This massive house celebrates the business success of Savannah native George Johnson Baldwin, a capitalist and civic leader. Graduated from MIT in 1877, Baldwin began as a chemist, but worked in many companies, especially Stone and Webster of Boston, Massachusetts, a firm of electrical engineers, financiers, and managers of street railway and public utilities companies. Although Baldwin led street railway and electric lighting companies in a number of cities (Savannah and Columbus, Georgia; Jacksonville, Key West, Pensacola, and Tampa, Florida; and Houston, Texas), he was always active in Savannah’s civic and philanthropic concerns. One’s wealth determined the scale and degree of ornamentation received; Baldwin brought Preston to Savannah from Boston and stamped the city with Richardsonian Romanesque hard-pressed red brick arches and Queen Anne-style terra-cotta ornament.