Ximenez-Fatio House - St. Augustine, FL, USA
N 29° 53.473 W 081° 18.697
17R E 469912 N 3306772
The Ximenez-Fatio House is an historic boarding house made of coquina stone circa 1798 in St. Augustine, Florida. It is now used as a history museum.
Waymark Code: WMPRB9
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 10/12/2015
Views: 5
"Ximenez-Fatio House Museum is one of the best-preserved and most authentic Second Spanish Period (1783-1821) residential buildings in St. Augustine, Florida. In 1973, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It was designated a Florida Heritage Landmark in 2012. The museum complex sits just south of the city's central Plaza de la Constitución at 20 Aviles Street (formerly Hospital Street), the oldest archaeologically documented street in the continental United States. It is located at the center of Old Town, the city's oldest continuously occupied community. Since 1939, the property has been privately owned and managed by The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in The State of Florida (NSCDA-FL). Through their efforts, it was restored and interpreted to reflect its function as a fashionable boarding house during Florida's first tourist boom, which began after 1821. The property is a historic house museum, furnished and presented to tell stories of the visitors who lodged there, the women who owned and managed it, and how people lived during Florida's territorial period.
Historical background and context
The two-story main house was built by Andres Ximenez (an alternate spelling of Jimenez), a merchant of Spanish birth who married Juana Pellicer, daughter of Francisco Pellicer, a leader of the Minorcan community in St. Augustine. The property's modern name references Ximenez as well as the last historic owner of record: Louisa Fatio (FAY-she-oh), who ran the boarding house as Miss Fatio's. Louisa purchased the house in 1855, becoming the last of three successive women owners during its years as a boarding house. Their success contributes to the historical significance of the property, because this was a time when few American women owned property in their own names or managed a respectable business.
The house's adaptability to commercial activities is due in part to its size and central location near the plaza and the bayfront. Andres Ximenez built the structure to accommodate his family upstairs and support them through undertakings housed downstairs. His wife Juana probably assisted him in running a general store, tavern, billiard table and lottery. The Ximenez family did not occupy the house for long. By 1806, both parents and two of their five minor children had died. For a number of years following, Juana's father managed the property on his grandchildren's behalf.
[SEE THE LINK BELOW FOR MORE HISTORICAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE HOUSE AND ITS OCCUPANTS.]
Architecture and design
The original detached kitchen with beehive oven is located next to the main house.
Historic records and structural studies indicate that the main house and detached kitchen were built in 1798. Both are constructed of coquina rock quarried on nearby Anastasia Island. Coquina rock construction positions the house in the upper tier of St. Augustine residences of the Second Spanish Period. It is an exceptional example of St. Augustine Plan architecture. This hybrid style blends elements of Spanish Colonial architecture with more elegant Federal-style architecture introduced during Florida's British Period (1763-1784). The property's detached coquina kitchen with beehive oven is the only original 18th century detached kitchen in St. Augustine."
--Wikipedia (
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