Former names Mercer House Owner Dorothy Kingery Phone +1 912-236-6352 Architect John S. Norris | Completed 1868 Opened 1868 Construction started 1860 | |
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Location Savannah, Georgia, United States Address 429 Bull St, Savannah, GA 31401, USA Similar Savannah Historic District, Owens‑Thomas House, Monterey Square, Forsyth Park, Congregation Mickve Israel | ||
The Mercer House, now called the Mercer-Williams House Museum, is located at 429 Bull Street and stands at the southwest end of Monterey Square, in Savannah, Georgia. The house was the scene of the shooting death of Jim Williams' assistant, Danny Hansford, a story that is retold in the 1994 John Berendt book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The house is currently owned by Dorothy Kingery, Williams' sister, and is open to the public for tours.
History
Designed by John S. Norris for General Hugh Weedon Mercer (great-grandfather of the songwriter Johnny Mercer) construction of the house began in 1860. Construction was interrupted by the American Civil War, and finally completed around 1868 by the new owner, John Wilder.
For a period in the twentieth century, the building was used as the Savannah Shriners Alee Temple. It then lay vacant for a decade until in 1969 when Jim Williams, one of Savannah’s earliest and most dedicated private restorationists, bought the house and restored it.
Before Hansford's death, as retold in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the house had already been the scene of two deaths. In 1913 a previous owner tripped over the second floor banister, fractured his hip, and suffered a concussion, dying three days later. In 1969, a boy chasing pigeons on the roof fell over the edge and impaled himself on the iron fence below.
A full exterior replica of the Mercer House was constructed in Decatur, Georgia.