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“The back yard was an absolute mess when we moved in. We actually didn’t know how large the lot was when we bought the house,” recalls homeowner Daniel Ashworth. “We went out with a weed trimmer and found the back corners of the yard, which were a lot further back than we thought. Three of the large live oak trees in the back yard were overgrown with creeping fig, so we cut that off and dug all the runners out of the ground. Some of them were as large as four inches in diameter. We have big plans for the back yard including a 16-by-16-foot deck with a pergola and benches immediately behind the house, a loop walkway around the back yard with a couple of benches in the shade of the live oaks, and more naturalistic plantings around the existing oaks and sabal palms.”

That’s a lot of yard work, for sure. Good thing Daniel is a landscape architect and urban designer and wife Tonya is a horticulture extension agent for the University of Florida IFAS Duval County Extension office. Both know quite a bit about getting their hands dirty in the soil. The couple have been married for nearly 23 years and have a 9-year-old daughter, Nyssa. Adding to the family is a sevenyear-old Spaniel mix, Petals. They moved here in 2020 to their first home in Jacksonville.

Like many homes in the neighborhood, there is some confusion about when the home was actually built. Prior owners have said it dates back to 1907. “That is where we have landed as well, based on the documented build dates of the homes surrounding us and the fact that the home still had iron pipes in the attic for gas lighting, something that was typical before 1910 when mass electrical distribution was available to Jacksonville residents,” says Daniel. “Our home is one of the few remaining American Foursquares in the neighborhood, built in the frame vernacular, Colonial Revival tradition. It is a plainer style of home than the more prevalent Victorians in Springfield, but it still has Doric porch columns, leaded glass front windows, four decorative fireplace mantles, original window and door trim, decorative stairwell balustrade, and most of the original doors with historic hardware.”

The home was originally built for the Walton family, and often was referred to as the Walton House. Later, Prescott M. Burroughs, who owned Duval Laundry Company, bought the house from the Waltons for his new wife. A survey drawing blueprint from the 1930s for Burroughs is on display in the home. As is common in the neighborhood, the house has taken many shapes.

For a time, the house was split into a duplex with upstairs and downstairs units. Even after it became a single-unit home again, the living room used to be more enclosed before recent renovations. “There were once pocket doors that separated the current living room from the current dining room,” says Daniel. “There were also two Doric columns between the current living room and the front door foyer, and a portal door with decorative pilasters leading to the current dining room from the front door foyer. All these were removed in the last renovation, done before we bought the house.”

A couple of stories the Ashworth’s have been told by neighbors and prior owners concern the old dining room, which is now used as the guest bedroom. The mantle in that room has a lockable cabinet above the fireplace to keep brandy warm, and to keep hired staff out of it. At one time there was also a button in the floor where the lady of the house sat at the dining table. The button allowed her to alert kitchen staff that it was time for the next course of the meal.

Most of the labor Daniel and Tonya have spent on the property has been in the yard, especially the front. Inspired by forecourt gardens in Charleston and Savannah, Daniel redesigned the front yard with brick paver walkways, a white picket fence, and replaced all the old grass with new shrub and perennial plantings. Since Jacksonville is considered the southern end of the Lowcountry, the couple thought this would be an appropriate treatment for the front yard. Aside from the pavers and fence installation, they did all the work in the yard—including painting the fence white, scraping the old grass off and tilling and amending the soil by hand with shovels. Oh, and then the new landscape needed to be planted. *