Green Cove's Night Out Is Moving Into Its Oldest Houses

On Thursday, Oct. 29, a group of local women performed Ghosts of Green Cove's Past for a sold-out crowd. Each one played the spirit of a person or place from the city's history. Clay Today reported that Village Improvement Association President Larianne Stutts wrote and directed the show. It raised money for the Rivers House.

Two stories from that night are worth keeping. Former Mayor Felecia Hampshire played the "milk lady" and told how Frank and Agnus Gustafson, known as Ma and Pa Gus, bought their first cow, Buttercup. From their home on Walnut Street they made dairy products for their six children, for neighbors, and for the Qui-Si-Sana and Magnolia hotels. Preservation Society Treasurer Sandra Dunnavant closed the show as Priscilla, the ghost of the Rivers House.

Both houses are now being restored, and both are being turned into evening gathering places for downtown. The Rivers House is the one that is already doing it. Its interior is still waiting on money, and it hosts events anyway. The Gustafson house will reopen as a restaurant next year.

The Rivers House is in use while the work continues

The house at 219 Spring St. was built in the early 1880s as Spring Cottage, an extra lodge for the Oakland Hotel when Green Cove's hotel business was at its height. Later it became the home of attorney and judge Thomas Judson Rivers, who also performed weddings there. The city bought the house in 2020, and it now carries the name Heritage and Adventure Center.

The restoration is being done in stages:

1. Phase 1, finished by the city. New siding, structural repairs to the deck, and removal of a 1930s addition that couldn't be saved, according to Clay Today's July coverage.
2. Phase 2, underway now. Interior work. All proceeds from the Oct. 29 show went toward it.

Meanwhile, the house is hosting events. It held a PorchFest concert in the summer. The Green Cove Springs Preservation Society also runs historic walking and architectural tours, exhibits and educational programs as part of its effort to bring the house back. At the Oct. 20 City Council meeting, a Society representative thanked the city for its support and gave an update on progress. Council Member Glee Glisson asked whether grants were available. The representative said the State Preservation Board offers grants but that they can be hard to get, according to the city's meeting recap.

With grants hard to get, events pay for the work. The house raises money for its own interior by holding events on its own porch.

Porch-O-Kee gets its second date

The next event at the house is one that rain postponed. The Preservation Society describes Porch-O-Kee as an evening of music where the audience cheers on the singers, with proceeds going to the Rivers House restoration. It was scheduled for Oct. 9 and was rained out. The new date is Friday, Nov. 20, from 7 to 9 p.m. at 219 Spring St., and tickets bought for the original date will be honored. Vice Mayor Cheri Starnes promoted the new date from the dais at the Oct. 20 council meeting.

The Society is also behind an event on Walnut Street a week earlier. Green Cove at One Table is set for Friday, Nov. 13, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. along Walnut Street. Admission is free. Guests can bring a lunch or buy one from a local restaurant. City Council approved the event 5-0 on Oct. 20. The Society sponsors it as a community meal for the Thanksgiving season, meant to bring people together and keep local stories and traditions alive.

The Gustafson house is on a longer schedule

A few blocks away, the restaurant that Ghosts of Green Cove's Past mentioned is still under construction. The Gustafsons' small home dairy grew into Gustafson Farms, one of the largest family-owned dairy distributors in the Southeast. After the family sold the Walnut Street house, it stood empty for 59 years. Clay Today reported that developers had talked about tearing it down.

Brian and Jennifer Knight bought it instead. Brian Knight founded Pragmatic Works, and the couple grew up in Green Cove Springs. They started renovating in January. In a July interview with Clay Today, Jennifer Knight described the decision to save the house this way:

"It was in really bad shape, and it would have been easier to demolish and start from scratch than it was to bring it back."

The house will reopen as The Gustafson Restaurant, an upscale Florida-style restaurant. Clay Today's Nov. 5 report put the planned opening in "March of next year," which means March 2027. Here is what the owners have described so far:

• Two floors. Casual dining downstairs and a more formal experience upstairs.
• Original pieces kept. Some of the brick interior and some of the original doors, windows and flooring.
• New additions. An elevator, a wine room, a bar, an outdoor patio and a private dining room.
• The kitchen. Chef Cody Herman, whom the owners describe as Michelin-rated, is coming home to Green Cove to cook a locally sourced menu.
• The builder. R. Hartwig Construction. Bobby Hartwig told Clay Today that people who remember Ma and Pa Gus and Buttercup often stop by the site to share stories.

"This will be like fine dining restaurants. Which we don't have in Clay County, really," Brian Knight told Clay Today.

Springside is built to keep downtown busy at night

The restaurant is the first piece of a larger plan. Its goal is the same one the Preservation Society's evening events serve. The Knights plan to open Springside on Walnut Street in 2027, modeled on St. Augustine's St. George Street. It will have a pedestrian walkway lined by five new restaurants, including Italian and Southern ones, plus space for an ice cream shop, a spa and a food hall. The Gustafson house will anchor the complex.

Brian Knight explained the reason in the same Clay Today story: "We wanted to find a way to create a destination place as Green Cove at 8 [p.m.] is pretty quiet." The Knights also said they want to make room for more small, family-run businesses.

Both houses come from the same period of Green Cove history. Spring Cottage housed hotel guests, and the Gustafsons' dairy supplied the hotels with milk. The Clay Theatre on Walnut Street went through the same kind of reuse earlier. It opened as a movie theater in 1937 and now hosts weddings and special events in its restored building. City Hall stands where the four-story Clarendon Hotel opened beside the spring in 1871 and where the Qui-Si-Sana was built after a fire in 1900. Downtown's new restaurants and gathering spaces are going into buildings from that era.

The calendar until the Gustafson opens

Until the restaurant opens, Spring Park and the streets around it are where downtown's events happen. Here is the schedule on the city calendar and the Preservation Society's site for the rest of this year:

Two listings this season go past 8 p.m. Christmas on Walnut Street runs from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Porch-O-Kee runs until 9 p.m. on the Rivers House porch, where the money from its tickets goes toward the interior. The porch also hosts Cocoa and Carols on Dec. 11, with carolers from around town singing from 6 to 8 p.m. Ticket details and updates on the next restoration phase are on gcspreservationsociety.com.

For more on the city beyond its downtown calendar, see our Green Cove Springs neighborhood page and our look at what this year's home prices in Green Cove Springs are signaling.

If you own an older home near Spring Park and would like to know how its history and location might shape a sale, Tara Belanger is glad to walk through it with you, from the house to the street it sits on. Let's Connect.