This house is jacked … literally

ENGLEWOOD — A little home on Grove City's New Jersey Avenue holds a century's worth of Englewood and familial history inside.

Preserving it for centuries more has been on the radar for owner Patti Weghorst.

Architecturally, the home is irrevocably "Old Florida" with a light blue coating of paint, and a bungalow style layout. It's a representation of the Cracker Cowboy lifestyle during the 20th century, when Floridians were finding their way in a seemingly prehistoric climate.

"It was built in 1922," Weghorst said. "The gentleman that owned this house was a contractor, and owned all this piece of property."

Weghorst said that the house was used by the Presbyterian Community Church for its first service in Englewood during the 1920s.

"For about 18 to 20 years, it sat empty until the previous owner fixed it up, and then moved back to Arkansas," she said. "My husband and I purchased this in 2002."

The home has survived hurricanes: One in the 1920s, Donna in 1960 and Ian in 2022. To help beef up the historical home, Weghorst employed Warren Davie's Davie Shoring Home Elevation Experts.

"We're putting a brand new foundation, so the house has been there a long, long time, and we're kind of preserving it," Davie said.

Davie's crew used a unified hydraulic lifting system to jack the house up similar to a car where they added the main beams and cross beams.

"The house was out of level about three-and-a-half inches just over time since the 1920s," he said. "We're gonna do a new foundation around the outside, solid block wall, and then we're gonna set it back down at the new height, so it's gonna come down about five inches from where it is."

The increased height will help protect Weghorst's home from flooding, especially, but Davie is particularly excited about preserving a historical home.

"It kind of resonates with people because you elevate a home, you preserve it, especially historical homes, instead of tearing it down," he said. "We like Miss Patti to stay here."

For the past 22 years, Weghorst has made the home her own with her husband, children and grandchildren. Generationally, the home is well-used and loved.

"My husband passed away 18 years ago, but I've been living here ever since," she said. "I know everyone in this community."

Weghorst's daughter lives just around the corner from her, and her grandkids spent a lot of time growing up in the house.

"I took care of my grandkids because my daughter went to school, and so they dropped them off," she said. "I've got an area where they marked their height, and we used to have 'Grammy Camp' in the summer."

For Weghorst, it's about showing people that they don't have to tear down their historical homes.

"People don't know that they can do this to fix them and to repair them," she said. "There's getting to be fewer and fewer of these older houses left."

Davie said that the process from start to finish should take around a month.

"I'm so excited to feel safe in my house," Weghorst said.