Tag Archives: The Moviegoer

New Story: Part Two–River House Apartments/Riverside House/Rochester House

Click below for this week’s story, or navigate the city through the search bar or the direction buttons at the top of the page:

The only remaining hotel from when Jax was “Winter City in Summer Land,” it survives because it shipped on a barge up the river. The nephew of Walter Percy, the great Southern novelist, a cardiologist, has called the old hotel home for 40 years. Few neighbors have spoken with him, but they hear him play the piano. If this house played some small part in Mary Todd Lincoln’s losing her mind, Rachel recalls it as the house of love, art, warmth and creativity. 

New Story: Part One–River House Apartments/Riverside House/Rochester House

Click below for this week’s story, or navigate the city through the search bar or the direction buttons at the top of the page:

Mary Todd Lincoln stayed in this Riverside house when it was located in Brooklyn and called Rochester House. After four months, she fled Jacksonville in the midst of a nervous breakdown. It’s one of the oldest houses in the neighborhood and the last of the hotels from the city’s Victorian tourist age. The nephew of a great Southern novelist has lived here for 40 years. Rachel remembers fondly her very own “River House ghost story.” Click below for part one of the story.