One of Savannah’s most celebrated buildings, primarily because of its association with the colorful and notorious Jim Williams (whose story was recounted by John Berendt in his 1994 book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), the Mercer House is also renowned for its connection with songwriter Johnny Mercer (who never lived here), the best-known descendant of Confederate general Hugh Mercer. Apart from these associations, it stands as Norris’s final work in Savannah, before he left the South for New York City on the eve of the Civil War. Left unfinished, the house was completed after the war under the supervision of the Savannah firm of Muller and Bruyn and John R. Wilder. The Mercer House is similar to the Andrew Low House (8.14), another of Norris’s trust-lot mansions. Both houses are set back far from the street, with heavy cornices, semibasements that sit in moatlike wells, and double porches extending across the back. The Mercer House has a larger setback and overall size; it also differs in its more exuberant expression of Italianate style, featuring a three-bay facade with large Florentine-style bifora (double-light) windows crowned by ornate cast-iron hood molds and a projecting cast-iron Corinthian portico. The nearby town house at 7 West Gordon Street (1884, Augustus Schwaab) was restored by J. T. Turner Construction as part of a “This Old House” episode in 1996.