St. Augustine, Florida: The City That Makes You Smile

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

It’s the little town that could. It’s the proof that, in an era when big is better, there’s still a spot for small town America. Only 12,000 people live here but three million come to visit every year. It’s St. Augustine, Florida -- since 1565, the oldest continuously occupied European city in North America.

“How about Quebec City or Santa Fe?” we ask Barbara Golden, the communications manager of St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra & the Beaches, Florida.

“We’ve got 450 years of history,” she says. “Quebec is getting ready to celebrate its 400 years. Yes, Santa Fe had its Spaniards but they came here first!”

Golden is a live-wire, enthusiastic city booster with a touch of the southern belle. (Her grandchildren call her “Darlin’.”) She points out that visitors discover not only the details of the 1500s when they come here but all the complicated events that have happened since including the European occupations, the War Between the States, the Gilded Age, and more recently the demonstrations for civil rights, an ugly but an important time in our history – and America’s.

St. Augustine can be explored easily. Every attraction has free maps galore and enough guide books and brochures to satisfy the busiest of tourists. Many of the magazines and books have discount coupons for restaurants and museums. Some operators, Tour Saint Augustine, for example, will assist visitors with lodgings and ticketing needs prior to their arrival. We have found this operator useful. It would be helpful to get a city map from it or from the Visitors and Convention bureau before you choose accommodations.

The three top attractions are arguably:

The Castillo de San Marcos, the fort, the oldest masonry building in the United States, with all its pageantry and history – and its convenient parking. The Lighthouse and Museum, 14 stories high, 165 feet, the tallest building in the county (by ordnance nothing can be constructed higher). The ascent takes 219 steps but the 360 degree view from the top is breathtaking. You can see all the way to the St. Johns River, 30 miles away. The Lightner Museum, unusually photo-friendly for a museum -- the front desk person looks at the cameras round our necks and says, “Come in and be sure to take pictures.” It’s three gorgeous floors of 19th century art housed in the former 1880s Alcatraz hotel built by Henry Flagler.

You hear the name Flagler all the time in this city; he was indeed both its visionary and benefactor. A partner of John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil, he was a man who saw the future of both the railroads and the marshlands to the south that would become Florida. He used both to increase his wealth; he was the first to build hotels to house the tourists who came to gape and subsequently buy land themselves. His style was Spanish Renaissance and his other hotel, the Ponce de Leon, now Flagler College, is a glorious sprawling complex. He added what is now the Casa Monica Hotel to his holdings, cheaply, when Franklin W. Smith, a rival who had built it -- and the villa next door as a reproduction of part of Spain’s famous Alhambra castle -- ran into financial difficulties, some reputedly caused by Flagler himself.

Flagler also funded the recreation of the Memorial Presbyterian Church where he lies buried. Based on the style of the St. Mark’s in Venice, it rises elegantly as a tribute to his daughter and also to his wealth and generosity.

East of these buildings around King Street lie some of the most popular tourist attractions: Potter’s Wax Museum, one of the best in the United States with as many figures in storage as on display so you won’t always see the same exhibits, the Spanish Military Hospital with costumed guides able to make the past come alive, and the statue of Ponce de Leon himself. For slightly more distant attractions, you have a choice of two on-and-off tours, the Old Town Trolley and Ripley’s Red Train. Essentially they cover the same terrain but the train is narrower and manages down the few streets too narrow for the trolley. Those tours are a bargain as, for less than $30, you get a ticket good for three days with on-and-off privileges. Take either tour the first time for its full 70-minute run to get the feel for the city’s layout.

The key to town is St. George Street. It runs north and south parallel and three streets over from the waterfront. This is where tourists shop in the many boutiques by day and even wander in the evening following a costumed guide on a ‘Ghostly Experience.”

Ghosts are news in any city that’s old and this one is just 50 years short of a half millennium. St. Augustine’s ghost story is well told by our guide Natalie who, brandishing a candle lantern and clad in Colonial garb, leads us along dark streets.

Here’s the Tavern of the Rooster built about 1734 and still lacking electricity. Candles glow in its windows. Its ghost, a serving girl doing laundry, was first seen in the 1920s by Derek, one of a troupe of itinerant actors. It was a warm night but as Derek approached the figure he suddenly felt cold and when he looked at her face, he saw right through it.

Here’s the Casablanca Inn where reputedly the ghost of the former owner has been seen swinging a lantern on the roof to warn rum smugglers that government agents are in the area. The light from her lantern apparently has disturbed guests sleeping in the facing room in the inn next door.

Here’s the Castillo, the fort where the ghost of Andrew Ramson, an English privateer prisoner whom the Spanish guards tried to garrote, has allegedly been seen walking the ramparts, the rope burn on his neck clearly demonstrated. And here’s the Huguenot cemetery at the top of St. George Street where the ghost of Mr. Stickney has been noticed walking around his grave searching for his gold teeth that were stolen by grave robbers. Scary stuff and now it’s bedtime; we’re not sure we’ll sleep tonight!

With all this activity, where we gonna eat? From several visits we have our favorite restaurants.

For seafood, the so-styled World Famous Oasis on A-1-A South on Anastasia Island. It’s great if you want to watch a game upstairs or play Trivia Pursuit with the other tables. It’s easy to find. Just take the Bridge of Lions south for about five miles and it’s on the left shortly after Ocean Trace Road. However, this route takes you past the modest-looking, unassuming restaurant O’Steen’s on the right, a few minutes after the bridge. It’s open 11AM to 8:30PM Tuesday through Saturday and if, for once, as you pass, you don’t see a crowd waiting, grab the chance for as good a meal as you’ll get in St. Augustine. Try its fried shrimps. Marvelous! O’Steen’s is cash only. Its prices are reasonable but it’s so popular its cashier functions there like a reverse ATM.

The Kingfish Grill on the northern part of town just before the Vilano Causeway is more elegant, based as it is in the old St. Augustine Yacht Cub building. This restaurant surely meets city sophisticate Leigh Cort’s Big Four criteria for any restaurant: Attitude of staff and ambience of the place, knowledgeable attendants and fabulous food. Even something as simple as its sweet potato fries are sensational. Just north of the Highway 312 bridge that links Highway US1 with route A1A lie two different but recommended restaurants, Sonny’s BBQ and the adjacent Creekside, a mostly seafood place open only in the evenings.

We like Athena, a Greek restaurant on Cathedral Street although it seemed a little time-worn our last visit to town. One street farther down on the corner of King Street, lies the A1A Ale Works, a home brewery with great shrimp and grits. Yes, grits! This historic building was once called the “Surprise Store” because, in Flagler’s days, it sold whatever by chance came in on carriages.

For ambience we like the Columbia Restaurant. It’s probably the most famous of all the restaurants and sits on St. George Street by Hypolita Street. You’ve probably walked past it many times exploring the old part of this city. By the way, as you walk, look down. Those streets, technically, are not paved with cobblestones but with ancient, locally-made bricks.

And for the treat of chocolate because you are, after all, on vacation: check out Claude’s on Hypolita street. We ask Jackie behind the counter, “Do you give out samples?”

She replies, “Only if people ask?”

We wiggle our eyebrows like Groucho Marx. She catches on. Opinion? Seashell Milk Chocolate with Champagne Ganache: out of this world. The offerings vary from chocolate covered Cheerios to chocolate covered candied orange slices with dusting of ancho pepper.

Claude Franques is an interesting guy. His French parents lived in Algeria when it was a French territory. The family moved to Toulouse in the south of France when he was 11. During school breaks he worked as a restaurant dishwasher. After high school he attended the Culinary School of Toulouse and graduated in two years. He had cousins in America, and as a hotel cook he found that land beckoning.

A chef specializing in sauces, he found a job at Rene Pujol, The New York Times award-winning restaurant. He fell for Nicole the owner’s daughter. Later in talking to his friend Jacques Torres, a chocolate specialist in New York he found confectionery an interesting challenge and before he and Nicole, now his wife, quite knew it they were creating chocolates north of his downtown shop in a new store a few miles north of the St. Augustine airport on Highway 1.

Another remarkable local maintains a small store at 62B Spanish Street, Global Goods and Gifts. The owner, Parish W. Jones, is a retired minister with a PhD in philosophy. He retired here with his RN wife, wanted to do something worthwhile and found the answer was a Fair Trade Store. Such stores attempt to be fair to those distant persons who create what the stores sell. “It’s very effective,” says Parish (what an appropriate name for a man of the cloth). “The coffee we sell makes it possible for 40 families in Chiapas, Mexico to remain home rather than cross our borders. They get to stay together, make a living and be economically independent.”

Fair trade is not about charity, he says; it’s about economic development for those left out by free trade. Some villages are so isolated they can’t get what they produce to market. Fair Trade helps.

A different interest is shown by Kenny and Eunice Pierce at 36 Granada. Since 1978, they have owned and run Pot Belly’s Cinema 4 Plus Pub & Deli Theatre. The building’s foyer is chockablock with movie posters some earlier than the 1950s, and china plates and lunch baskets showing famous actors and actresses, and mid 1950s toys and, of course, Kenny’s collection of 700 antique beer cans.

“Why the name Pot Belly’s?” we ask. He slaps his ample girth in reply.

The acoustics are excellent in the theater and the simple meals, served on long, narrow tables that run in front of each row of seats, are really well done. Hot dogs, hamburgers and potato skins come with wine, beer or sodas. It’s surely a different way to have a big bedtime snack.

But what about breakfast? Depends where you are staying. If you have chosen well you are housed in one of the seven Inns of Elegance, a group of well run, individually owned, small Bread & Breakfast inns all centrally located in the old city and, yes, they provide parking.

Breakfast starts one of the seven inns the Inn at Charlotte with fresh fruit followed by baked Eggs Benedict soufflé served over a hash brown potato and cheese casserole. A special coffee cake that the inn is experimenting with, as its entry in a cooking competition, accompanies the meal, probably the best breakfast we’ve had in a year.

“How long have you had your chef?” we ask Lynne Fairfield, the inn owner.

“All my life,” she replies. “it’s me.”

Lynne, a former Marriott procurement executive, bought the inn in January 2006 with her sister, Valerie, as financial partner. The house was built in 1918 for a lawyer and so solidly put together it’s almost soundproof, insulated from any street noise. It had been a B & B for the previous 15 years and was so well restored by a previous owner, Lynne essentially walked in without any need to do anything.

It has eight rooms, two of which are in the carriage house. Asked what she offers guests, Lynne replies, “Casual elegance and gracious Southern hospitality.” Sensing that seems a bit rehearsed, she goes on, “We often find guests arrive for the weekend, stressed out for work reasons and Florida traffic – 60 percent of visitors to St. Augustine come by car. We try and keep out of their way yet make them feel they’re at home.”

She looks across at one of the stuffed armchairs and recalls the couple who had come for their 25th anniversary. “They had finished their breakfast and were sitting in the living room drinking their coffee. Well, the man was. The woman had fallen back in her chair, mouth gaping, sound asleep. They made themselves at home!”

Was Lynne, after two years, about as busy as she wanted to be? “Yes, thanks to our publicist who has marketed us so well. She has taught us you need to get guests to come for the first time; after that they will return.”

Those who love glitz, space and resort living might want to head to the northeast coast a little for the more upscale Ponte Vedra Inn & Club and the Sawgrass Marriott. This is golf country -- St. Johns County has 13 championship courses. Here is PGA tour HQ with the Players Championship and the Stadium Course with the famous accursed 17th island hole that has sunk, literally, the hopes of many a champion.

Golfers who have never been face to face with champions might head west from this area, go back over the Vilano Causeway, and north up US1 and over to the World Golf Hall of Fame at World Golf Village. Non golfers and children might enjoy the IMAX theater there.

Non golfers in the Ponta Vedra area who enjoy the outdoors should know they are right at the entrance to the 10-mile stretch of the Guana River Wildlife Management Area that lies west of Route A1A between Lake Ponte Vedra and the Intercoastal Waterway. It’s a land of 25 foot-tall sand dunes, brackish and freshwater marshes, cypress and live oaks, wood storks and spoonbills, redfish and bass, a land shaped by “sea level changes over millions of years.” It’s a place that wants us to think about our planet. The Education Center has a Northern Right Whale suspended from its ceiling. Hunted almost to extinction by the whalers of the first part of the 19th century because it was “the right whale” for oil, only 300 are left of this endangered species.

Closer to St. Augustine south of the lighthouse lies the road to Anastasia State Park which leads to another outdoor attraction, a gentle 1 mile hike from the car park. The outdoors flourishes in this city; St. Augustine has 42 miles on pristine natural beaches with no tall buildings blocking the afternoon sun. Photographers will be pleased to find that in this state no land is higher than 345 feet, you can stand on some beaches and photograph both the sunrise and, at the end of the day, the sunset also.

That said, the reality is that St. Augustine and its brick streets are a tourist and photographer’s delight. The cameras are always busy in the old town clicking on somewhat kitsch suits of armor, pirate mannequins, and replicas of historic persons; and attractive boutique posters, and colorful inn signs (there are 27 inns in St. Augustine including the 72-room Hilton, the smallest Hilton in the chain; it looks 300 years old but has been at the bayfront on Avenida Menendez for only three years.)

If a three year-old inn looking 300 years old seems a historically inaccurate artifact it’s the only real fraud in this town, this place, this pleasure that makes us smile each time we visit.