180 Million Reasons to Look Closer

August 26, 2026

The first time Andy Barrow tried explaining what he was building, I didn’t completely get it. I wanted to.

I knew enough to know it sounded interesting. A replica of Forsyth Fountain. Months of work. Advanced scanning technology. Local stores beginning to carry them.

But some things are easier to understand once they’re sitting in front of you.

Then Andy sat down the box.

Suddenly this wasn’t a souvenir. It wasn’t another gift shop version of Savannah’s most photographed landmark. It was heavy, detailed, and surprisingly emotional. The tiny fence surrounding the fountain was there. The swans were there. The decorative flourishes were there. Even details most people walk past every day without noticing had somehow made the journey into miniature form.

And that is when the real story revealed itself.

Because this is not really a story about a replica. It is a story about obsession.

Like most good Savannah stories, it starts with timing. When the city removed Forsyth Fountain for its major restoration project, something extraordinary happened. For the first time in 168 years, one of Savannah’s most recognizable landmarks was completely disassembled.

Most people saw construction fencing. Andy Barrow saw opportunity.

“We knew that we wanted to do this when we came to Savannah,” he says. “But we thought it would take years to get permissions and everything.”

Then the fountain came apart. Suddenly the impossible became possible.

The restoration project gave Barrow access few people had ever received. Instead of viewing the fountain from the pathways below, he found himself climbing on it, around it, and through it, documenting every curve, every decorative flourish, and every piece of cast iron that had made the fountain a Savannah icon for generations.

“It was a once in a lifetime opportunity,” he says.

The project quickly became part preservation effort, part engineering challenge, and part love letter to the city. Barrow and his team captured approximately 11,000 photographs of the fountain. They also used LiDAR technology, a scanning process that records physical spaces through millions of highly precise measurements.

“We used cameras and we took about 11,000 photographs, but then we used LiDAR technology,” he explains. “That will scan everything and create data points in space.” The number that resulted is almost impossible to comprehend. “We have over 180,660,330 data points on the fountain.” One hundred eighty million.

Every curve. Every tier. Every decorative element. Every detail.

The work was far more difficult than simply pointing a scanner at the structure. Bright white paint reflected sunlight and complicated the scans. Different sections had to be captured at different times of day. Early versions of the project failed completely because they lacked enough information to accurately recreate the fountain.

“All of the initial ones that we made failed,” Barrow says. “We didn’t have enough data.”

The deeper they went, the more complicated the project became.

Scanning a structure is only the first step. The information then has to be transformed into a usable digital model. That process required hundreds of hours and the expertise of David “DJ” Johnson, a close friend who became a critical part of the project.

“It’s one thing to scan it,” Barrow says. “If you scan anything, it’s one layer of data thick. It looks good, but it has no structure. You have to fill in all of the structure from the back and smooth everything out.”

Between the scanning, data processing, modeling, testing, and revisions, the project consumed more than 500 hours. Yet the question driving Barrow remained surprisingly simple.

“Why hasn’t anybody ever done this before?” It is a fair question.

“You don’t go to France and not be able to take home the Eiffel Tower,” he says. “You don’t go to New York and not take home the Empire State Building.”

Yet Savannah’s most recognizable landmark had never been preserved this way.

Part of the reason is practical. The fountain was never created from a digital blueprint. It was originally assembled from countless cast pieces. Until the restoration project provided unprecedented access, there was no realistic way to document it with this level of accuracy.

The opportunity appeared. Barrow took it.

Now the results are beginning to find homes throughout Savannah. The replicas have started appearing in select local retailers, including shops like The Nested Fig and Jones & Bull. Each piece takes roughly sixty days to create.

The larger versions contain sixteen individual parts that must be assembled by hand.

“This one is twelve and a half pounds,” Barrow says as he places one into my hands. You feel it immediately.

The weight. The craftsmanship. The attention to detail.

Even the packaging feels intentional. The box incorporates artwork inspired by Forsyth Park, along with poetry commissioned specifically for the project. Nothing about it feels rushed. Nothing about it feels disposable.

It is clear this was never meant to be a quick souvenir.

Barrow’s ambitions stretch beyond the current collection. He talks about limited editions, larger versions, lighting systems, ornaments, tabletop pieces, candlesticks, serving platters, and even full–scale architectural reproductions. Because once you possess a digital file containing 180 million data points, possibilities multiply quickly.

The story is not really about a replica sitting on a shelf. It is about recognizing a fleeting opportunity and refusing to let it pass. And maybe the more impressive thing is the determination behind it.