful animals,” mused Kolbe.

“Cumberland Island has the only feral herd on the Atlantic coast that is not managed. There’s no veterinary care or population control, and they exist as truly wild free animals surviving in nature. For this exhibit, I’m a plein air journalist of sorts reporting on the ponies and hoping to get people thinking and talking about how these creatures live.”

IF YOU GO

What: “Wild Ponies of Cumberland Island”

Where: Grand Bohemian Gallery, Plant Riverside, 400 W. River St.

When: Artist Reception, Friday, November 25, 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.; Exhibit run through Dec. 23.

Info: plantriverside.com/venues/grand-bohemian-gallery/

​​​​​​​Please find schedules below for school-based open house events.

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The Astronaut Club at Isle of Hope K-8 School earned the gold medal for the Landing Challenge and were named national champions at the National Student Astronaut Challenge Finals earlier this month at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The competition was held Feb. 3-7.

In the past three years, this was the club’s highest finish. The students also earned the bronze medal for the Space Shuttle Simulator Challenge, according to the press release from the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System. Overall, the 2019 team finished third place overall (in all four challenges), fifth in design, and ninth in engineering, according to an email from Carolyn Rethwisch, Isle of Hope sixth-grade math teacher and head coach of the Astronaut Club.

The students had qualified for the competition with their third-place finish at a run-off last fall to select the 15 best teams from across the U.S. to compete at nationals.

The students spent that time from last fall to the early part of this year practicing 12 to 18 hours a week, including weekends, to prepare for the four challenges they would face over the competition, the press release stated. The four challenges included a Design Challenge, Engineering Challenge, Space Shuttle Atlantis Simulator Challenge, and a Landing Challenge.

The 2019-20 Astronaut Club is coached by Bob and Carol Nickels, Barbara Serianni, assistant education department professor at Georgia Southern University, and Rethwisch who founded the club in 2016.

The Nickels’ daughter, Robbie Lynn, is married to Commander Robert Shane Kimbrough, who was part of the team aboard ISS missions 49 and 50 for NASA, according to the release. The following organizations helped offset the team’s expenses: Bobcat of Savannah in Pooler, The Rotary Club of Skidaway Island, and Isle of Hope Parent Teacher Association.

The challenges

For the Landing Challenge, six of the members of the team who participated in this challenge had to land the shuttle. They were randomly selected for each portion of the challenge -- meaning all six participants had to know how to both land the craft in multiple scenarios, as well as communicate how to land the craft to their teammates.

The Space Shuttle Atlantis Simulator Challenge included a pre-launch checklist, launch into orbit, de-orbiting procedures, and landing at a designated location, according to the release. In preparation, students had to learn the schematics of the Shuttle, as well as the layout of the controls in the cockpit. They had to collaborate strategically to isolate problems and repair them, all while flying the Shuttle.

For the Design Challenge, students Chyler Ross, Megan Nguyen, Aisha Rhenals, Ally Arnsdorff, Cameron Huggins, Kelli Singleton, LaMyla Hill, David Washington, Lee Puckett and Alli Piatt researched the injuries sustained by astronauts. They interviewed experts in the field, including engineers and Kimbrough, wrote a research paper on their findings, created a slideshow, and built the prototype.

“Cameron and LaMyla (both eighth-graders) have been on the team for the past three years,” Rethwisch wrote in an email. “They were both part of last year's second-place team.”

For the Engineering Challenge, students were divided into a mission control team and a team aboard the Space Lab on the ISS, according to the release. There were four components that had to be completed: lack of technology for communication/relay between team members; broken circuits that had to be fixed where one team had the circuits and another team had the directions, computation of Ohm’s Law; and the ability to analyze the problem, design a solution, and understand (in that scenario) whether the problem had truly been corrected.

The Isle of Hope students are no strangers to placing high in this competition. In 2018, the students walked away with two second-place awards for both the Shuttle Simulator and the Landing challenges with only one point separating the Isle of Hope team from first place award in the Landing Challenge. The Isle of Hope students also received the first-ever Apollo 13 Flight Team Award. The school’s team finished second in 2017.