Tag Archives: St.Augustine

2018 Florida Road Trip Part 11(Continued – 3)

27 Mar

A slice of Life

Bill Lites

 

Note to our readers– I uploaded part 12 last week in error, so this week, we back up a day. My apologies-Onisha

 

Day 11 Monday 10/29/2018

 

The Hotel Alcazar lay unoccupied until 1947, when it was purchased by Otto C. Lightner to house his extensive collection of Victorian Era pieces.  The museum was opened in 1948, and consists of Gilded Age displays of the Lightner collection on three floors of the original hotel, including the three-story Ballroom (capable of holding 350 wedding guests).  The first floor houses a Victorian village and a music room filled with all types of musical instruments, including player pianos and orchestrions dating from the 1870s.  On the second floor visitors will find a large collection of Victorian glass items displayed, including stained glass works by Louis Comfort Tiffany.  On the third floor (Ballroom) there are displays of Victorian furniture, fine art paintings, and sculptures by famous Victorian artists dating from the early 1800s.

 

 

Across Cordova street from the Lightner Museum is the Casa Monica Hotel.  The hotel was built in 1888 by Franklin W. Smith, who also designed the Hotel Alcazar for Henry Flagler.  In fact, Smith was instrumental in convincing Flagler that the St. Augustine area was the perfect location to begin building the “American Rivera” down the east coast of Florida that Flagler dreamt of.  Not to be outdone by Flagler, Smith decorated and operated the Casa Monica Hotel as a showplace for the rich and famous.  However, soon after the hotel opened, Smith began to run into financial trouble that became so bad that he finally had to sell the hotel.   In 1902 Smith sold the hotel to his friend/competitor Henry Flagler. By the time of the sale, Henry Flagler had already completed two hotels there in St. Augustine (the Hotel Alcazar (1887) now the Lightner Museum and the Ponce de Leon Hotel (1888) now part of Flagler Collage).  This put Henry Flagler at the top of the heap as having a monopoly of the luxury hotels in the city of St. Augustine.

Trivia note: Did you know that Saint Monica (322-387) was the North African mother of St. Augustine (354-430), who was Bishop of Hippo Regius (395-430), in North Africa, and who the city of St. Augustine was named for.

 

 

 

 

 

Across King Street from the Lightner Museum is the Flagler Museum. Originally built in 1888 by Henry Flagler as the Ponce de Leon Hotel, this elegant hotel was another tribute to the entrepreneurial character of Henry Flagler.  At the time the luxury hotel business, in the St. Augustine area, was at an all-time high. It’s hard for me to imagine the opulence that adorned these luxury hotels.   They were so far ahead of their time that, for instance, Flagler had to hire additional staff to turn the electric lights on and off for the guests, because they were afraid to touch the switches.  As a part of Flagler’s dream to build the “American Rivera” in Florida, over the next several years, he began expanding what would become, the Florida East Coast Railroad (FEC), south to eventually reach Key West.  But, Flagler overlooked the fact that this new railroad would allow some northern tourists to by-pass St. Augustine for the warmer climates of places like Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

 

 

 

The Ponce de Leon Hotel survived the depression and WWII, but after a long downturn period, the hotel finally closed in 1967.  Then in 1968 Flagler College was founded on 19 acres behind the hotel and the Ponce de Leon Hotel became the centerpiece of the newly established college.  (Check out interior photos on the internet of this luxury hotel that students are surrounded by on a daily basis – e.g. Dining Room with its stained glass windows by Tiffany).  Also go to Wikipedia and click on Henry Flagler (1830-1913) for many more interesting facts about the man and his adventures.

 

 

While Franklin Smith was in his architectural prime designing and building luxury hotels, he also designed and built his own winter home there in St. Augustine (1883) just one block west of the current location of the Casa Monica hotel.  Smith built his home in the Moorish Revival style and named it Villa Zorayda.  It has sometimes been called the first example of “fantasy” architecture in Florida.   Henry Flagler visited St. Augustine in 1883 and was so impressed with Smith’s Villa Zorayda that he tried to buy it for his wife, but Smith wouldn’t sell.  Smith finally did sell the Villa Zorayda to Abraham Mussallem in 1913. After having been used for several different businesses, over the years, Villa Zorayda was finally opened to the public, as a museum, in 1936.

 

 

As I mentioned at the first of this day’s blog (Monday 10/29/2018), there was so much to see there in St. Augustine that I ran out of time to see it all, up close and personal.  Some of those places I saw from the trolley, but didn’t have time to go thru were:

 

“Gonzalez-Alvarez House” (1723) or “The Oldest House”

     The Ximenez House (1798)

 

             The Oldest Drugstore (1886)

 

                                                                                                   Potters Wax Museum (1949)

 

            Black Raven Pirate Ship (1720 replica)

              Colonial Corner (1740)

 

With the help of Greta (my Garmin) I finally found my way to the motel, just outside St. Augustine, and got checked in.  Once I got unpacked, I warmed up those wonderful Fish Tacos from the Sandollar Restaurant, and enjoy them anew.  Yummm!

 

 

To Be Continued

 

 

Bill is a retired Mechanical engineer living with his wonderful artist/writer wife, DiVoran, of 61 years in Titusville, Florida. He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended Northrop University in Southern California and ended up working on America’s Manned Space Program for 35 years. He currently is retired and spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes, traveling, writing blogs about his travels for Word Press and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing, editing and marketing.  He also volunteers with a local church Car Care Ministry and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum there in Titusville.  Bill has two wonderful children, two outstanding grandchildren, and a loving sister and her husband, all of whom also live in Central Florida, so he and DiVoran are rewarded by having family close to spend lots of quality time with.

 

Bill

 

One of Bill’s favorite Scriptures is:  John 10:10

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2018 Florida Road Trip Part 11

27 Feb

A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

 

Day 11 Monday 10/29/2018

 

After a great breakfast at the motel this morning, I headed south on I-95 to visit the beautiful old Florida city of St. Augustine, with its many historic landmarks and museums. It had been several years since DiVoran and I had visited St. Augustine, and I had forgotten how difficult it is to find parking close to any of the museums or points of interest I was planning on visiting.  After wasting half an hour squeezing thru the narrow streets, looking for a parking place close to my first museum, I gave up and went to the Visitor Information Center. I bought an All-Day “On & Off” Old Town Trolley Tour ticket, which took care of most of my parking and museum access problems for the day.

 

 

I had allowed two days in St. Augustine to see the many museums and points of interest on my list, so the trolley tour approach should work out fine.  However, I had also forgotten just how many museums and other points of interest there really are in St. Augustine.  I had no way of knowing, at the time, just how long this day was going to turn out to be, or (now) just how long this day’s write-up was going to take me!  The Trolley Tour visited 23 different points of interest, and that didn’t take into consideration my personal list.  (This day’s activities will be divided into four parts, so bear with me).

 

At the visitor Center, I was informed that in 1565 King Philip II of Spain sent General Pedro Menendez de Aviles to Florida to settle the region and eliminate all French influence in the area.  Menendez claimed “La Florida” for Spain, at that time, and established “San Agustin” as the first Spanish settlement.  (Check Wikipedia for many interesting facts about the early Spanish claims to Florida).

 

 

Since the Visitor Center was only a block or so from the original “San Agustin” main city gate, I walked over to take a photo.  Local information informs visitors that even though construction on the Castillo de San Marcos fort had begun as early as 1672, it did not deter the devastating attacks on the city by various enemy forces and pirates over the next 30 or so years.  When construction of the fort was completed in 1695, even that did not stop Sir Francis Drake and his British fleet from attacking “San Agustin” in 1698, and ultimately burning the city to the ground in 1702 (check Wikipedia for “Sir Francis Drake in St. Augustine” for a very interesting story about why he was in Florida).

 

 

In the years that followed, the city was rebuilt and additional fortifications began with the Cubo Line, a mote, and a main gate (made of massive coquina pillars and heavy wooden doors). At the time this gate was the only access to the city of  “San Agustin,” and was closed and locked each evening.

 

 

Once inside the city gate, the “Oldest City in the United States” opened up to me, and I began the typical tourist walk down St. George Street.  The first building I came to was the Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse.  Claiming to be the “Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse” still standing in the United States, we are told that the first school master, and his family, lived on the second floor of the building.  With no official records as to when this schoolhouse was actually built, it first shows up in city records in 1716, after the British burned the city to the ground in 1702.

 

 

Just down the street, was the Spanish Bakery, with its delicious aromas wafting out across the street.  A little further down was the Columbia Restaurant and the Medieval Torture Collection.  I had not known there was a Columbia Restaurant in town and besides that, it was too early for lunch.  I wasn’t particularly interested in what kind of cruelty people had imposed upon each other back in the Middle Ages, so I kept going.

 

 

At King Street I turned left and started back north on Aviles Street to visit the Spanish Military Hospital Museum.  This is a very interesting museum, with a guided tour that includes an elaborate description of the tools and procedures used by military physicians during the Second Spanish Period (1784-1821) in “San Agustin.”

 

 

I continued north on Charlotte Street until I got to Castillo Drive and visited the Pirate & Treasure Museum.  I was amazed at how many individual exhibits and how many artifacts they were able to fit into this small museum.  They claim to have the largest collection of “authentic” pirate artifacts in the country (dating from the mid-1600s).

 

 

 

—–More of this day’s activities will be continued next week—–

 

Bill is a retired Mechanical engineer living with his wonderful artist/writer wife, DiVoran, of 61 years in Titusville, Florida. He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended Northrop University in Southern California and ended up working on America’s Manned Space Program for 35 years. He currently is retired and spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes, traveling, writing blogs about his travels for Word Press and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing, editing and marketing.  He also volunteers with a local church Car Care Ministry and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum there in Titusville.  Bill has two wonderful children, two outstanding grandchildren, and a loving sister and her husband, all of whom also live in Central Florida, so he and DiVoran are rewarded by having family close to spend lots of quality time with.

 

Bill

 

One of Bill’s favorite Scriptures is:  John 10:10

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