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When you are contemplating spending a lot of money to acquire on piece of property it makes sense to know something of the history of that property. We will be posting notes here that we, as the current owners, have put together. The 1500s: European 'Discover' Florida How close to this property on Atlantic Avenue did Ponce de Leon land when he 'discovered' Florida in 1513? Pretty darned close... To be continued...
The 1700s: Indigo Plantation on Atlantic Avenue
To be continued... The 1800s: Henry Flagler "Discovers" Florida
That same year, 1878, Flagler made his first trip to Jacksonville, Florida, for health reasons. He came to St. Augustine three years later. By 1885 he had broken ground on the opulent Ponce de Leon Hotel, now the site of Flagler College, which has to be the only liberal arts college with stained glass cafeteria windows by Tiffany. The hotel was designed to accommodate Flagler's friends from New York high society and the assorted barons of industry with whom Flagler rubbed shoulders. To make his adopted home town of St. Augustine more accessible, Flagler brought the rail line down from Jacksonville and created the East Coast Railway, which is today a Fortune 500 company, the headquarters of which are still in St. Johns County. To be continued... The 1980s: A House at 20 Atlantic In the early eighties, a prominent accountant in the area acquired about 10 acres of land in North City and proceeded to sell parcels for houses, retaining 5 acres for himself. On this land he resolved to build an energy efficient and eco-friendly house that would be suitable for a family with children. The design would use as many traditional materials as possible, including yellow pine, heart pine, and Cyprus wood. To be continued... The New Century The present owners bought the house at 20 Atlantic in 2001. At that time they were living in Virginia and had just sold their share of an IT consulting firm to a company in California. The initial intent was to use 20 Atlantic as a seasonal residence. To be continued...
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The 5 acres of land that we own on Atlantic Avenue were once part of an historic indigo plantation established by the Governor of East Florida in 1769. At that time Florida "belonged" to the British (following the treaty of Paris in 1763). The British divided Florida into East and West. A Scot by the name of James Grant was picked to govern East Florida. He chose Saint Augustine as his capital and established the Florida-Georgia border. He reduced Indian raids with the Treaty of Fort Picolata and encouraged new settlement in his colony through a variety of agricultaral initiatives, the most successful of which was the indigo planation.
Henry Flagler was the man that John D. Rockefeller turned to when he needed capital to get into the oil business. Needless to say, when Standard Oil became, for a while, the richest company in the world, Henry Flagler did quite well for himself. By 1878, Standard Oil controlled nearly 90 percent of the oil refined
in the U.S. 
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