Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace: Visiting the Girl Scouts' Founding Home

The Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace is Savannah's most quietly powerful house museum: the elegant Regency townhouse at 10 East Oglethorpe Avenue where the founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA was born in 1860. The short answer for visitors: it is an easy, guided-tour stop in the heart of the Historic District, open most days with tours into the afternoon (check current hours — Wednesdays run limited), owned and operated by the Girl Scouts themselves, and restored to its 1886 appearance with original family furnishings. For the millions of current and former Girl Scouts, it is a genuine pilgrimage; for everyone else, it is one of the city's best-told house tours.

TL;DR — Visiting the Birthplace

• What it is: the birthplace and childhood home of Juliette "Daisy" Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, restored to its 1886 look.
• Where: 10 E. Oglethorpe Avenue, steps from the squares — it slots into any Historic District walk.
• How: guided tours through the day, typically no reservation needed for individuals; groups and troops should book ahead. Confirm current hours and prices before you go — Wednesdays are limited.
• Who loves it: Girl Scouts past and present (bring the vest), history lovers, and fans of Savannah's historic homes.
• Pair with: the squares, the museums, and lunch from our restaurants directory.

Who Was Juliette Gordon Low?

Juliette Gordon Low — "Daisy" to her family — was born in this house on Halloween 1860, into one of Savannah's prominent families. Her path to founding a movement was anything but direct: a society upbringing, an unhappy marriage in England, substantial hearing loss, and then, in her fifties, a transformative meeting with Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the international Scouting movement. She came home to Savannah and, in March 1912, gathered the first troop of eighteen girls — and from that living-room-scale beginning grew the Girl Scouts of the USA, an organization that has since counted tens of millions of members.

What makes her story land on the tour is its stubbornness. Low founded the organization at an age and in an era when women were told their public work was finished, funded it relentlessly, and built a movement around the then-radical idea that girls should hike, camp, learn first aid and self-reliance, and run their own meetings. The house presents her as she was — artistic, eccentric, determined — rather than as a bronze saint, and the tour is better for it.

What Do You See on the Tour?

The house itself is a Regency beauty, built between 1818 and 1821 and among the earlier grand townhouses in the district. Rather than freezing at Daisy's 1860 birth, the restoration presents the home as it looked in 1886 — the year of her wedding, and the height of the Gordon family's Victorian household — furnished with a remarkable amount of original family material: portraits, furniture, and artwork including pieces by Daisy herself, who was a serious painter and sculptor. Guides walk you through the family parlors, bedrooms, and the garden, threading the house's story into Savannah's larger one.

Local note: The Birthplace is owned and operated by the Girl Scouts of the USA — one of the organization's most treasured sites. Watch a troop in uniform go through and you understand this is not just a house museum; it is an origin story being handed to its heirs, one tour at a time. The separate First Girl Scout Headquarters building, where early troops actually met, also stands in Savannah and is run by the local council.

Practical Tips for Visiting

The Birthplace runs guided tours throughout the day, generally from mid-morning to late afternoon, with the last tour shortly before closing; Wednesdays historically run a limited schedule, and hours and admission prices do change — check the official site or call before building your day around it. Individual visitors typically walk in without reservations, but Girl Scout troops, school groups, and anyone visiting in the March-to-May high season should book ahead. The tour involves stairs in a historic house; ask about accessibility accommodations when you book — and for the broader picture of getting around the district, our accessibility guide has the block-by-block reality.

Give it about an hour, plus gift-shop time — and the gift shop matters here: it stocks Girl-Scout-specific badges, patches, and memorabilia you cannot get elsewhere, which for a visiting Scout or Scout alum is the real souvenir of the trip.

How Do You Build a Day Around It?

Perfectly situated is an understatement — the house faces Oglethorpe Avenue at the top of the district, with Wright and Chippewa Squares minutes away. A natural pairing: morning tour at the Birthplace, a walk south down Bull Street through the squares (Chippewa's Forrest Gump bench site included), lunch from our brunch guide, then either more historic homes or the museums depending on the group's stamina. Families traveling with kids can fold it into our family activities guide; it is one of the district's most genuinely kid-engaging house tours, precisely because its hero founded an organization for them.

Bottom Line: Is the Birthplace Worth Visiting?

Yes — for Girl Scouts it is the trip, and for everyone else it is an hour inside one of Savannah's finest Regency houses wrapped around the origin story of an American institution founded here in 1912. Check the current hours (especially Wednesdays), book ahead for groups and spring visits, budget gift-shop time, and let the house launch a Bull Street walking day. It is the rare historic home where the history walked out the front door and changed millions of lives — and it is ten minutes from wherever you are standing in the district. Build the rest of the day with our Savannah travel guides.