Editor's note: Due to permitting issues, the Jewels on the Bay Designer Showhouse has been pushed back to March 15-April 12.

A historic red brick residence at 1319 S. Orange Ave. in Sarasota’s Bungalow Hill has been chosen as the 2020 Jewels on the Bay Designer Showhouse.

Area interior designers, led by co-chairs Joyce and Jeff Hart, will transform the two-story main home and the two-unit clapboard guesthouse behind it with up-to-the-minute design trends. Both structures were built in 1930.

The Showhouse will be open to the public for tours March 15-April 12, later than usual because of permitting and remodeling issues, says Joyce Hart. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Sarasota County.

“It’s not a huge house, but I think it will be a good house for us because it’s very visible,” she says. “Our designers put their time and money and soul into these houses, and our greatest success is always with historic homes.” The designers were able to donate $15,000 to the Boys & Girls Clubs last year, the mid-1920s Mediterranean Revival Etowah-Jackson residence on Bay Shore Road.

According to historian Jeff LaHurd, Bungalow Hill, reaching from south of Hudson Bayou to Orchid Street, was annexed by the City of Sarasota in 1914.

“The 1319 S. Orange Ave. home was first listed in the 1927/1928 Polk’s City Directory as the residence of J. I. Johnson, a carpenter,” LaHurd says. “Thereafter, during its historic period, numerous persons are listed as having lived there for brief periods, giving the sense that it was often a rental home, with the 1319 ½ S. Orange Avenue address sometimes occupied by the Bullards and others, and sometimes not rented. The name most often associated with both addresses is Mary I. Bullard of Charlotte, N.C. who lived both in the main house and the apartment until she passed away at the main residence on Jan. 22, 1949.”