A Celebration
of
Imperfection WRITTEN BY KELLY ODEN • PHOTOGRAPHY BY GUY STEVENS
E
IGHT YEARS AGO, local artist and hair stylist James Amerson and his husband, kitchen designer Jeff Griffey, purchased an Old East Hill home that would have scared most buyers away. In fact, it actually did. “Our realtor told us that a couple had looked at it earlier and the wife broke into tears and locked herself in the car because it was so horrifying inside,” Amerson recalled. As veteran remodelers themselves, Amerson and Griffey weren’t scared away by the condition of the old home. “There was a hole in the roof in the kitchen which had damaged all the horsehair plaster,” Amerson said. “The house was crammed with stuff. There were three generations worth of the previous family’s belongings stored here. There were literally
paths in between the stuff to get from room to room. The house had been vacant for over 30 years. The utilities had been off for some time, so the stuff that was stored inside had started to break down and fall apart. There were some cargo boxes that had melted into the hardwood floors. But underneath all that ugliness was this amazing house. We could see that.” Built in 1867, right after the Civil War, the original owner was William Davidson and his wife, Janie. Davidson lived in the home for more than 50 years—many of them on his own after Janie passed away. Amerson did his research and discovered that Davidson was originally from Virginia. He had trained at Harvard and was invited to become the head of the quarantine station for NAS Pensacola.
Davidson was also a civil engineer and he helped to plot some of the neighborhoods located in East Hill. “When he died, he left the house to Janie’s daughter from a previous marriage and she willed it to the Baptist Church on Palafox Street,” Amerson explained. “Ironically, my good friend’s father was a realtor back in 1969 and he flipped homes. He bought this house, remodeled it and sold it. My friend remembers being a kid running through this house when his dad was redoing it.” At just under 2,000 square feet, the home has a simple, farmhouse vernacular feel, but it was certainly built to last. “You could see the quality of this house immediately,” Amerson explained. “Even after being left alone for 30 years, it still withstood all of the elements that it was exposed to. PENSACOLA MAGAZINE | 31
