By Tandy Versyp
“My sister was about seven and mentally younger, and my brother was two years younger,” recalls Margaret Hale-Parker as she sips from her Diet Coke, or as she calls it, her diabetes drink. “Well, anyway, somebody had told them about a lake. They thought there was a lake here.” She rolls her eyes. “They left 56th Street where we lived to find this lake and ended up in the Starland neighborhood.”
Hale-Parker was born on Feb. 8, 1934 at St. Joseph’s and was raised in Savannah. “So I’m old,” she laughs. “Growing up, the Starland District was very ordinary. The building that was there was a dairy, Starland Dairy. That’s how it became the Starland District. When I was little, it was just very ordinary people and ordinary kinds of homes.”
Today, the Starland District doesn’t look ordinary. Located between Bull and Whitaker, it centers on the Starland Lofts. Designed by John Deaderick and Greg Jacobs, two SCAD alumni, the lofts are modern but inviting. Windows make up most of the walls, giving the lofts a newer look, unlike many of the Victorian houses in the surrounding neighborhood.
“When I was a teenager, there was a soda shop on Bull Street in that area. There was also a bakery named Bart’s,” Hale-Parker remembers.
Today, there is something similar on the corner of Bull and 40th: Back in the Day Bakery. Mindy Gorman, a SCAD alumna, works behind the counter pouring coffee, grabbing cupcakes and making chitchat with the many customers that frequent the bakery. As Nick Lowe’s “Cruel to be Kind” plays over Back in the Day’s speakers, Gorman smiles. “We talk a lot with the customers and end up getting to find out what they do. We have a lot of painters that come in here.”
On the other side of the lofts sits TruSpace Gallery. It is next door to Desoto Row Gallery on Desoto Avenue. Robert Wilson, the owner of TruSpace, tells the story of why he began his gallery. “The truth is that I bought a really tiny house when I moved here. My partner and I needed more space because I started getting all this photo equipment. He started getting mad at me for having it in the living room, so I went to find a studio and found this space. And it turned out to be a nice place to have a gallery.”
Wilson was the vice president creative director of Macy’s in New York before coming to Savannah. “I was just in the business for 25 years, and I needed a break!” He is currently working on his MFA in photography at SCAD.
Wilson begins pointing through the wide windows at other galleries and studios along the avenue, stopping on Desoto Row Gallery. “Desoto Row was kind of defunct for the longest time. They were $3,000 in back rent, but now they have a new board, which happens to be all SCAD students. It was never a non-profit organization, but now they are applying for their non-profit status. It’s kind of the corner stone of everything that happens in the art world in this area.”
Wilson points to the window across the street. “One of Kelley’s paintings was just in an exhibit in the Louvre.” Pat Kelley, an abstract expressionist painter, sits inside the glass of his studio, staring at his work-in-progress.
Kelley, a retired teacher, looks suspiciously at me after I enter his studio. “This is just the beginning of this painting. It’s just not very far along and I have no idea where it’s going. I’m not sure I’m going for anything in particular. I just know when I’ve arrived. My painting is very much an organic process.”
He has galleries in Boca Raton, Beverly Hills, Scottsdale, Arizona, and Cleveland. “Since my son-in-law, daughter and grandchildren were here, we moved here. I’ve had this studio for about two years now. I like it here. It’s relatively quiet and I can work and not be disturbed by someone coming in for an interview.” He stares at me for a few seconds before cracking up. “Just kidding.”
Everyone in Starland is very welcoming. “More artists should move down here. There’s a lot of great space down here. It’s really nice. There are several spaces here that would be nice galleries. There’s also a new music venue going in next to the nasty liquor store,” he laughs. The liquor store is quite nasty.
The area still needs work, but things are shaping up. Gorman talks as she puts together take-away boxes. “I have seen the artist community grow, especially out here in the Starland. Everything is moving out this way and developing more. It’s getting better.”
