He moved his Columbus flower shop to make a dream come to life. Here’s an inside look.

Ghost stories. Overgrown gardens. Antebellum homes.

For a seasoned traveler those words may be more likely to evoke images of Savannah or New Orleans, but for David Benefield, it’s a historic home in Columbus, Georgia, that comes to mind.

Located just west of Lakebottom Park in midtown, Highland Hall has sat for over 160 years, housing generations of families and making its way onto the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Benefield, a florist, purchased it last July with a unique vision in mind.

By day the original one-story, front portion of the house serves as the flower shop, named “David Benefield at Highland Hall,” with parlors and a dining room filled with seasonal florals and decor.

“I think (the house) shows off the product beautifully: I think you can see how the flowers would look in your home,” Benefield said.

After-hours, he shuts the front doors, and the place becomes home.

A two-story rear addition, added in the early 1900s, serves as both workshop and living space for Benefield.

“I can work until whatever time I want to, I can take a break and go watch a movie in the back room or have a shower and eat something and come back to work if I want to,” he said. “And if I’ve got a project going on sometimes I’m up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. to get it done and it’s easy, I don’t have to drive across town.”

At 1504 17th Street, the house is located half a mile south of the former Ann’s Porch Florist, where Benefield started working in 1985.

He bought the business from owner Ann Johnston in 2000 and operated in the St. Elmo shopping center until last summer, when he made the move he dreamed about for 34 years.

“I’ve always sort of wanted to live above the store. Even on the park, I daydreamed about ‘living above the store’...and this space really worked. I love this old house,” Benefield said.

Benefield hosts dinner parties for friends at night and gardening clubs by day, providing Columbus residents with floral arrangements for weddings, funerals, holidays and every occasion in between.

At night he turns on all of the lights and lets the windows of the house glow like luminaries, attracting glances of passersby.

Though he was unsure about the move and the loss of the connection to Ann’s Porch, Benefield said the past year has gone better than he could have imagined.

“It’s been very well received by everybody. I think people know this house; they may not know a lot about it, but they’ve seen it,” he said. “And they know Ann’s Porch and the people down there at St. Elmo have been so kind, and if people show up down there they send them over.”

Benefield said he still has more work to do on the house, mainly on landscaping and the garden. Highland Hall employee and neighbor Joseph McArdle did the majority of the renovations to the structure, which was most recently owned by local artist Gloria Mani.

Benefield said he hopes he sets a trend of renovating older homes to be used as businesses.

“Why not preserve these beautiful old houses, to use them to do things like that,” he said. “To imagine that these floors are 161 years old...that’s a lot of people have walked over these floors.”

Along with being enamored by the beauty of the Greek revival home, Benefield also enjoys telling stories of the first owner, Mr. Ellis, who is rumored to have hid gold on what was then 10 acres of surrounding property. Benefield said he haunts the home to this day.

“I’ve been digging in the yard every day and haven’t found anything,” Benefield said.

Benefield’s real love though is for midtown, which is evident in his decision to not only spend 34 years working as a florist near Lakebottom but in his decision to move to another midtown location to continue the legacy of his business.

Midtown is defined as six square miles with 10th Avenue on the west, Talbotton/Warm Springs Road on the north, I-185 on the east and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on the south.

As far as Benefield knows, he’s the first in midtown to “live above the shop.”

“Downtown there is places where you can live above the store, but this is the first I think for midtown. I hope it will be a trend,” Benefield said. “It was kind of one of those things that took a minute to get done, had to get it rezoned and it had to be rezoned correctly, but it was worth it.”

And he can’t imagine living, or working, anywhere else.

“The first time I came to Columbus, Georgia, I rode down by the park and said this is where I want to live,” Benefield said. “And so my first rental house was there and I bought several houses along the midtown neighborhood in my 34 years. I think this is home now. I think this is where I’ll stay.”

This story was originally published August 30, 2019 at 3:51 PM.