Mercer House

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For the house in North Omaha, see Dr. Samuel D. Mercer House

The Mercer House.

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. ^[1]

[edit] Architecture and Significance

It was designed by New York architect John S. Norris for General Hugh Weedon Mercer, great-grandfather of Johnny Mercer, the songwriter. Construction of the house began in 1860, 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, Jim Williams, one of Savannah’s earliest and most dedicated private restorationists, bought the house and restored it.

Mercer House was the scene of the shooting death of Williams' assistant, Danny Hansford, a story that is retold in the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. The house had already been the scene of two deaths before Hansford's. In 1913 a previous owner tripped over the second floor banister, fractured his hip and suffered a concussion, dying 3 days later. In 1964, a boy chasing pigeons on the roof fell over the edge and impaled himself on the iron fence below.

The house is currently owned by Dorothy Kingery, Williams' sister, and is open to the public.