Home Watch in Fernandina Beach

Fernandina Beach is the city that ties the rest of the island together, and its housing stock shows every decade of that history. A block off Centre Street you'll find Victorian and turn-of-the-century wood-frame homes with plaster walls, heart-pine floors, and windows older than most of the neighborhood. A few miles toward South Fletcher you'll find slab-on-grade homes built this century. An old wood-frame house fails differently than a new one. It takes on moisture through original siding and single-pane glass, its plumbing has decades on it, and its crawl space needs eyes that a modern home doesn't. A newer home hides its trouble behind drywall and leans hard on one HVAC system through a long Florida summer. Watching both the same way misses what each is actually prone to.

What every home in town shares is the coast. Marsh humidity on the river side, salt air off the Atlantic, and a hurricane season that runs June through November work on a house whether it's a century old or brand new. Add a mix of full-time neighbors and owners who are only here part of the year, and a lot of these homes sit closed up for stretches with no one inside to catch the first stain, the first musty smell, or the first sign the AC quit.