Historic St. Augustine
By David Driapsa
The St. Augustine Town Plan National Historic Landmark District is the earliest extant example of a European planned community in the continental United States. St. Augustine is a living testament to the long and storied past of the oldest continuously occupied city and one of the most historically significant cities in the continental United States.
The year 2015 marked the 450th anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine. A settlement was established in 1565 as a military fort protecting the riches flowing from America across the Atlantic shipping lane to Spain. The plan of the colonial city began to take its present form in 1603. The urban design generally followed the Spanish royal ordinances of the Laws of the Indies for developing new towns in the colonies of America with the central plaza as the nucleus of the city, surrounded by the church, government buildings, gridded streets with individual town lots and communal lands beyond. The scale of the urban landscape is quite small.
The National Historic Landmark preserves the town plan, which is the largest and most significant contributing feature. In addition to the urban plan, archeological and historical remnants include sites, buildings, structures, foundations, kitchens, privies, wells, and walls. St. Augustine is a renowned mosaic of architectural styles, materials and typologies, including buildings, the network of narrow streets, and the 16th century Plaza de la Constitución from the Colonial Period, impressive buildings from the Territorial Period (1821-1845), the Flagler Era (1880s-1890s) and the Florida Boom (early 1920s Many structures are more than 200 years old and the sheer numbers of historic sites astound. There are 212 buildings reflecting the period of development spanning 1672 to 1935. The architecture and periods of development are among the most significant in Florida. The development of St. Augustine was largely complete in the late 1920s following the end of the Florida Land Boom. 1935 is considered the terminal point of the period of significant historic development.
Timucuan Indians observed the Spanish party of soldiers and colonists make landfall in 1565. Their village of Seloy provided the first housing for the Spanish. Since then, the city has been under the governments of Spain (1565 to 1763 and 1784-1821), Britain (1763-1784) and the United States (1821-present). Florida was part of the Confederacy from 1861-1862, but the Confederate history of St. Augustine was exceedingly brief. During most of the war the city was under Union control.
The Spanish colonial rule of St. Augustine lasted from 1565 to 1821, with the brief interruption from 1763 to 1784 when England controlled Florida. The Spanish colonial town plan is the most conspicuous feature of the city, from which its historic character derives. Narrow streets and flat-roofed buildings reflect influences of the Moorish Spain. Spanish colonial vernacular architecture is the most conspicuous in the historic district. Almost one of every three buildings is Spanish Colonial, St. Augustine Colonial Revival, or Spanish Revival. Buildings are of a simple rectangular form of two to four rooms. The front walls of buildings are set directly upon the street line, with overhanging balconies. Continuous walls line the street and separate public and private spaces. The complete enclosure of properties by walls between buildings emphasizes the narrowness of the streets. Treasury Street is the narrowest street in the city at seven feet wide. Window openings with protective wooden bars permit conversation from inside the houses to the street. House entrances from the street are through gates in the walls of enclosed side courtyards, across the courtyard and through a door beneath a loggia at the side of the building. Rear lots contained free-standing kitchens, outbuildings, wells, small gardens and fruit trees.
During the two decades of English occupation, many existing buildings were enlarged with upper stories. Sash windows with outward opening exterior shutters replaced the wooden window bars and inter opening shutters. Floor plans were revised to include central halls and entries directly from the street. A gradual shift in lot placement also occurred as buildings were moved away from the street lines, and fenced-in front yards, visible from the street, replaced wall enclosed courtyards.
While an integral and outstanding component of the historic district, only a small percentage of pre-1821 buildings represent the listed buildings. Only slightly more than thirty colonial buildings remain, and in many cases these have been substantially altered.
The historic district consists of the urban nucleus of all or part of forty-six blocks to the southwest of the Castillo de San Marcos. This area is the location of the 1565 settlement of St. Augustine and has been occupied continuously since the sixteenth century. The narrow streets and small blocks of the sixteenth century settlement are still evident, and the largest concentration of extant colonial buildings is found here. Thirty buildings of colonial origin remain, and forty models of colonial buildings have been reconstructed. The Spanish colonial character is strongest between King Street and Bridge Street, and the largest concentration of colonial buildings is on St. George, Aviles and St. Francis Streets.
Aviles Street retains some of the colonial character, with building fronts set along street line, upper floor balconies overhanging the street, and property walls constructed of coquina stone lining the street. The brick surfaced streets in early twentieth-century brick are an exception. Significant buildings, hotels and mansions were demolished in this area for parking lots.
Commercial development lined the main thoroughfare of St. George Street in the mid-nineteenth century with shops, boarding houses and large hotels. Forty percent of the buildings lining the street are Spanish or British colonial with Colonial and St. Augustine Colonial Revival styles. Many authentic colonial structures along the street were demolished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to make way for the construction of brick commercial buildings, the massive City Hall and for parking lots. Twenty-five colonial buildings have been restored and reconstructed along St. George and Cuna Streets since 1959.
Hypolita Street to Cathedral Place has been a main commercial and hotel district since mid-nineteenth century. This section was originally developed in the late seventeenth northward expansion toward the new Castillo de San Marcos. It was one of the most densely populated areas at the end of the colonial period. A number of buildings from that era survive.
Among the most noted properties surviving from the colonial period are Castillo de San Marcos, Plaza de la Constitución, and the Basilica Cathedral of St. Augustine.
The parish of St. Augustine was established in 1594 and is the oldest in the United States. The present Cathedral of St. Augustine was constructed in 1797 in the Spanish Mission style. It is one of the oldest Catholic religious buildings in the United States. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970. A fire gutted the church in 1887 and with the restoration the Spanish Renaissance style bell tower was added.
The massive Spanish fortress Castillo de San Marcos ("Castle of St. Marks") dominates the historic district waterfront. Construction of the fort began in 1672 and was finished twenty-three years later in time to protect the residents during the destruction of the city in the 1702 siege by invading British forces. This remarkable example of Spanish colonial architecture is the oldest extant structure in St. Augustine. It is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States and a national historic landmark.
When the British gained Florida in 1763 and took over the Castillo, it was renamed Fort St. Mark. When the United States gained possession in 1821, it was renamed Fort Marion. The fort was declared surplus property and abandoned by the U.S. Army in 1900. In 1924 it was declared a National Monument. When the National Park Service gained possession in 1942, the original Spanish name was restored by an Act of Congress.
Plaza de la Constitucion has the distinction of being the earliest public open space of European origin created in the continental United States. The plaza has been the center of life in St. Augustine since the 16th century. By the early nineteenth century the plaza was surrounded by the buildings from which it derives its character today. Most of the buildings are masonry, multi-storied, and designed in Spanish Colonial and Mediterranean Revival architectural styles. The vernacular Public Market built in 1824, the Gothic Revival Trinity Episcopal Church built in 1825, stores built in the 1950s, and the Atlantic Bank, the tallest building in the city, add to the diversity of buildings in the plaza area.
Colonial structures were erected within the plaza, most notably a non-extant stone guardhouse at the eastern end. Surviving on the plaza from the colonial period are a public well from the 1600s, the Constitution Monument from 1814, the Public Market, and cannons. Constitution Monument is a 30 foot high obelisk completed by Spanish Royal Decree naming all plazas where the Spanish constitution was officially proclaimed to be called "Plaza de la Constitucion." Numerous other monuments have been erected on the plaza: the Confederate War Memorial in 1872, the Pell Horse Fountain in 1887, the Post Office Park Fountain in 1899, the Loring Memorial in 1920, the World War I Memorial in 1921, the Anderson Fountain in 1921, the Ponce de Leon Statue in 1923, the World War II Memorial in 1946, and the Father Camps Statue in 1975.
Trees and fountains were added to beautify the plaza in the 1830s. Cathedral Place was extended between St. George Street and Cordova Streets in 1893, forming a smaller plaza to the west of the Government House. The bandstand in the center of the plaza was constructed in the 1920s.
Colonial St. Augustine was a walled city. Castillo de San Marcos saved the residents during the 1702 siege, but the city was burned. Following the destruction, a defensive line of walls were constructed and by mid-century the Cubo defensive line was completed across the northern edge of the city, from the Castillo de San Marcos west to the San Sebastian River. The earthen wall was backed by palmetto logs and larger fortifications called redoubts were built into the wall for artillery emplacements. Present day Cordova Street follows the former Cubo defensive line. The Rosario defensive line was constructed along the western edge of the city and together with the fort the city was protected for more than 100 years. The defensive strength was tested in 1740 when Governor James Oglethorpe surrounded the city with his English army, and again when Indians attacked during the Second Seminole War (1835-1842).
Several sections of the city walls have been reconstructed. One long section of the Cubo Line was restored on the grounds of Castillo de San Marcos and second section at the Old City Gate. The Santo Domingo Redoubt west of the city gate is a reconstruction of its 1808 form.
The first known city gate was in Cubo defensive line. It was about 5 1/2 feet wide and approached from the north. The location of the Old City Gate as the existing structure is known today was part of a second reconstruction of the Cubo line, before the 1740. The city was entered through this gate at the norther end of St. George Street, where it has remained. This became known as La Leche Gate, as it was on the road leading to the Chapel of Our Lady of La Leche. The city was approached from the north over a bridge crossing a mote before passing through the pair of coquina stone piers, constructed in 1808. The bridge was razed in 1827 and the mote was filled in and leveled in 1910.
From the city gate, St. George Street stretches south to Plaza de la Constitucion. Now a pedestrian, the street is a pedestrian walkway lined with original and reconstructed colonial buildings, and centerpiece of a historic district stretching out for blocks both east and west.
The district from King Street to Bridge Street was the location of the 1565 settlement of St. Augustine and has been occupied continuously since the sixteenth century and the remaining colonial town pattern heavily influences the character of this district. All of the buildings in the city were destroyed during the 1702 siege, but reconstructed on the small blocks and narrow streets of the sixteenth century settlement plan.
The British and Spanish both used land west of Charlotte Street as a military cemetery. In the Territorial Period the victims of the Dade Massacre were interred there. This burial ground became a United States National Cemetery in the 1880s.
Spanish Street was an exclusive black residential neighborhood by 1900, with its own school and church.
An influx of northerners fueled a short-lived real estate speculation when the United States acquired Florida in 1821, as the old city was publicized as a health resort and refuge from cold northern winters. The Civil War cut off that seasonal tourist trade.
The natural barriers of water and swamps that proved so beneficial in the military defenses of the city impeded its future economic development. St. Augustine was isolated and became stagnated due to its lack of transportation. The city was physically dilapidated and economically deteriorated by 1865.
Twenty years after the end of the Civil War the crumbling old Spanish town became a popular tourist destination again. St. Augustine entered another short-loved glittering era as a Gilded Age winter resort when Henry Flagler linked the city by railroad to populous east coast cities. The construction of his railroad served as a catalyst for revitalization and growth of the economy. Flagler built hotels that not only attracted a tourist industry, but also brought Moorish and Spanish Revival styling to St. Augustine lasting into the 1920s. The Florida Land Boom was followed by Bust and St. Augustine slumbered again.
New Deal depression-era work projects during the 1930s remodeled several buildings in the Colonial Revival style to make them appear old again and authentic. The Government House was rebuilt similar to an earlier building that had occupied the site.
Extensive restoration and reconstruction activities using the Colonial Revival style were launched in 1965. In cooperation with the State of Florida Division of Historic Resources, thirty-six colonial buildings were rehabilitated and forty other buildings were reconstructed using both real and imagined elements of colonial architecture. These actions were a carefully and consciously attempt to preserve the Spanish colonial character in city center as a living-history museum, Today, original and reconstructed colonial buildings serve as museums, tourist shops and restaurants.
The surrounding area is a mosaic containing a mixture of colonial, antebellum, late nineteenth and early twentieth century features. Many significant buildings have been demolished for parking lots and the historic town plan is threatened through poor maintenance, destruction and alteration, but overall it retains characteristics and features that embody various periods of the historic urban development.
St. Augustine has faced, faces, and will continue to face difficulties in preserving this treasure of Spanish colonial urban planning. As the city's preservation director commented, "Ultimately, the attrition of time will wear away at these national treasures and they'll gradually disappear, like footprints in the sand."
David J Driapsa Landscape Architect
(239) 591-2321
Please visit www.davidjdriapsa.com for more information
Registered Professional Landscape Architect, Florida LA0001185
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