New Resident Profile Series

Name: David and Laura Byres, and their children Alec and Sarah.

Age: 51, 48, 14, and 12.

Status: Married

Location: E. 3^rdStreet

Occupation: David is a Biology professor at FSCJ and Laura owns Yard Chicks Inc, a landscape design business.

Fun Fact: David and Laura met in Fiji, while in the Peace Core.

Q: What brought you to the Springfield Historic District? 

David: We moved to Jacksonville from Gainesville in 1993 after I received a job offer for a tenured professorship. We were looking for houses in Jacksonville but we didn’t have much time, and our realtor was showing us a number new subdivisions on the outskirts of Jacksonville. I remember being shown Julington Creek and thinking that the houses were just dreadful.  Not my taste at all, and that they had just bulldozed a forest to build them.

Read more: Springfield Residents The Byres and The Shockeys

"How lovely are the portals of the night, when the stars come out to watch the daylight die" - Thomas Cole (1801-1848)

The Springfield Historic District takes on a decidedly different look once the sun goes down. Grand, glowing showpieces, forbidding, ghostly relics, and growing nightlife make the District quite an interesting muse. But one that many haven't explored . . . .

So what do you get when you combine one bike, one camera, and one sucker willing to stay up way past his bedtime ?  

150+ photos of the after-dark sights to be seen, for better or worse. 

And here's what I found: More glowing orbs than I've ever seen in my life, quiet streets with an occasional passer by, late night front porch conversations,        a handful of curious people, a few stray dogs and loiterers,   two police officers making sure I wasn't up to something fishy, and one jerk who yelled at me out of his passenger's side window.

Oh, and all this stuff:

Residential

Read more: The District At Night

Less than a year after opening the Laura Street Community Garden to rave reviews, waiting lists, and a Mayoral award, Amanda Searle and Ray Beeson have bigger things in mind.  

Much bigger. 

Read more: Introducing Sustainable Springfield

Long Time Resident Profile Series 

Read more: Springfield Residents Carlon Robinson and Rogue

Long-time Resident Profile Series

Name: Cathy Campbell and her son, Ian Campbell.

Age: Cathy is 50 years old. Ian is 13 ½  years old.

Status: Divorced

Location: Laura Street

Occupation: Cathy is an Accountant. Ian is a student at The Greenwood School.

Fun Fact:  Ian’s cousin, Mike Campbell, is the lead guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.  Which means that, when Ian attends a concert, he gets to go backstage and hang with the band.

Q: What brought you to Springfield ?

A: I moved to Jacksonville in 1985, from the Florida Panhandle. I was raised on the beaches of Panama City, and then went off to school at Florida State in Tallahassee. I moved to Jacksonville because my aunt lived here, in Riverside, and she had a nice couch for me to sleep on until I found a job. My aunt and I both loved historic neighborhoods, so we enjoyed spending the weekends driving around those areas in Jacksonville. That’s when I found Springfield, prior to it becoming a National Historic District.

It was really scary then. We would drive through the neighborhood and marvel at the houses, but at the same time I couldn’t gather up the courage to move here. But I met a woman named Joyce Holbrook one day, a true neighborhood pioneer, and she convinced me that it didn’t hurt looking. Just looking, I told myself. Obviously I did more than just look, though. I bought my house in 1989 for 29k.

Q: What were some of your challenges or concerns at that time?

A: Just getting into to look at houses was challenge. First of all, everything was cash deal. No financing was available. Second, you needed to bring a crow bar, flashlight, and a dog to look at a house – so many were boarded up and abandoned with who knows what living in there.

Read more: Springfield Residents The Campbells and The Cudds

New Resident Profile Series

Name: Will Toraason & Jamie Ferguson

Age: 33 & 31 respectively

Status: Dating / Committed relationship

Location: Pearl Street

Occupation: Will is a Naval Flight Officer and Jamie is a Management Consultant.

Fun Fact: This couple has a need…..a need for speed, that can only be quenched by riding high performance motorcycles.

Q: What brought you to Springfield?

Will: The internet! I was stationed in Japan at the time, and searching online for a house in Jacksonville. Wait - let back track a little.

I was stationed in Jacksonville previously, and had lived in a few different areas of town. I like original neighborhoods, but so much of Jacksonville is track housing and strip malls. I knew I wanted something different. So while I was in Japan, I searched online for something that fit my taste. I found the old SPAR internet forum by chance and really liked what I found. Neighbors having fun together, working together and actually helping each other. I loved it.  So when I returned to Jacksonville, I knew where I wanted to be.

Unfortunately my realtor at the time didn’t see it the same way. She resisted even showing me houses in the neighborhood and insisted I look in Avondale and San Marco. Those are nice neighborhoods, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. So I dropped her and went through one of the local realtors that knew the area well enough to give me an educated opinion.

Jamie: When Will told me about the neighborhood he found, I thought he was crazy. He kept on saying how cool it was, but I had reservations. I have friends that had some bad experiences in the neighborhood, 10 years ago or so, so I wasn’t really excited about the idea. But I decided to let him try and convince me. Besides, I don’t necessarily like cookie-cutter neighborhoods ether. They can be too impersonal.

Read more: Springfield Residents Michael Trautmann and Will Toraason & Jamie Ferguson