The Builder: Perfect Balance
Jim Turner did not grow up in Savannah, Ga., but this picturesque Southern city has proven a hospitable environment for him to grow a business. Before joining a former fraternity brother to found a construction company here in 1976, he says, “I was actually working for a bank in Macon, Ga. On a whim, I came over here. We started doing a lot of restoration and renovation work in the downtown area, where nobody else wanted to do it.” Today, J.T. Turner Construction provides 45 employees with steady work, in part due to a Savannah construction market that is as comfortable as the city’s climate.
“We don’t have a whole lot of hills, and we don’t have a whole lot of valleys,” says Turner, who bought out his partner in 1981. But that has not stopped him from balancing his business to respond to minor fluctuations in demand. “We do residential and commercial, new as well as restoration work in the historic district,” Turner says, and that diversified approach has paid off. “In Savannah, the commercial market is slow right now. So without having to reinvent the wheel, we just shifted our efforts to the residential side.”
“They sort of feed off each other,” says Turner, who cross-trains his crews in commercial and residential practices. Whatever balance the market determines, however, Turner limits his custom home jobs to a manageable five or six per year. Before accepting one of these technically demanding and service-intensive projects, he says, “we just like to make sure the fit is there.”
Interior details are elegantly spare. Walls, floors, and cabinet fronts are simple planes ordered by narrow reveals and free of applied trim. Natural materials—Brazilian cherry floors, beech cabinetry and wall panels—add warmth while remaining discreetly in the background. A ceiling surfaced with painted 1×1 slats in a washboard pattern drops down to subtly define the kitchen and dining area. This stylistic restraint, along with a careful filtering out of any sign of the neighboring houses, builds on the sense of quiet and privacy. Now that the house is completed, that is. During construction, a constant stream of curious neighbors trolled by to gawk at that local rarity, a real Modernist house.
“There are not a lot of those in Savannah,” explains custom builder Jim Turner, whose residential work generally follows a more traditionalist track. The novelty attracted Turner, too, as did the technical challenge. “When we first looked at it, it intrigued us,” he says. Responsibility for building the house fell to superintendent Tony Miller, whose experience in commercial construction only partly prepared him for the hide-nothing aesthetic of this project. “In every process, the steps you would do would be a little different,” he says, “even down to setting the doors.” A second-floor corridor wall made up largely of cabinetry and interior windows required that Miller set the doors before the wall itself was in place. “You don’t put trim in before the Sheetrock. You put that in afterwards,” he jokes. But his pride in the finished product is unmistakable. “This was a once-in-a-lifetime job for me.”
As it must have been for Robinson. An architect’s first house comes along only once, after all, and he pulled this one off in fine form. For his part, the architect gives credit to the client. “He was challenging. He had enough knowledge to be dangerous,” Robinson says. But the father, who had made his own career resurrecting historic structures, followed the son’s lead to a very different kind of building. “I think the project stretched him, and I was amazed at the way he allowed himself to be stretched,” Robinson says. “There was a pretty significant leap of faith, which I appreciated.”
Project Credits: Builder: J.T. Turner Construction, Savannah, Ga.; Architect: Eric S. Robinson, Oakland, Calif.; Living space: 4,200 square feet; Site: 0.25 acres; Construction cost: withheld; Photographer: Richard Leo Johnson.
Resources: Bathroom plumbing fixtures: Kohler; Bathroom plumbing fittings: Dornbracht, and Grohe ; Dishwasher/oven/refrigerator: General Electric; Fireplace: Majestic; Flooring: Ann Sacks, and Mannington; Hardware: Schlage; Kitchen plumbing fixtures/fittings: Grohe; Security system: Ademco.
