Built by William Williams, who would go on to become mayor of Savannah, the stately edifice was his wedding present to his bride; when Hobson found it, it was housing a real estate firm.

“I just fell in love with the building and could see right away what I wanted to do with it,” she recalled. So she bought the house and set about reroofing, rewiring and replumbing it. But she didn’t mess with its grand interior features, such as massive crystal chandeliers, marble fireplaces, carved wooden parlor arches and statuary niches in the stairwells.

Typical of downtown Savannah homes, it’s also thought to be haunted (cold drafts, lights going off and on by themselves, that sort of thing).

But the ghost hasn’t scared away any business. Occupying the building in August 2005, Savannah Day Spa now employs more than 30 specialized technicians offering assorted facials, massages, and nail and hair care — and with a clientele that’s 35 percent male.

The spa has been featured on Fox Sports Network’s “Destination Wild” and written up in Southern Living magazine. Celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez and the actress Cate Blanchett, have stopped in as customers from time to time.

“The spa has taken its own breath on,” Hobson said. “It’s become sort of a retreat.”

The mansion’s five floors approach 10,000 square feet in total, room for staff to do 20 services simultaneously in its many quiet and private rooms. The basement is given over to a “hydrolounge” featuring hot tubs. The subdued lighting, pervasive aromatherapy scents and soft, New Age-type music create a relaxed mood.

“You can’t have one without the others,” Hobson said of those sight, smell and sound elements; she even asks clients to turn off their cell phones to avoid breaking the mood.

“There’s a calmness about the place; even the employees feel it,” said Jerry Eastridge, Hobson’s assistant.

Hobson, a native of Warner Robins, has been a licensed aesthetician for 20 years and comes from a spa family: her mother, brother and sister each operate spas as far away as New Mexico. She worked for a spell in San Francisco but has spent the last eight years in Savannah (her first spa here was on Wilmington Island before she moved it to Broughton Street).

Always restless for her next challenge, she talked of adding on to her building (if the Historic Review Board will allow it) and becoming a designer and builder of spa equipment.

“I’ve always been kind of a visionary” about the spa business, Hobson said. “I am constantly looking to better it.”