
Photo by Bryan Stovall

Photo by Bryan Stovall


Photo by Bryan Stovall
HISTORIC TAX CREDITS
aDAM sTRAIN bUILDING AND OLD dARIEN bANK
DARIEN, GA
Built ca 1815 on the banks of the Darien River in downtown Darien, Georgia, the Adam Strain Building is one of the last intact tabby structures in coastal Georgia. It was also one of the only buildings to survive the Burning of Darien during the Civil War. The building utilized a method of construction developed in McIntosh County by Thomas Spalding. Oyster shell tabby buildings gained popularity along the southeastern coast in the nineteenth century.
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Long abandoned, the Strain Building was purchased in 2020 as part of a sale that included the neighboring one story building built ca 1889 known as the Old Darien Bank. The sale came on the heels of a demolition order for fears of collapse. Necessitating significant measures to achieve stabilization, the project took 4 years to complete. Ultimately, a new structural diaphragm in steel was inserted into the Strain Building to ensure the weight of the floors, building systems, and occupants did not bear on the adjacent tabby walls. Historic material was retrained wherever possible with new tabby mixed according to historic methods where needed. Today the building houses the Tabby House Brewery and Museum.
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Contributing resources in the West Darien National Register Historic District, the project utilized the State Historic Tax Credit, State Tax Freeze, and Federal Historic Tax Credit. The project was the recipient of a 2025 AIA Savannah Award.
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Project Team: Landmark Preservation, Saussy Engineering, GEL Engineering, Bennett Preservation Engineering, Method Engineering, Lominack Kolman Smith Architects, Ethos Preservation