A restaurant and bar honoring a Jacksonville aviation pioneer is planned as part of The Raven hospitality establishment in Downtown Jacksonville.
Eric Adler, owner and developer of The Raven, posted on social media that The Jenny would open this year in the restored property at 525 W. Beaver St.
The Jenny is named for a World War I training aircraft that was popular among barnstorming pilots after the war. The name pays tribute to Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman to earn a pilot’s license, who was killed in April 1926 during a test flight. A March 31, 2020, article in thejaxsonmag.com says that the flight was at Paxon Field in Jacksonville.
Adler posted that the restaurant would serve regional foods common in the Southeast and Southwest from Jacksonville to San Diego.
The restaurant will be sandwiched between a speakeasy-style lounge called The Ready Room and a rooftop space called The Apron. The Ready Room is named for areas where pilots are briefed for upcoming flights, and The Apron refers to the portion of an airfield where aircraft are parked and readied for their next flights.
“Jacksonville has one of the richest aviation histories in America, and we hope The Jenny becomes another place where that story can be celebrated,” Adler wrote.
The Raven, an adaptive reuse of the Pratt Funeral Home, began taking reservations late last year.
Its name is an allusion to American poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe, specifically his poem about the mysterious bird that visits a man grieving the death of a loved one “once upon a midnight dreary.”
The property markets itself as an “aparthotel” that “combines the features of a hotel with the comforts of an apartment.”
The 13 guest rooms feature kitchenettes and in-unit laundry facilities and the property includes such hotel amenities as an outdoor pool and free Wi-Fi, on-site parking and coffee.
One of the rooms is named after Coleman.
In May 2023, the Jacksonville City Council approved a $1.25 million forgivable loan package for Adler’s restoration and adaptive reuse of the 9,482-square-foot building.
In November of that year, the city issued a permit for Avant Construction Group to renovate the structure at a cost of almost $2.1 million. Plans called for the building to have 13 apartments and a small plate restaurant and wine bar.
According to a 2022 story in the Daily Record, Lawton Pratt started a funeral home in 1900 in the 400 block of Broad Street. In 1915, Pratt moved into the building at 527 W. Beaver St. The address of the property was changed in 525 W. Beaver St. in the 1970s.
City records show the building was built in 1916, but records from that time may not be precise.
After Pratt’s death in 1943, his apprentice, Oscar Hillman, and his wife, Evelyn Hillman, took over the business and it became the Hillman-Pratt Funeral Home.
Oscar Hillman died in 1978 and the business was run by his wife until it was taken over by Anthony Walton in 2002.
It operated as Hillman-Pratt & Walton Funeral Home until it closed in 2019.