Historic Homes of University Heights: The Everett Gee and Eileen Lois Jackson Residence

Founded in 1888, University Heights is one of San Diego’s oldest communities with a fascinating past full of colorful people, amazing places, and beautiful architecture. In this short video, Bill Ellig with the University Heights Historic Society talks with Sheila, owner of the Everett Gee and Eileen Lois Jackson Residence in University Heights, an excellent example of a Spanish Colonial Revival style single-family house originally owned by two very interesting people who had a significant impact on San Diego’s social and cultural history.

Completed in 1929 by Eileen L. Jackson's father, pioneer builder and rancher Edward Dwyer, it is typical of hundreds of similar style houses built in San Diego and throughout the rest of Southern California's residential suburbs during the two decades prior to World War II. Popularized as the "Southern California Style," its Hispano/Moorish design and plan evokes the romantic imagery of a vernacular Mediterranean farmhouse adapted to modern Southern California suburban living.

From 1929 to 1939, it was the home of noted artist and art professor Everett Gee Jackson, and his wife, society columnist Eileen Lois Jackson. In the home’s small, enclosed second-story rear balcony studio, Everett Gee Jackson developed his award-winning artistic technique while teaching at San Diego State College. painted two frescoes inside the home--one on the wall of the dining nook and one in the bathroom. 

Sharing the house with her parents, Eileen L. Jackson developed her journalistic that would lead her to become San Diego's premier and longest-running society editor/columnist for the San Diego Union and other local newspapers and journals.

If you would like your historically-designated home featured in one of our videos, please contact Kristin Harms with the University Heights Historic Society at uhhs@att.net. If you would like more information for researching your historic home, please click here for Save Our Heritage Organisation’s step-by-step guide for researching your historic home. Please click here for more information on the City of San Diego’s historic designation process.