Bank president, art collector, bibliophile, and French immigrant, Alexander Smets commissioned this austere cubic house as Jones Street was developing into a street of elegant homes. Although the channeled masonry signifies that the ground floor is to be understood as a basement, the front door opens at grade, unlike most other grand houses. A writer for the Southern Literary Messenger, assessing Smet’s extensive and famous collection of rare books held within this house, observed that “the first emotion on entering and casting the eye around upon the magnificent display of the ample shelves, is that of surprise, that the visitor has not before heard of so extensive and luxurious a collection.” The pyramidal roof is capped by a tall cupola accessed by a freestanding spiral stair. The doors were modified in 1879 when the building housed Savannah’s first Jewish social club, the Harmonie Club, whose monogram is etched in the glass. The Smets House was acquired by SCAD in 1988.