Villa Zorayda | |
Location | St. Augustine, Florida |
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Coordinates | 29°53′30″N81°18′54.5″W / 29.89167°N 81.315139°W |
Architect | Franklin W. Smith |
Architectural style | Moorish Revival |
NRHP reference No. | 93001002 [1] |
Added to NRHP | September 23, 1993 |
Villa Zorayda (also known as the Zorayda Castle) is a house at 83 King Street in St. Augustine, Florida. [2] Built in 1883 by the eccentric Boston millionaire Franklin W. Smith as his winter home, [3] it was inspired by the 12th-century Moorish Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain. Smith named it "Villa Zorayda", after one of the princesses in Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra . [4] The building and part of Franklin Smith's art and antique collection were sold to Abraham Mussallem, a rug and antiquities merchant originally from Syria, in 1913. On September 23, 1993, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The Villa Zorayda Museum is still owned by the Mussallem family and contains the original art and antique collection assembled by Franklin Smith and Abraham Mussallem.
Franklin W. Smith was an amateur architect [2] and pioneer experimenter in poured concrete construction. [5] His winter home, Villa Zorayda, was the first residence built in the Moorish Revival style in Florida, and the first poured concrete building in St. Augustine. [6] [2] Smith's concrete mix, which used crushed coquina shells as an aggregate, and his method of pouring it in successive levels, was adopted by Henry Morrison Flagler, a Standard Oil partner and Florida developer, for his nearby hotels and churches on an even grander scale. Villa Zorayda could also be considered the first example of fantasy architecture in Florida. [4]
Smith was an early member of the Republican Party, and danced with his wife at Abraham Lincoln's inaugural ball in 1861. [7] He was also a founder of the Boston YMCA, and was involved in many reform efforts and schemes for public improvement in the course of his long life. He is buried in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One block east of Villa Zorayda is the largest building Smith constructed in St. Augustine, the Casa Monica Hotel (later purchased by Henry Flagler and renamed the Cordova Hotel).
In addition to its intended purpose as a private residence, the Villa Zorayda has been used as a restaurant, a nightclub and gambling casino, and a hotel. The building underwent renovations beginning in 2003 and reopened to the public in 2008. Audio tours are available in English, Spanish, and French. Audio tours provide an extensive overview of the history of the building, the building's role in St. Augustine's history, and the entire antique and art collection inside. The museum is open daily [8]
The Villa Zorayda Museum contains intricate interior details, including most notably work in cast plaster with ground alabaster matching that of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain. These alabaster and plaster reliefs are referred to as traceries or arabesques and are replicas of walls in the Alhambra Palace. [9] The saying, "There is no conqueror but God", the same phrase reproduced in the tracery of the Alhambra, is inscribed in Arabic script above the front entrance. [10] The architecture of the building is accompanied by fine detail including hand painted wood panels and tiles, intricately designed fireplaces and doorways, and geometrically shaped windows and stained glass. The collection also includes hand-pierced brass lamps from Damascus and other parts of the Middle East, Oriental rugs, sculptures, carved furniture, decorative tiles, and Egyptian artifacts. [11]
St. Augustine is a city in and the county seat of St. Johns County located 40 miles south of downtown Jacksonville. The city is on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States.
Henry Morrison Flagler was an American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil, which was first based in Ohio. He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founder of the Florida East Coast Railway. He is also known as a founder of the cities of Miami and Palm Beach, Florida.
David Nolan is an American author, civil rights activist, and historian.
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Mediterranean Revival is an architectural style introduced in the United States, Canada, and certain other countries in the 19th century. It incorporated references from Spanish Renaissance, Spanish Colonial, Italian Renaissance, French Colonial, Beaux-Arts, Moorish architecture, and Venetian Gothic architecture.
Thomas Hastings was an American architect, a partner in the firm of Carrère and Hastings.
No Name Key is an island in the lower Florida Keys in the United States. It is 3 miles (4.8 km) from US 1 and sparsely populated, with only 43 homes. It is only about 1,140 acres in comparison to its larger neighbor, Big Pine Key, which lies about half a mile (800 m) to its west. It is accessible by a concrete bridge from Big Pine Key and was the terminus of a car ferry that existed before the present Overseas Highway was built on the remains of Flagler's Overseas Railroad.
The Casa Monica Hotel is a historic hotel located in St. Augustine, Florida, in the United States. It was originally named Casa Monica, then Cordova Hotel, then Alcazar Annex, and now has its original name again. The Casa Monica Hotel is one of the oldest hotels in the United States and is a member of the Historic Hotels of America in the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The Hotel Ponce de Leon, also known as The Ponce, was a luxury hotel in St. Augustine, Florida, built by millionaire developer and Standard Oil co-founder Henry M. Flagler. Built between 1885-1887, the winter resort opened in January 1888. The hotel was designed in the Spanish Renaissance Revival style as the first major project of the New York architecture firm Carrère & Hastings, which gained world renown for more than 600 projects, including the House and Senate Office Buildings flanking the US Capitol. Their final project was the New York Public Library.
Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of Romanticist Orientalism. It reached the height of its popularity after the mid-19th century, part of a widening vocabulary of articulated decorative ornament drawn from historical sources beyond familiar classical and Gothic modes. Neo-Moorish architecture drew on elements from classic Moorish architecture and, as a result, from the wider Islamic architecture.
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During most of the American Civil War the Florida city of St. Augustine was under Union control. Its Confederate history was exceedingly brief. One Union general and one Confederate general were natives of the Ancient City. Many officers on both sides had previous military experience in St. Augustine, particularly during the Second Seminole War. The city's historic Sea Wall was built in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s by West Point engineers who went on to design military fortifications for both sides in the Civil War. Many black Union soldiers either came from St. Augustine, or settled there after the war, providing a leadership cadre for the community known as Lincolnville that was established in 1866. Many of the city's old cemeteries feature the distinctive marble tombstones marked "USCT" – United States Colored Troops.
Franklin Webster Smith (1826–1911) was an American idealistic reformer who made his fortune as a Boston hardware merchant. He was an early abolitionist, defendant in a civilian court-martial in 1864, author, and architectural enthusiast who proposed transforming Washington, D.C., into a "capital of beauty and cultural knowledge".
The Memorial Presbyterian Church is a historic church constructed in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1889 by American industrialist Henry Morrison Flagler. It is located at 32 Sevilla Street. It was dedicated to the memory of his daughter Jennie Louise Benedict, who died following complications from childbirth at sea in March 1889.
St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the continental United States, was founded in 1565 by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. The Spanish Crown issued an asiento to Menéndez, signed by King Philip II on March 20, 1565, granting him various titles, including that of adelantado of Florida, and expansive privileges to exploit the lands in the vast territory of Spanish Florida, called La Florida by the Spaniards. This contract directed Menéndez to explore the region's Atlantic coast and report on its features, with the object of finding a suitable location to establish a permanent colony from which the Spanish treasure fleet could be defended and Spain's claimed territories in North America protected against incursions by other European powers.
Fred A Henderich was a leading architect of the Florida land boom of the 1920s. He was a native of New York and graduated from Columbia University. Henderich came to Saint Augustine in 1905 to work for Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Hotel Company and lived and worked in the city for over twenty years.
The Tropical Championships also called the Tropical Sectional Championships was a mens open tennis tournament founded in 1887 as the St. Augustine Lawn Tennis Club Tournament. It was staged annually by the St. Augustine Lawn Tennis Club, St. Augustine, Florida, United States until 1894.