Castle Warden, Ripley's Original Odditorium

*Originally published May 1, 2021 as a promotional piece. Some information may be missing

There are 33 Ripley's Believe It or Not! museums across North America, but did you know that none of them were opened during Robert Ripley's lifetime? Or that the original and first odditorium is located in St. Augustine, Florida? My first visit to a Ripley's Odditorium was during my most recent trip to the Oldest City, and it piqued my curiosity about the history of the building and of Ripley himself.

Castle Warden, shown above, was built in 1887 by William G. Warden of Philadelphia as a winter home. It's an imposing four stories of poured concrete Moorish revival architecture. Warden himself was partners with Henry Flagler and John D. Rockefeller in the Standard Oil Company, the president of the St. Augustine Gas & Electric Light Company, and the financial director of the St. Augustine Improvement Company. Because of Warden's wealth and influence, the castle home was a center of winter social events during his life and ownership.

The castle remained in the Warden family until 1941 until it was purchased by Norman Baskin and his wife Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of "The Yearling" and "Cross Creek." The couple lived on the top floor of the castle for a time, and renovated the lower floors into a posh hotel. It was during this time that Robert Ripley stayed at the hotel several times, repeatedly attempting to buy the hotel. He was unsuccessful in his endeavors before he died in 1949, but his estate was able to purchase Castle Warden in 1950, and on December 25, the first and original Ripley's Believe it or Not! Odditorium opened its doors.

Robert Ripley was born in Santa Rosa, California around 1890. He dropped out of school to support his family when his father died, and at age 16 he was drawing sports cartoons for San Francisco newspapers. In 1913, he moved to New York and continued his career as a sports cartoonist, and in 1918 he showcased some sports oddities in his first Believe It or Not! cartoon. 

His cartoons grew in popularity, and by 1923, his Believe It or Not! series moved to the New York Post. In 1929, his feature was picked up by King Features Syndicate, and Believe It or Not! began appearing in more than 300 newspapers across the United States.

Ripley claimed to have visited 198 countries in his lifetime. He showcased "true life" oddities from his travels around the world in his books of sketches, a series of Believe It or Not! short films, radio programs, and travelling carnival-type exhibits that he called "Odditoriums."

The Castle Warden Odditorium is a must-see, and I'm ashamed to say that I visited St. Augustine a number of times before making it a stop on our last trip. You won't be disappointed. Starting with the grounds outside the castle, there are a number of things to check out which don't require the price of admission, which include: Massacre Anchor, which was pulled from Matanzas Bay; a section of tree that when it was cut down, was carved into an apartment, where someone actually lived (you can walk inside); a giant bronco made out of car bumpers; and Michaelangelo's "David," one of the only two copies in the world carved to the exact specifications of the original.

The museum itself houses three stories of curious and unusual exhibits from around the world, including Robert Ripley's personal collection. You'll find unusual artwork crafted from unlikely materials, like jelly beans, toasted bread, and even beetles; fortune telling machines including Zoltar, like the one from "Big" with Tom Hanks; shrunken heads; two-headed animals; torture devices; P.T. Barnum's 1842 hoax, the Feejee Mermaid; and so much more than I could begin to mention here. On my last visit there was a very large, very real, very alive tarantula (in an enclosed container, of course) which I would be extremely happy never to see again, although my stepson seemed significantly less bothered by its presence.

As if all this weren't enough, Castle Warden also has its own ghost story, like so many other places in the Oldest City. On April 23, 1944, two women died in a fire on the the 3rd and 4th floors. As the story goes, the fire started on the 3rd floor due to a lit cigarette. The occupant in Room 17 called for a bellboy who emptied a fire extinguisher and went to find another. By the time he returned, the flames were coming from under the door and had spread to the hallway and up to the 4th floor. The women were both killed, but their bodies were untouched by the flames as a result of their using wet towels to protect themselves from the fumes. The woman in Room 17 was found in her bathtub, and the woman in the 4th floor penthouse was found on the floor of her bathroom. The women are said to haunt the castle.

In addition to regular museum tours, Ripley's also runs the Red Train Tour with stops all over St. Augustine, as well as a Haunted Castle Investigation experience. All of this information as well as booking options are available on their website.

Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditorium

19 San Marco Avenue

St. Augustine, FL 32084

904-824-1606

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St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum

*Originally published June 14, 2021 as a promotional piece. Some information may be missing.

The St. Augustine Lighthouse and Keeper's House serve as both a scenic attraction and a maritime museum. Still an active aid to navigation on the North Florida coast, the Lighthouse and Maritime Museum is a private, non-profit museum dedicated to its mission "to preserve, present, and keep alive the stories of the Nation's Oldest Port as symbolized by our working St. Augustine Lighthouse."

Standing 165 feet above sea level, the Lighthouse overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and Matanzas Bay from Anastasia Island. Visitors can climb the 219 steps to the top of the Lighthouse for an incredible view of the city of St. Augustine and the ocean.

You'll have the opportunity to experience life at a Light Station through the exhibits at the Keeper's House, stroll through the grounds, check out the gift shop, or take a "Behind the Scenes" guided tour, included with admission.

"Behind the Scenes" tours are offered on the hour from 11am to 3pm every day. It showcases the important role the Light Station has played in St. Augustine's history, and provides a look at the research and preservation going on at the newly opened Maritime Archaeology and Education Center. The Museum itself is an American Alliance of Museums accredited institution, and a Smithsonian Affiiliate.

Additional specialty tours are offered, including the "Dark of the Moon" guided paranormal tour, the Lens Room Tour, and the Sunset/Moonrise dinner and drinks experience at the top of the lighthouse. Additional information and the opportunity to make reservations for any of the specialty tours is available on their website.

The St. Augustine Lighthouse has a long and storied history, beginning in the late 1500s when it was a simply a wooden watchtower used to protect the Spanish settlement from invaders and to direct Spanish ships and traders to their port. The simple flame atop the wooden tower was too weak to effectively signal ships, and served more as an accompaniment to the soldier on watch.

This first watchtower was burned to the ground by Sir Francis Drake during an attack in 1586.

It was nearly 100 years later, in 1683, when a coquina tower was build on the site from the ruins of a stone chapel. This first lighthouse, shown here, lasted 200 years until shoreline erosion caused it to fall into the sea in 1880. Due to the erosion, the current tower was built further inland in 1874, six years before the first tower fell.

The current Lighthouse is St. Augustine's oldest surviving brick structure. The Keeper's House that sits next to it was built in 1876 to provide living quarters for the families of those who kept watch, and now serves as the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum.

During World War II, the men and women of the Coast Guard trained in St. Augustine, and used the Lighthouse as a lookout post for enemy ships and submarines that frequented the coast.

After the war, during the 1960s, the Keeper's House was rented out to local residents, as there was no longer any need for a keeper to live on the grounds since the Lighthouse was fully electric and automated.

Over the decades following WWII, the Lighthouse unfortunately fell into disrepair, and in 1970 a fire nearly completely destroyed the Keeper's House.

In 1981, after years of neglect and vandalism, the Junior Service League of St. Augustine had the Lighthouse listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. They worked tirelessly to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, financing a restoration effort that brought the Lighthouse and Keeper's House back to their former glory.

During its years of closure, the light continued to shine through the night, and after 14 years and $1.2 million toward restoration, including restoration of the original Fresnel lens, the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum is an impeccably beautiful example of Florida's maritime history.

Of course no story about such an historic location in St. Augustine would be complete without a ghost story or two, and the Lighthouse is no exception:

~ Peter Rasmussen, one of the first lighthouse keepers, was known for his love of cigars, and over the years, the smell of cigars has been detected by many staff members and guests.

~ Some claim to have seen and heard keeper Joseph Andreu at the top of the tower, the place where he fell to his death while painting the outside of the tower.

~ Perhaps the most well known ghosts of the Lighthouse were two young sisters who died on the property. Their father was hired to renovate the tower in the late 1800s. The girls were playing in a cart used to bring materials back and forth to the Lighthouse. When it broke loose, they weren't able to jump free in time and the cart slid quickly into the bay, plummeting both girls to a watery death. Since then, the girls can be heard laughing late at night, and some claim to have seen one of the girls wearing the same blue dress she died in.

~ Staff members often say they lock the door at the top of the tower each night before leaving, only to find it open when they arrive in the morning for work.

~ Staff also report chairs having been moved or overturned, as well as items from the gift shop being moved or missing only to reappear later.

~ Music boxes have been known to turn on by themselves.

There's so much more history to the Lighthouse than I've included here to be learned from a visit and tour. We personally love the paranormal tours, and though many of the "ghost tours" in St. Augustine are kid-friendly, the Museum recommends that for this particular paranormal experience, children under the age of 13 should not participate. 

Regardless which tour you choose, you should definitely check out this historic landmark while you're in the Old City.

St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum

100 Red Cox Drive

St. Augustine, FL  32080

904-829-0745

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The Ximenez-Fatio House, A Longstanding Example of 18th Century Women's Ingenuity

*Originally published June 22, 2021 as a promotional piece. Some information is missing.

When people ask me where I think the best places in Florida are, St. Augustine is always at the top of my list. The city is filled with history, family friendly, pet friendly, and packed with award-winning museums and restaurants. The Ximenez-Fatio House, which managed a ranking of the number one museum in St. Augustine during the pandemic of 2020, is no exception.

Don Andres Ximenez built the house and warehouse in 1798 for himself and his bride, Juana Pellicer Ximenez. Juana's father, Francisco Pellicer, led the Minorcans from New Smyrna to St. Augustine in 1777 at the invitation of British governor Colonel Patrick Tonyn. This is the same group of Minorcans I've previously mentioned who fled their captivity as slaves of Dr. Andrew Turnbull. Pellicer brought about 600 people to St. Augustine, and they settled at the north end of St. George Street near the City Gate.

In his original plan for the location, Ximenez included a grocery store and storage room, tavern, and billiard hall on the first floor; family living space and bedrooms on the second floor; and quarters for the servants and slaves on the third floor. There were also two large warehouses on the first floor, now known to us as the first floor guest rooms, as well as a detached kitchen and washroom.

Sadly, Juana died in 1802, shortly after the home's construction, and Andres followed a few years later in 1806. She was jut 26, and he was 53.

The remaining Ximenez family passed the property among themselves until 1825, when Mrs. Margaret Cook and her husband purchased a 1/3 interest in the house. She bought another 1/3 interest when her husband passed away in 1827, and by 1830, Mrs. Cook owned the entire property.

She converted the home into a boarding house, converting the tavern into a lobby and the billiard hall into a dining room. It was she who converted the two warehouses into the downstairs guest rooms. She allowed the grocery store and storeroom to remain intact because they were so profitable.

Mrs. Cook hired Eliza Whitehurst (a single woman) to manage the boardinghouse, but Miss Whitehurst unfortunately died in June 1830 due to the epidemic of Yellow Fever.

In July 1830, Sarah Petty Anderson (a single woman) bought the boarding house from Mrs. Cook. She managed it herself until she hired Louisa Fatio (also a single woman) to handle the management tasks for her in 1852, later selling the boarding house to Miss Fatio in 1855 and moving to Tallahassee.

Miss Fatio owned and maintained the property for years, keeping it afloat through times of slavery, secession from the Union, war, re-occupation by Union Troops in 1862, and then Reconstruction.

She died in 1875, having maintained the prominence, good reputation, and integtrity of this boarding house through a period of history when single women rarely owned businesses and the term boarding house" often had a negative implication.

After Miss Fatio's death, the house spent the next several decades as an artist's retreat until it fell into disrepair in the 1930s. The grocery store and storeroom, however, always housed a retail business of some sort through this time.

In 1939, the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Florida purchased the property, fixed it up, and reopened it to the public in May of 1940 as an example of historic home renovation.

The coquina rock house and detached kitchen have been restored without replacing any of the original building materials. All of the furnishings and artifacts have been researched for accuracy. As a result, the Ximenez-Fatio House is considered the most authientic 18th century building in St. Augustine.

The tour guides are experts on an era when the small, secluded town of St. Augustine became a tourist destination almost overnight.

The house has been owned and managed by women since the 1830s, a time when it was rare for women to own property, own a business, or earn a paycheck. By using their household management skills to earn a living, they basically set up the standards for modern tourism, which is the backbone of Florida's current economy.

This is one of the few historic properties owned and operated by a private non-profit organization. After almost 200 years, the property is still owned and managed by women.

The historic detached kitchen, shown above, contains an original 1800s beehive oven, believed to be one of three still surviving in Florida. In its day it would have been an indispensible tool, feeding many guests three times a day. Its fire would have burned all night in order to ensure that baking could begin at dawn.

The restoration of the house lasted decades. For approximately 75 years, some of America's top historians, archaeologists, and architects have guided the restoration and interpretation of this museum. The extraordinary attention to detail and personal care given in every step create an exceptional intimate connection with the past, making the property uniquely engaging and fascinating. TripAdvisor consistently ranks the museum among the top St. Augustine attractions every year.

After Florida became part of the United States, St. Augustine became a tourist destination, and a location where doctors often recommended that people with certain respiratory illnesses could seek relief. There was also a large military presence at the US occupied Castillo de San Marcos.

The Ximenez-Fatio House was one of the largest boarding houses in the city. Several additions were made in later years to increase the number of rooms. 

As an upscale inn, it hosted individuals, families, politicians, sea captains, soldiers, and adventurers.

Owned and operated by a succession of hard-working and intelligent women, the boarding house was a highly regarded place to stay in St. Augustine in its day.

Check out their website for information regarding daily tour offerings, "Heist at the Museum" events, ghost and paranormal experience tours, and details for booking weddings, receptions, and other events.

Ximenez-Fatio House Museum

20 Aviles Street

St. Augustine, FL  32084

904-829-3575

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