Graham Davis















	Copyright © 2008, Project Industry. All rights reserved.

At Home by Dewey Schurman

A House with History

Contemporary color enlivens an artist’s centuries-old Jamaican home

IN 1820 A BRITISH ARTIST ABROAD A SHIP ANCHORED OFF JAMAICA’S northern coast made a finely detailed pen-and-ink drawing of the island landscape before him – a collection of buildings centered around the wharf in St. Ann’s Bay and a series of low hills rising up to forested mountains.

Among the scattering of houses was one on the ridgeline, carefully labeled Golden Spring, J. Higgin, Esq. The home – already more than a half-century old at the time – was a landmark for ships entering the bay.

One of the charms of an old house in Jamaica is the history that goes with it.

Graham Davis first fell under the spell of Golden Spring in the late 1970s, when he was a guest at a neighbouring plantation “great house” high on the same ridgeline. But the estate wasn’t for sale at the time, and Davis had other plans. The tall, slender native of England had been living and teaching in Jamaica for six years, and he was about to embark on a sabbatical and fulfill an old dream: Ever since he’d been 15, Davis had wanted to become a painter. But after getting thrown out of one of London’s most prestigious art schools,” he recalls, “I thought it better to have another string on my bow." He had turned to the classroom, which led to an assignment in Jamaica. Now he was about to take the long-awaited plunge – and paint full time.

Three years later he returned to the island from travels abroad only to hear a friend announce that he was buying Golden Spring. "You can’t!” Davis remembers telling him. Instead he convinced his friend to purchase the property together with him. At the same time, Davis established his artistic roots in Jamaica, co founding Harmony Hall, a gallery in nearby Ocho Rios that has continued to champion Jamaican and Caribbean art. When his Golden Spring partner decided to move to Mexico, Davis at last became the sole owner of what he now describes as a “mini-great house.”

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